Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day starts off normally enough. 

Catra’s out on her own, tracking down a small cluster of clones that have taken it upon themselves to continue following Horde Prime, even though he’s fucking dead . It’s stupid and dumb and Catra hates that she has to do this, but somebody has to, so it might as well be her.

Adora hates that it has to be her. 

But….Catra can’t help with the rebuilding efforts. She just can’t. She wants to, desperately. She wants to fix everything that she broke, damn what happens to her and how long it takes. 

The people of Etheria though….they don’t want that. 

They already knew that sending Catra to Salineas to help rebuild was a no-go, so that wasn’t even considered. They tried sending her to Plumeria, but even they wouldn’t let her within the town limits. They tried to send her to the smaller towns to help rebuild - Adora by her side -  but after two close calls with potential riots, they decided that wasn’t an option either.

The Fright Zone was the last resort, but after one too many panic attacks - one too many panic attacks that Adora found out about - it was crossed off the list too.

The other option was sitting in Bright Moon with Glimmer and helping her with strategy and planning out where to send resources and supplies, but that’s just….Catra’s smart, and she can do that stuff, but she can’t do it in this specific situation.

She needs to do manual labour. She needs something that will hurt if she pushes at it a bit too long, to remind her of all the shit that she did, and that she deserves to hurt because of what she’s done. 

Yes, she knows that that’s wildly unhealthy and that Adora would toss her over her shoulder and bring her right to Perfuma if she found out. 

So Catra made up some bullshit about feeling restless and feeling cooped up and anxious in Bright Moon - not a complete lie - and because of that, the Princesses found something else for her to do.

Which is tracking down the last of the clones who are still trying to bring about Horde Prime’s reign of terror.

Adora wanted to come with her, but she’s obviously needed elsewhere. She’s far far too important to the rebuilding efforts to be out here with Catra, so with plenty of tears from Adora, and a decent amount from Catra, she was seen on her way, all by her lonesome.

They tried to get some of the guards or soldiers to come with her, but they all feared for their life being with the former leader of the Horde. Which Catra understands, and is, honestly, thankful for. 

She likes the silence, and she needs to think right now. 

She just….she’s been freaking the fuck out for the past month. 

She loves Adora, fully and completely. She knows this, and has known this, and knows that it’s never going to change. Even when Adora comes to her senses and breaks up with Catra, she’s still going to love Adora.

She just….doesn’t love the things that Adora loves. Not all of them. 

She doesn’t love Bright Moon. She likes the comfort and the food, and that Adora likes it, but she doesn’t feel comfortable there. There’s too much brightness, not enough places to hide. The people there hate her, no matter how many times Bow and Glimmer try to show the guards and the staff that Catra’s on their side now. 

Which again, she understands and she isn’t pissed at them for it, because she gets it , but she just…..it’s one thing on top of all of the other ways that Bright Moon doesn’t fit for her. 

She tells herself that she’ll figure it out. With time, she’ll love it like Adora does, and she’ll be happy there. She’ll stop waking up every morning with the fear that she’ll be kicked out, or that one of the guards will slit her throat in her sleep.

She tells herself that she’ll be able to have a life with Adora there.

And it’s not like she hates it completely. Adora’s there, which is a big plus, as are Bow and Glimmer. She’s eating better than she ever has, and her fur has finally been able to receive the treatment that it should have had this whole time (because obviously Shadow Weaver gave her cleaning products for skin, not fur). 

But….it’s not enough. So when this mission was an option for her, she leapt at it.

A chance to be away from Bright Moon, and a chance to think. She can still talk to Adora, and Bow and Glimmer, with the trackpad she has, so she’s not completely alone. It’s nice. It’s what she needed, she thinks.

She obviously wishes Adora was here, and she misses kisses, but she’s managing.

She’s managed to track the group of clones down to a cave not far from the Fright Zone. Close enough that she can see the remnants of the Fright Zone, but not close enough that she’ll risk running into Scorpia or any of the ex-Horde soldiers that are living in and helping rebuild the Fright Zone. 

She’s honestly kind of impressed that the clones even managed to find the cave, considering she barely did.

The clones aren’t used to Etheria though, or the Whispering Woods, so even though they tried to cover their tracks, Catra’s a better tracker than they are at being secretive.

So she finds herself perched up in one of the trees outside the cave entrance, just out of sight. The clones don’t expect her - don’t expect anyone - nor do they think that there’s anyone else in the Whispering Woods. So while they aren’t being overt or noisy, they aren’t being as secretive as Catra would be, and that’s let her get a lay of the land over the past thirty minutes.

There’s no more than ten of them, by her count. They don’t have any weapons, and they’re not any more well-trained than Horde cadets. 

In other words, a piece of cake.

Still, Catra plans to wait until night. From what she could tell from her time on Horde Prime’s ship and during the various battles on Etheria, they can’t see in the dark any more than Adora or Bow can, while she obviously far exceeds them there.

Even if she could probably take them all out during the day, she does have some sense of self-preservation.

Massive shocker, she knows. 

So, having scoped it out as much as she wants to, she leans back on the tree branch and closes her eyes, quickly drifting off to sleep.

She wakes up to the sound of crickets.

It takes her a couple seconds to get situated and to remember where she is as she stretches out on the tree branch, but once she has, she moves quickly. 

There’s no light coming from the cave opening, but she doesn’t need it. She slinks in, silent as night, keeping her back against the wall of the cave as she looks around. The clones are all sleeping, huddled up against the opposite corner of the cave, and Catra might not even need to get her claws out for this. 

She has her pack on her back, and about fifteen pairs of Entrapta’s latest handcuffs inside it, ready to go. They’re a recent invention of hers, some kind of First Ones tech in them to make sure that the person who’s wearing them can’t break out of. Catra can’t even begin to understand it, and honestly doesn’t really care to, as long as they work.

So, as quietly as she can, she takes out all of the cuffs - more than she needs, but better safe than sorry - and with them in hand, quietly makes her way over to the sleeping clones. 

And with the dexterity that she’s known for, she snaps the handcuffs on the clones one after the other. The ones on their backs are obviously easier, and although there are a couple that stir a little bit as she moves them so that she can snap the cuffs on, she’s able to do it without any of them waking up.

“Not bad,” she hums to herself as she steps back, putting the last couple cuffs into her pack. As she does though, she’s hit with a sudden whiff of something. She’s not sure what it is, but she just….it’s weird.

It connects with a part of her brain that recognizes it as familiar, but she couldn’t tell you from where or when. She doesn’t think she’s ever been in this cave before, and it’s not a smell that she can trace back to anywhere else in the Whispering Woods.

It’s…huh. 

“What the fuck….” Catra mutters to herself she sniffs at the air, smelling it coming from further inside the cave. She had assumed that it wasn’t very deep, but a quick look back lets her know that, even though the cave does narrow, it still goes back a decent ways.

So, Catra decides to do something stupid.

She does drop a pin at her location for Bow so that they can send people to pick up the clones, but after that’s done, she turns and makes her way into the cave.

The smell gets stronger the further back she goes, and she just knows that it’s familiar. She’s not sure why, but it just….she feels happy, the more she smells it. She doesn’t know why, or what it is, or why something this close to the Fright Zone would possibly make her happy, but she just….fuck, it makes her smile. 

She knows this is an awful idea. That it’s probably some monster that lives in the Whispering Woods, and because of her sense of smell, she’s gotten a whiff of it and it’s hitting something in her brain that’s making her come closer.

She’s not a brain expert, so she doesn’t know how that would work. Whatever. 

Who cares?

The point is that Catra can’t stop herself from following it, crouching lower and lower until eventually, she has to crawl on her stomach to get through the cave. It never completely stops though, and eventually Catra feels grass beneath her paws. 

She’s still in the cave when she feels it, but it’s opening up into a clearing, so with one final push, Catra escapes and stumbles into a tuft of high grass.

She spits out what gets in her mouth, yelping as she bats at it. 

She’s thankful that no one is there to see it.

Once she realizes that it’s just grass though, Catra pops to her feet, running her hands through her mane as she gets a sense of her surroundings.

It’s….huh.

She’s been here before. 

The visuals hit the same part of her brain that the smell did, where she just…she just knows.

She knows what this is.

She doesn’t want to think about what that means, so she pushes it down, as deep down as she possibly can.

Ignores the fact that she now knows that the smell is coming from the berries hanging from the branches overhanging the cave entrance. 

Ignores the fact that she knows that those berries are edible, and that she’s eaten them before.

Ignores the fact that she knows that someone ground them up or squeezed them into a smoothie for her, so that she could drink it at the young age that she was. 

She ignores more things as she looks around as well.

Ignores the helmet with the Horde logo emblazoned on it, stepping over it as she slowly makes her way forward.

Ignores the first building she passes, knowing that it was some sort of….knowing that she’s been there before. 

It’s eerie, and even though she’s internally freaking the fuck out, she always feels….calm, almost. 

She can’t quite explain it. 

She just knows what this place is, and knowing that, just on its own, is going to clear up a part of her life that she has no memories of. 

Or didn’t, before she got here.

She always wondered, deep down. She knows that she got to the Horde when she was a kitten, around the time that Adora was around two years old. They know that because Adora - somehow - has memories of seeing Catra from her crib, and apparently Shadow Weaver moved Adora to a bed not long after that. 

That’s Adora’s memory though, and even then, Catra wouldn’t be entirely surprised if it’s a false memory - she’s been spending plenty of time reading (hiding) in the library - but it gives her a starting point for when she first got to the Horde. 

She’s always assumed that one of two things happened to her memories. Firstly, that she just straight up didn’t have parents. That they left her or died when she was a newborn - the most kitten of kittens - and that she wandered into the Fright Zone by herself, only to be found by Shadow Weaver and tossed in a crib beside Adora.

She never much liked that option.

The second option is that she had parents. She had a family that loved her and cared for her and treated her like you should treat a child. That she lived in a community and had friends - or whatever a newborn kitten can have that would be considered friends - but that the Horde had found them, killed everyone, and took her. 

Apparently, she was right on the money with option two. 

She just knows that this is where she’s from. 

She doesn’t know what house was hers, and she’s not sure if there’s any way for her to really know. There might be journals about a child, but they wouldn’t include her name, because it’s not really Catra.

Or, well her name is Catra now , but her birth name probably wasn’t. So there’d be no documentation with the name Catra in it to go off of, and she suspects that if they were able to take photos here - she doesn’t know how advanced they were - that they would have probably been destroyed in the Horde’s attack.

Not that she’d have any photos to compare it to from when she arrived at the Horde, so would’t help in the fucking least anyways. 

She finds herself wandering into one of the buildings at the centre of town, through the opening where one of the two large half-doors would have been before it was blown down. There's shit everywhere, no doubt from the looting and the assault that took place, but the one thing that Catra notes is that there’s no bodies.

She doesn’t know what to make of that, and at the moment, she chooses not to think about it. 

Instead, she just looks around and takes everything in. Everything is wooden - she’s shocked that it's all still standing, honestly - but it’s clearly expertly made. This was a communal building of sorts, judging by the rows of cracked and broken tables that are in the main space, all of it leading up to what looks like a stage against the wall. 

Catra lets her claws drag against the top of one of the unbroken tables - she doesn’t quite know when her claws came out, but they have - as she walks forward, not really processing any of it. She’s been in a fog ever since she stepped in here, and she’s positive that when it all hits, she’s going to have the breakdown to end all breakdowns.

And one of her breakdowns involved her almost ending the world, so, you know. 

She’s looking around as she approaches though, and as soon as she sees a crib beside one of the tables near the front, she has to turn and immediately run out of there, on all fours. 

Maybe the breakdown is coming sooner than she expected. 

She does what Perfuma taught her to though, and takes a series of deep breaths, one after the other. As much as she says that Perfuma’s techniques don’t work, they really do, and before long she can feel herself calming, claws retracting. 

She knows that Perfuma means it figuratively, but she feels like she can sense the bad energy leaving her body. She doesn’t pretend to understand how it works, but she does know that she’s had less outbursts since she started talking with Perfuma.

Not zero outbursts, because she’s still a fucking mess and has yelled at Adora far more times than she deserves.

Regardless, it works, and she takes a second to look around and take in all the facts.

This is where she’s from, that’s not up for debate. There’s too many things about this place that are hitting those synapses in her brain that tell her that this is something she recognizes.

The fact that she’s having those senses of recollection, and still she can’t remember anything, also tells her that Shadow Weaver did something to her. Something to her memory.

Catra feels like she should be able to remember something . 

Remember which house was hers, what her parents' names are. Remember where she used to play, or what used to go on in that communal building she was just in. 

There’s no way that Shadow Weaver didn’t do anything. Wipe her memory so that she couldn’t tell Adora about what it was like here. So she could talk about what the Horde had done to her, how they had - presumably - killed her parents. 

She says presumably, because there’s no bodies here anywhere , so there’s a chance, however small, that they survived. 

That her parents are still out there, somewhere, without her.

She doesn’t think it’s very likely though. There’s twenty buildings here, so at minimum that would mean there’s twenty other people like her on Etheria. Probably more, considering she was a child, and she assumes there were others, so there were definitely couples. 

So, conservatively, if they were alive that would mean there’s thirty other people who look like her on Etheria. 

She doesn’t buy it. 

She’s never ever seen someone that looks like her. Neither has Adora, or Bow, or Glimmer, or Double Trouble, or anyone.

So, in Catra’s mind, it's far more likely that there’s a mass grave around here or something happens to her species’ body when they die that she just doesn’t know about yet. 

Which, honestly, she’s not necessarily fine with, but she’ll accept.

It’s a lot easier to deal with than the thought that her parents heard about the woman that looks like them that was leading the Horde and torching villages in her wake.

She knows that’s fucked up, she does. Her entire life is a massive fuckup though, so it’s not like it’s anything new to her. 

She doesn’t really want to find a mass grave though, so she chooses to continue her exploration, making her way to the house right next to the communal hall. 

Just like the hall, the door is blown wide open, and Catra steps inside. This place doesn’t appear to be looted, at least not to her eyes, and she doesn’t think any fight went on in here because, outside of the layer of dust covering everything, it’s completely untouched.  Which means one thing. 

This is how Catra’s people lived. 

The door leads right into what Catra’s learned recently is a ‘sitting room’ - Bright Moon has five of them - a couch set up across from two chairs with a table in the middle. They’re made of different materials than the Bright Moon couches though, being finely crafted wood with cushions for sitting on. Catra’s not sure what the cushions are made out of, but she’s even more unsure how her people were such good carpenters, because she sure as shit wouldn’t be.

She’s so different from anyone in her village ever was, or she was ever meant to be.

She’s not breaking down, though, not right now.

Deep breaths.

She continues her way through the house, picking up a drawing from the table in the sitting room as she moves to the back of the house. She dreads looking at it, but breathes a sigh of relief when she looks at it, confirming what she was desperately hoping.

This isn’t her house, because she’s not sure that Perfuma’s deep breaths would have stopped a breakdown at that.

The drawing has five people on it, all looking very much like her. The two taller ones are obviously the parents - a man and a woman, she thinks - with three children between them. Two of them kind of look like her, at the age she is now, one a female while she thinks the other is male.

She’s never seen a male of her species, so she can only guess based on the bone structure of their face. 

The third child is younger, just up to the older children’s waists. They look male as well though, so she knows that it’s not her. They’re too old too, probably five if she had to guess, and that’s too old for what Adora remembers as their first meeting. 

There’s names above them too, names that she couldn’t even begin to pronounce, and, she suspects, aren’t meant to be spoken in base Etherian. There’s apostrophes and commas, and it feels like saying it would sound deeply guttural.

Once again, it only confirms that her name isn’t Catra, because Catra would not fit with these letters and the spelling of names like these.

As she puts the paper down, she’s hit with a sudden wave of nausea, and she has to steady her hand on the wall as she takes a deep breath. It’s not a new feeling, but it’s stronger than it’s been before, and she has a sudden urge to lie down and just sleep .

And to that end, she stumbles through the house into one of the backrooms, into what she imagines was the parent’s bedroom. She doesn’t even bother looking around, just falling into the bed, ignoring the dust that floats up into the air after the impact.

All she thinks is that the bed is the most comfortable bed she’s ever slept in, and a second later, she’s out.

“She dropped the beacon here?” 

“Around here,” Bow comments, Adora biting the inside of her cheek as she looks around. She doesn’t see Catra anywhere, and she can feel the nerves bubbling up, the feeling that something has gone terribly wrong. 

She knows that Catra could take down any of the clones without an issue, but something still might have happened.

They could have a weapon that Bright Moon doesn’t know about, or they could have sprung a trap, or some Etherian’s could be working with them.

Perfuma always tells her to not catastrophize, that things generally aren’t as bad as her head makes them out to be, but she finds that a lot easier to say and a lot harder to do. 

The beacon came in late last night, but there was no message from Catra with it. Adora was already asleep by the time it came in - life is a lot less fun without Catra - but as soon as Bow brought it to her this morning, she was suiting up and ready to go out and get Catra.

She hates that Catra was the one that had to do this, but she also understands that there was nothing else she could do.

Well, that’s not true. She could stay in Bright Moon with Glimmer and strategize the rebuilding efforts. That would be a lot safer, and she would be home, and they could work on getting people to realize just how great Catra is.

They could do all that, but Catra didn’t want to.

Which Adora gets. She understands the reasoning.

It’s fine. It’s good.

Ugh.

So instead, Catra’s out here somewhere, with Adora, Bow, Glimmer, and a small group of Bright Moon’s guards ready to take in the clones.

“She couldn’t have picked somewhere less swampy to catch them?” Glimmer groans, teleporting to Adora’s side. 

Adora just shrugs, still biting the inside of her cheek as she follows Bow, his eyes flitting from the tracker-pad to somewhere in front of him.

“She’s going to be fine,” Adora hears Glimmer say and she just sighs, nodding her head.

“I…I know. I know!” She gets out, and yeah, judging by Glimmer’s raised eyebrow, that sounded as crazy as it felt. “She knows we’re coming. She should be outside waiting for us. That’s all.”

Glimmer hums a response, which Adora’s learned is her way of agreeing, but not wanting to say something since she knows that it’ll just freak Adora out more.

Adora wants to say something, ask what Glimmer thinks, but before she can, her eyes are pulled forward by the loud yelp that escapes Bow. 

“Cave!” He gets out as he points forward, Adora’s eyes quickly spotting the dark mouth of the cave right in front of them. She races forward, quickly catching up with Bow, and when they reach the mouth of it, it’s not hard to see that it’s the right place.

All of the clones are still on the ground, cuffed, with no Catra in sight.

“Catra!?” Adora calls, before being shushed by Glimmer, who points no less than ten times at the clones. She quickly looks back at the guards and gets them to rush forward, gathering up the clones so they can be teleported back to Bright Moon. 

“We’ll lock them up in Bright Moon, and then I’ll come back to pick you guys up?” Glimmer looks back, Bow nodding as he goes through the pile of things against the wall. Adora doesn’t pay much attention to it, but there’s definitely weapons there, although Bow’s focused more on the scraps of paper that he puts in his pack to inspect later.

“Sounds good!” He grins at Glimmer before looking back at the weapons and then back at her. “Maybe get Entrapta too? So she can look at these.”

Glimmer hums at that before she starts teleporting the clones and guards back,  Adora far too focused on something else.

Or the lack of something else.

“Where’s Catra?” She gets out, eyes flitting around the cave, even if it’s obvious that there’s no one here. “Catra’s not here.”

“She was,” Bow reasons, clearly seeing that this is far more important than the weapons as he makes his way over to Adora. “I don’t think she was kidnapped though. She would have put up a fight, and there’s no signs of a struggle. Plus, if it were clones that took her, they wouldn’t have left those ones handcuffed!”

He ends on a cheery note, and Adora breathes a sigh of relief, because he’s right. It doesn’t look like there was a fight, and the clones are still here too. So Catra went somewhere of her own free will, they just don’t know where.

Adora’s no good at tracking though, so she just takes a breath, looking around as she tries to find something, anything that tells them where Catra is. 

“That’s weird……” 

“What!!?!” Adora gets out, whipping around at Bow fast enough that he yelps, jumping off the ground, just a little bit.

“There’s um….there’s a breeze,” Bow comments, putting his finger in his mouth before holding it up in the air. “Try it.”

Adora narrows her eyes, finding it a little weird that he wants her to suck on her thumb, but she tries it anyway, because she knows that Bow is earnest to a fault. So she trusts him, and her eyes widen as she feels the side of her finger closest to the back of the cave is cooler than the other side. 

“There’s something back there!” Adora gets out, breathing a sigh of relief as she practically vaults forward. She thankfully doesn’t hit her head on the wall when she does - she can hear Bow let out a yelp of fear behind her - but she can feel the air getting cooler, letting her know that she’s closer to whatever this entranceway is. 

Adora can hear Bow crawling behind her as she makes her way forward, but all she can think about is Catra. She doesn’t think that she was taken at this point, because there’s no evidence of that and Catra would be smart enough to leave some kind of clue, but something did happen. 

Something that made Catra stay the night back here, in whatever is behind this cave. 

That might honestly be more scary, in Adora’s mind. 

Because this means that it’s probably something mental that kept Catra back here, not some physical. 

They’re close to the Fright Zone, but this cave isn’t familiar to Adora, and Catra wouldn’t have been here before if Adora hadn't been here. She knows that Catra never left the Fright Zone between the time she met Adora and the time Adora left the Horde.

With that in mind, the first thought that goes through Adora’s mind is Shadow Weaver . That whatever is back here has something to do with her, and it freaked Catra out and she just…decided to stay. 

And even though Adora hates the fact that Catra likely chose to stay here alone, in this little area in the back of this cave - she wishes Catra would just come home and talk to her - she still knows that Catra needs her. 

So even if she still won't talk to Adora about things, Adora needs to give her the opportunity to, and make sure it’s there when Catra’s willing to share. 

She knows that Catra doesn’t like Bright Moon. That there’s something about it that doesn’t agree with her, and she’d likely rather be anywhere else. 

She doesn’t tell Adora these things though, and when Adora tries to bring it up, Catra shuts down. 

So, they’re in this holding pattern, and Adora hates it. 

Right now though, all she wants is to see the woman she loves and make sure that she's okay.

Right now, that’s enough. 

 She keeps pushing - just barely avoiding kicking Bow in the face as he keeps going behind her - and eventually she sees light, which only makes her push faster.

“We’re…this is weird.”

Bow says that as soon as they’ve made their way out into the grass at the other end of the cave, Adora letting out a breath as she lays there on the ground. The first thing that hits her is the smell….it’s something she doesn’t think she’s ever smelt before. It’s weird, she can’t quite explain it. 

The next thing she notices is that she’s not looking at the sky, but rather at the ceiling of what must be the back of the cave. There’s still light though, from some form of luminous plant that is pretty much all across the ‘roof’. It makes it seem like they’re outside, in a way that almost feels planned.

Adora’s confused a lot of the time, but she’s extra confused right now.

“Where are we?” She gets out, letting out a soft groan as she gets up to her knees, blowing out a puff of air to move the loose strands of hair that have fallen out of her ponytail away from her face. 

“A village, I think.”

Adora’s head whips around at that, because she hasn’t seen anything that remotely resembles a village. She’s about to ask Bow why he would think that, but as she turns around, she’s suddenly greeted with the sight of a village.

“Oh.”

“Or it’s an um…an old village,” Bow continues, biting the inside of his cheeks as they step through the high grass, Adora’s brain moving a mile a minute as she thinks.

“But why would Catra stay here if it’s just an old village?”

“Adora….” Bow continues, in that way that he does when he knows something and is trying to relay it to Adora without sounding too mean about it. “Do you know where Catra came from? Before the Horde?”

“Wha…..”

“I…” Adora starts again, not quite sure where the question is coming from, but assuming Bow’s asking it for some reason. “We’ve known each other since I was a baby, so I assumed that she was like me. That the Horde took her from somewhere, but I don’t know where. Why are you….”

“Adora…”

Bow points down at something on the ground at that point, Adora’s brow furrowing as she follows his gaze to a piece of metal….a piece of metal that looks exactly like a Horde helmet.

And judging by the logo on the side, it is a Horde helmet.

And it all hits her.

“Oh.”

This is where Catra’s from.

“That's why she stayed here.”

“Yeah,” Bow agrees, although he’s clearly concerned by how monotone Adora is, given he turns around to look at her. “She’ll be okay now that you’re here though!” He chirps up, and Adora can’t help her blush at the implication, even if she’s still nervous.

“I hope so,” she sighs, taking one last breath. Even if the fact that she’s here and that she’ll be able to help Catra through whatever she’s feeling does spark some hope and security in Adora, it doesn’t do anything to quell the feeling that Catra was all alone for the entire night.

All alone in - apparently - the place that she was born and that the Horde took her from.

It really makes so much sense, that it’s kind of sad that Adora never considered it as an option until now. 

Even though she’s the one that left, Adora never really got her mind wrapped around how evil the Horde was in the way that Catra did. Even with Catra not remembering this place - and she’s pretty sure that Catra didn’t, because there’s no way that she wouldn’t have shared it with Adora if she did - she always knew that there was something not quite right with the Horde. 

Maybe it was because of Shadow Weaver, or maybe it was because she had some faint remembrance of how she got brought to the Horde. Adora isn’t sure about any of that. All she knows is that she desperately wants to find Catra, hold her tight, and make sure that she’s okay, now and forever.

They go through multiple buildings before they find Catra. 

Bow suggests that they start in the big hall first, because even if Catra’s not here, she probably was at some point, so they should be able to follow her tracks. 

Unfortunately, Catra didn’t touch much, because everything is covered in a firm layer of dust.

Bow comments that he doesn’t think he’s seen anywhere as pretty as this, and Adora can’t help but agree.

The Fright Zone was obviously the farthest thing from pretty, and although Bright Moon is nice to look at, it still feels clearly built and manufactured, in Adora’s mind. Bow’s Dad’s library is the place that comes closest, but this is just….it’s clearly had so much effort and care put into it, that Adora can’t describe it as anything other than pretty.

It makes her think about what Catra would have done if the Horde had never found this place.

She would have been happier, Adora thinks. 

She knows that she makes Catra happy - she can’t hide her purrs anymore, or the way her tail swishes - but she would have had a happier overall life if she stayed here. She would have had her parents, and her siblings, maybe, and she probably would have been an academic - because she’s just so smart - and never had to fight.

Sure, she never would have met Adora, but overall, she thinks that Catra would have had a happier life.

She’s not sure how she feels about the idea that the love of her life would have been happier if they never met.

They try two other houses after that, finding no signs of Catra. They’re all the same, beautiful and hand crafted, and it doesn’t surprise Adora for a second that Catra’s people were this smart and crafty.

There also doesn’t look to be much evidence of a fight in any of the houses either, which Adora can tell that Bow notices.

“There’s no bodies,” he comments as they’re going to the fourth house, Adora humming, because she realized the same thing. “Obviously it would have been years ago, but there’s no bones. There would still be bones.”

“Maybe they’re still alive,” Adora reasons, hoping against hope. Catra deserves that, for there to be at least one person like her still alive on Etheria.

Growing up, there was so much that they didn’t know about Catra. How to take care of her fur, how to maintain her claws. What to do when she started teething. Even simple things like what fabric of clothes she could wear or how to best accommodate her tail. 

Catra could have all those things now, if there’s someone else like her out there.

“Maybe,” Bow reasons, and even if he’s an optimist, Adora knows he means well when he talks her down, not wanting to inspire false hope. 

“You don’t think there is.”

“I think,” Bow talks slowly, clearly choosing his words very carefully. “We’ve been to a lot of places on Etheria. So has Catra. And neither of us have ever seen anyone like her.”

“Which means that either there’s something that happens to Catra’s species when they die that we don’t know about….or if there’s others that are alive, they don’t want to be found.”

“Yeah,” Adora sighs, because that makes more sense. “And if they weren’t hiding, they would have heard about her.”

Which would probably break Catra’s heart, her parents knowing what she did.

She doesn’t want to think about that anymore though, so Adora pushes it deep down as they enter the next house. 

And as soon as they enter the sitting room, Adora can tell that Catra was here. 

The table in the middle of the sitting room is covered in dust….except for the corner of it. There’s a space, about the size of a piece of paper, where it’s dust free, so someone must have moved something. There’s no doubt in Adora’s mind. 

“Catra!” 

Adora doesn’t get a response as she makes her way through the house, although she does see Bow pick up a piece of paper that he finds on the floor.

Adora couldn’t be less concerned about that though, because she’s rampaging through the house, until she stumbles upon a bedroom with her girlfriend lying in a dusty bed. 

“Catra!”

“Hey Adora,” she gets in response, Catra turning over onto her other side to face her girlfriend. It doesn’t look like she’s been crying, at least to Adora’s eyes, but she’s obviously exhausted. 

“Are…are you…..”

“I’m okay. Just tired.”

It sounds so unlike Catra, that Adora’s somehow even more terrified than she was a couple minutes ago. “Bow’s here too. He’s just in the sitting room.”

“Okay,” Catra hums, and Adora inwardly winces, because she doesn’t think that Catra really needed to hear about Bow just then when she’s clearly working through so much. 

“This wasn’t my home.”

“I….um….what?”

“This wasn’t my home,” Catra reiterates, voice as calm and monotone as it’s been this whole time. “There’s a picture. The kids aren’t the right age or gender. This isn’t my home.”

“But one of them is,” Adora reasons, and Catra just nods her head, letting out a sigh.

“But one of them is,” she agrees before closing her eyes again, taking another deep breath.

Adora hates seeing her like this, so completely not herself. Catra’s usually so undeniably Catra that when she’s not, it always freaks Adora out. 

“We can leave if you want. Glimmer’s going to come back after they deal with the clones. She can take us back to Bright Moon, where you can sleep…..and then, we can do whatever you want.”

“Yeah?” She asks, and Adora just hums in agreement, Catra taking another deep breath followed by a stuttery nod. “Yeah, let's do that. I need to come back to just…..to know, but I don’t know ifI can do it right now.”

“And that’s okay,” Adora grins, because it fully, one hundred percent is. “We’ll come back whenever you want. And it can be just you, or us, or us, Bow and Glimmer….it’s up to you.”

“Okay…okay. Thanks Adora.”

“Of course,” Adora smiles, doing her best to make it real, because internally, she’s terrified.

And judging by Catra’s face, she feels the same way. 

Chapter Text

“I’m worried about her,” Adora whispers, eyes flitting back to her bedroom door for a second. She knows that they probably shouldn’t be having this conversation, not where Catra could potentially hear them, but she’s like 90% sure that Catra’s asleep. Or she was when Adora left their room, anyway. 

She’s gotten pretty good at knowing when Catra’s actually asleep, and when she’s faking it. 

It’s all in the ears and the tail, Adora thinks to herself.

She’s getting sidetracked though. She shouldn’t be thinking about sleeping in the same bed as Catra when she’s standing here with Bow, discussing something far more important. That being looking further into what Catra found in the Whispering Woods.

“I am too. Which is why I was thinking….” Bow starts, his eyes flitting to the bedroom door for a second, likely as concerned as Adora about Catra listening in. “There might be some books at my Dad’s library about Catra’s species. I can go and look for some of them….only if you think Catra will be okay with it though! I don’t want to do anything behind her back.”

Adora sighs, agreeing with Bow by muttering a quick “that’s smart”, before she considers their options. She knows Catra, and she thinks that Catra probably wants to know more about her species and where she came from.

She might not have a couple years ago, when they were still in the Horde, but now that they’re at Bright Moon, and Catra’s hopefully happier….she thinks that Catra would want to know a bit more about herself. Now that she’s in a stable situation. 

“I think you can at least go and start finding the books,” she reasons, because they wouldn't really be going against Catra’s wishes if he just finds the books. Bow wouldn’t be reading them, just getting them ready in case Catra wants them. Eventually. 

“‘I’ll talk to her when she wakes up, and then we’ll see what she says?” Adora finishes. She still feels like her heart is beating out of her chest though, not having quite come down from what they saw at the…..at Catra’s former home.

Hopefully Bow’s Dad’s books have the name of Catra’s species, so she can stop talking about it as just Catra’s species . Because they must have a name. There’s no way they don’t. 

The fact that the village was so close to the Fright Zone is…..it’s so sad.

Catra was so close to her home for so long, and she never even knew it. Adora knew that Catra came from somewhere, but she just….she assumed it was somewhere else, she guesses. There’s no one on Etheria like Catra, not that she’s seen. And from talking to Bow, it doesn’t sound like he’s seen anyone like her either. 

So…she guesses she had assumed that Catra wasn’t from Etheria, especially after Adora learned that she herself was not from Etheria.

But Catra is from Etheria. She’s from a village that you could walk to both Bright Moon and the Fright Zone from. And Catra never even knew it.

Which is somehow even sadder, and just makes Adora want to hug Catra for as long as she’ll let her. 

“That makes sense,” Bow agrees, looking back at the door over Adora’s shoulder for a second. “I’ll get Glimmer to teleport me to the Library. You can take care of Catra.”

“Thanks Bow.”

He just smiles at her before he leaves, and Adora takes one last final breath. 

She doesn’t quite know what she’s going to say, but she just knows that she needs to be there for Catra. She can’t….she can’t even imagine what’s going through her head. 

It’s moments like this where Adora wishes she was better at this stuff. That the Horde had some class on comforting your girlfriend.

Perfuma would know what to do. She’d know exactly what to say to Catra, and how to get Catra to talk to her. Adora’s not good at this type of thing though. Catra doesn’t talk to her nearly as much as Adora feels like girlfriends should talk to each other. She’s opened up more, sure, but she still doesn’t…..there’s still so much that she doesn’t talk about. Adora can just tell. 

She hopes that Catra will talk to her about this.

When she opens her bedroom door, her eyes go straight to the bed. Thankfully, Catra’s there, but she’s not sleeping. She’s curled up at the foot of the bed, like how she used to sleep with Adora when they were kids, eyes wide open as she stares at the door.

She doesn’t say anything, so Adora just slowly walks forward, making sure that Catra has plenty of time to ask her not to approach if she doesn’t want that. 

Catra doesn’t say anything though, so Adora kneels down at the foot of the bed, her girlfriend's eyes tracking her the entire time. There’s not much behind those eyes, her gaze missing a distinct lack of the passion and sparkle that makes Catra Catra.

She just looks….dead inside, almost. 

And that terrifies Adora.

“Hey Catra,” Adora does her best to sound happy, although she’s pretty sure that it doesn’t come across. She’s never been good at that either, faking her emotions, even when it’s for someone she loves more than anything. 

Not for the first time, she feels inadequate. And the fact that it’s affecting something as important as this….Adora absolutely hates it. Hates herself because of it. 

Catra just sighs, letting out a soft “Hey”, before she looks over Adora’s shoulder at the door. “Who were you talking to? Bow?”

“Good ears,” Adora teases, noting that those ears are plastered to Catra’s scalp. She knows what that means, when Catra’s ears are turned down, and it’s never a good thing. “He’s um….we don’t need to talk about it.”

“What were you talking about, Adora?”

Adora sighs, fingers digging into her palm as she’s the one that breaks eye contact, gaze falling to the floor. “He um….he went to his Dad’s Library. To look for books about your…..he thinks that they might have something on your species. Where you came from.”

“He’s not going to read the books though! He’s just going to find them,” Adora clarifies, desperately not wanting Catra to think that they’re doing anything that she wouldn’t want them to. “I wanted to make sure you’d be okay with it before we look at them. If we look at them! We don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.”

Catra just takes a long, pained breath though, letting her head rest even more against the bed. One of her hands reaches out though, and Adora knows what that is….it’s an offering. So she takes it in hers, giving it a squeeze before Catra starts. 

“I knew that I’d been there before. As soon as I smelt it. I….I don’t know what the smell was, but it was just….you know that feeling, when you just recognize something? Like you know that you know it? I knew that smell, and I knew that it wasn’t from the Horde. I just….I knew. I don’t remember ever being there before, or my parents or anything, because Shadow Weaver probably used some fucking spell on me to make me forget, or maybe that’s just how age works, but I just….I don’t remember anything, but I know that I’m from there. And I know that the Horde obviously wiped us all out, and that I’m the only one left, probably because I was the only one the right age for Shadow Weaver, but there has to be something else, right? The village wasn’t small, but it wasn’t big . So somewhere out there, there’s more of us. I know that.”

Adora lets Catra speak, taking it all in. She’s not sure that Catra even knows what she’s saying, likely just voicing her train of thought, but there is one thing that she definitely caught. Catra wants to know more, and for that, Adora’s grateful.

Obviously she would have respected Catra’s wishes. That was never in question. She just….she can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have looked more into this.  

“I’ll tell Bow to bring any books that he finds back to Bright Moon,” Adora smiles softly, giving Catra’s hand a light squeeze. “Not for right now though. Right now, we're resting.”

Catra gets out an “Okay,” before she looks over her shoulder at the bed, and then back to Adora. “Can we….can we sleep like we used to? Just for now?”

Truthfully, Adora doesn’t want to. She wants to hold Catra and kiss her and let her know that everything is okay and that she’ll be here for however long she needs her. If Catra needs them to sleep like they used to though, Adora can do that . She’d do anything for Catra, now and forever.

So, just lets out a soft “of course,” before she gets to her feet and moves around so that she can get under the covers. She stretches her legs out as far as she can, making sure that Catra can feel her toes against her back. Catra doesn’t purr when she feels it, but she does relax a little, and that feels like a good sign.

“Love you,” Adora lets out, not getting anything in response.

Or at least she doesn’t right away.

“Love you too.”

“There’s not much,” Bow sighs, resting his hands on the war table as he leans forward. “My Dads said that most of it is people writing about them. About…Magicats.”

“That’s weird though, right?” Adora reasons, not really the best at this kind of thing. She’s trying though, because this is Catra , and she can’t afford not to help. “Even the First Ones had things written about them. People still knew about them, even if they aren’t around anymore.”

Bow nods at that, something apparently having clicked in his head.. “You’re right! And that makes sense with……” he leans forward and grabs a book, quickly flipping it open. “This person is talking about the Magicats. How they just appeared one day.”

“Like the Magicats aren’t from Etheria?”

“That’s what I think,” Bow agrees, biting the inside of his cheek as he quickly reads the page he flipped to. “They’re talking about seeing them arrive in a….in a big ship! A big ship landing on Etheria.”

“So if that’s true…Catra’s not from here.”

“Right,” Bow agrees, and really, that makes sense with what Adora already knows. There would have to be…other ‘Magicats’ if Catra was from here, but there aren’t. So, Catra is like her, like she thought. It’s just that Catra’s people came to Etheria instead of her being taken from her planet like Adora was.

“I don’t want to read too much,” Bow continues, and Adora’s eyes flit to him, not quite sure how he got to that point. She’s in her own head at times, and she feels like she’s missed something. “This is Catra’s life. I don’t want to know everything when she knows nothing.”

“That’s…that makes sense. And it’s really nice! Obviously.”

Bow just shrugs though, like it’s no big deal, and to him, it’s probably not.

Adora’s just….Adora’s curious. If Bow wasn’t here, she’d read and read and read. She’d read everything she could about Catra and her people. About the Magicats.

There’s always been so much that she never knew about Catra, or that Catra never knew about herself. So many things that they had to learn on the fly when they were kids, and that Catra would learn about herself without anyone to teach her about why that was happening. She knows how much Catra hated when things like that would happen, when something new that only made her more different started and she couldn’t control it. 

Now, she might have some way to learn all those things, both past and future. 

And there’s a part of Adora that wants to learn all those things first. Well, not first, but just to learn them, and since Catra isn’t here, she’d obviously be first. She wants to take care of Catra and love her, and learn more about how to do that. Learn about how to best take care of Catra’s fur, because the Horde never had the right equipment for that. Learn what foods Catra can and can’t eat, because not all of the food at Bright Moon agrees with her. 

There’s so much, and these books might be the key. But….even if Catra is Adora’s life, this is more about Catra than her.

“I…you’re right,” Adora sighs, finding a chair and slumping back into it with a groan. “Why are you always right?”

Bow doesn’t argue, just chuckling and saying something about going to check on Glimmer before he leaves Adora all alone. If she didn’t know Bow so well, she’d think that it was a test, to see if she’s going to read or not. 

She knows that she will if she stays here, so Adora takes one long last look at the books before she gets up. She plans to go to the library first, to see if she can find something there herself, and provide any form of help to Catra that she can. 

In truth, Catra doesn’t really sleep.

She doesn’t know what she’d call it, honestly. She’s not awake, but she’s not sure she’s asleep either. She just exists somewhere between the two, in those moments.

She’s still processing it all, probably. 

She had a home. She had parents. She probably had siblings. And they were all killed, every last one of them.

She’s not a freak. Or a monster. She’s not whatever Shadow Weaver and the other cadets would call her.

There were other people like her, they were just killed. 

Somehow, in some fucked up perverse way, that makes it almost a little bit better.

Not a lot, but a little bit. 

And she’d be content with just knowing that. Really, she doesn’t think that she needs to learn more. What she knows now is more than she knew the rest of her life, so she’d be happy to leave it at that.

She knows that Adora and Bow won’t though.

That Adora will want to know more. And that’s fine. Catra’s kind of just accepted the whole thing. Whether she learns more or she doesn’t, it makes no real difference to her at this point.

She can’t stay in here though, not right now. She just…she needs somewhere to think. And she loves Adora, she really truly does, but sometimes she needs to go somewhere quiet to work things out. 

So, Catra gets up and does her best to sneak out of the room without alerting both Melog and Adora. She doesn’t quite know where Melog was all this time, but they’re muted, exactly like Catra feels. Which, like…yeah, that’s kinda the whole thing.

She’s not feeling her smartest either.

Regardless, she sneaks out of the room, no Adora in sight. She feels bad about the whole thing, trying to hide from Adora, but she just knows there’s going to be so much pressure.

Pressure to feel something. Pressure to voice what she’s feeling, and to desperately want to do something about it. She doesn’t though.

She just wants to sit in a dark, quiet corner, and think.

She’s planning to make her way to the library, that being her favourite place for when she wants to hide out, but she can hear guards coming from that direction. Unfortunately the closest room is the war room - strategy room, she reminds herself - so she quickly sneaks in there, hoping to find some peace and quiet.

It doesn’t hit her until a second later that this is probably where Bow and Adora would be going over the books that he went to get.

She doesn’t hear anyone behind her though, not right away. If they were there, they’d be saying something, so they must be….they must not be here. 

But a quick look behind her lets Adora know that the books in fact are. Here.

Look, Catra’s not a big believer in a higher power. Because if a higher power did this shit to her, than really, what the fuck is wrong with them?

But, she’s here, with these books, and Bow and Adora aren’t. Plus, it’s not like she was completely against reading them, she just didn’t think it was necessary. But, what else is she going to do right now, really?

So, with a deep breath, Catra makes her way into the room and takes her usual seat. She grabs the book closest to her, flips it open to the first page, and she starts to read. 

Catra’s not sure how long she sits there.

She knows that she learns a lot though.

That she’s a Magicat. That she’s an alien, like Adora, and isn’t from Etheria.

The reason that there were no bodies in the village is that Magicat bodies ‘sublimate’ upon death, whatever that means. Essentially, their bodies turn into air. Gone.

Which is…honestly, she’s not sure what to think about that. Not that there’s anything she can do about it. 

She’s learned that Magicats are a kind people. That the ones who came here were settlers, and kept to themselves. That when they did meet others, they exchanged services for goods. Generally some form of carpentry or woodwork.

There’s not a bad word about Magicats in these books. 

And somehow, Catra is their legacy. Everything they weren’t, she is.

She hates it.

She learns that her name is decidedly not a Magicat name. All the names in the book are along the lines of D’av’in or Tam’rla’n. Catra doesn’t fit that mould, not by a longshot.

She learns that Magicats differ in fur colour but not by much. Most are brown, but some are grey, or a dark blonde, or even orange. She learns that Magicat couples had to be of a different sex, although there was no shame in falling for someone of the same ilk. There were surrogates for those who were in a same sex coupling, although that did still require conception to be between a man and a woman. 

Which, again, although Catra doesn’t know much about how children are born on Etheria, she knows that it’s not like that . 

She’s still different, but in the right way. She’s different because she’s from a different species, not because she’s a freak .

It’s comforting, and it feels like something she’s been missing her entire life finally slots into place. 

The one thing that isn’t comforting is the page which talks about eyes. Magicats with different-coloured eyes are extremely rare, and are usually of a certain bloodline. A bloodline that….

She stops reading at that point.

It doesn’t matter what her bloodline is. It’s gone, dead, wiped out. It’s just her, and she’ll never mate with another Magicat, so it doesn’t matter what her eyes mean. Who gives a shit.

Not her.

There’s stuff that talks about where Magicats are from too. One of them, a long time ago, was very apparently very chatty, and talked about their ‘planet’. The giant cities that were there, and all the different types of Magicats. 

About how they would build practically everything, and about the different types of food that isn’t on Etheria. About all the different jobs they had, and what they’d do for fun. And, after talking about all of that, the Magicat gave the author a way to get there.

Coordinates.

Or at least Catra thinks they are. It’s different from the coordinates that she’s used to, because there’s more than two dimensions in space, but she suspects that Darla wouldn’t have any trouble finding it.

Catra’s just….she’s not sure if she wants to.

She’s a Magicat, but she’s not a Magicat.

She knows just from reading these books that she’s everything that her parents and probably most of her species would hate. She’s so far removed from everything that she should be, and everything that someone like her is supposed to be, that really, what’s even the point of her going there? 

She decides to stop reading at that, because she’s just….she’s so tired. She still is, and she hasn’t had the proper chance to sleep, yet, because there’s no way that that’s happening without Adora. 

Adora, who’s not here, and must have gone back to their room. Although Catra’s not sure how she would have missed her.

That’s besides the point though. She just wants to deal with all this shit later, and have a good long nap with Adora.

So, she leaves all the books behind, and goes to make her way back to her room. 

She doesn't make it very far. 

“Catra!” 

“What are you…what are you doing in there?” Adora gets out as she comes running from the opposite direction of their bedroom, eyes wide and filled with worry.

Catra side steps though, cutting in with a “Where were you?” that has Adora stammering.

“Library,” she starts, and the surprise must be on Catra’s face judging by the way that Adora’s expression changes. “I can go there sometimes too, you know!”

“Uh huh…..”

“I was….you saw all the books Bow brought.”

“If you guys were trying to hide them, you didn’t do a very good job.”

Adora just laughs lightly, as strained as it is, shaking her head. “We weren’t hiding them. We just wanted to…..um….we just wanted to wait for you before we read too much.”

“Well I read them,” Catra says, and Adora’s face falls . “Not all of it, but enough. Everything I needed to read for now.”

“I…how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Catra shrugs, and she, truthfully, does feel fine. She’s great. Peachy. “It’s just stuff about Magicats. Not about me.”

Adora looks confused though, at least a little bit, like she doesn’t quite understand. 

If anything, that just reaffirms what Adora previously said. “You really didn’t read any of it huh?”

“Of course I didn’t! And Bow only read a bit so that he would know that he has the right books, but he didn’t read any more than that!”

“That’s not why I’m asking,” Catra sighs, taking a breath before she grabs Adora’s hand, leading her back to the War Room. “When you read, you’ll understand.”

As Catra leads Adora though, she looks somehow even more concerned, stopping Catra in her tracks. “Are you sure? You were going to bed. We can still do that.”

“I was, but I was really going to see you. A nap isn’t going to help.”

“I….if you’re sure,” Adora stammers, clearly not sure herself, but she’s following nevertheless. Catra knows that it’s because of  a combo of her, as well as the fact that she’s more than a little curious herself. 

Catra doesn’t say anything the entire time that Adora reads. She’s already read everything that Adora’s going to, and she doesn’t feel the need to read it twice. So, she just sits in the corner, Melog beside them. They’re the same as they were this morning, just this dull muted shade that Catra even hesitates to call a real colour.

She doesn’t want to bother Adora as she takes it all in, just looking down at her claws as she waits.

“I still don’t get what you said,” is what Adora eventually comments, Catra’s gaze coming back up to meet hers. “You said that you weren’t a Magicat. I don’t get it.”

“Did you read the part about how peaceful they were? How they were kind and known for being friendly? Easy to talk to, not fighting anyone.”

“Catra….”

“How they were carpenters and builders, and kept to themselves. They weren’t fighters. None of that is me, Adora. None of it. I’m not what a Magicat is supposed to be.”

“I…well, based on this book, sure,” Adora stammers, and Catra can see the gears turning. “But it says that Magicats aren’t from this planet. So, they might have just sent the peaceful ones!”

“Would you?”

‘I…um…what?”

“If you were settling on a new planet,” Catra starts, trying to keep her voice nice and calm. “If you were settling on a new planet, and had a choice, would you send people who couldn’t defend themselves, or would you send a couple of builders, and some of your fighters? In case they were attacked.”

Adora looks stumped by that, although Catra knows for sure that it’s not because she doesn’t know the answer. She does know, she just doesn’t like it.

“I would….I would send people that could protect them.”

“Right,” Catra agrees, not much more needing to be said. “I might look like a Magicat, but I’m not one. I haven’t been for a long time.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Adora rarely swears, if ever, the sounds coming from her mouth sounding almost foreign to Catra. Adora must know that, using it to get Catra’s attention, and succeeding. 

“You had a different upbringing from every other Magicat. Of course you’re going to be different from them,” Adora starts, Catra staring at her, wide-eyed. “Shadow Weaver took this from you. The Horde took it from you. That’s not your fault. It never was.”

“That stuff isn’t important anyway. The important stuff in here is everything about how we can make your life better. The types of food you can’t eat, how to take care of your fur, the uh….the pregnancy stuff,” Adora flushes bright red, quickly moving past that. “If you want, we can make a list. Of the important stuff. The rest of it doesn’t matter.”

Adora’s so good at this stuff, it’s almost unfair.

She doesn’t think she’s good at it, the girlfriend stuff. Catra knows that Adora feels like she could do better, that she could take more care of Catra, somehow even more than she already does. 

Catra tries to tell her that stuff, she truly does, but she’s still working on voicing her feelings, and unfortunately that causes problems in times like this. 

“That’d be nice,” she smiles softly, and Adora just nods, making her way to her feet.

She takes a breath as she stands, stretching her arms over head for a second as she relieves some of the tension in her back. “I’ll go get us a pencil and paper?”

Catra just smiles and Adora returns it, a wide grin on her face as she makes her way out of the room, closing the door behind her.

“Catra….I know you don’t want to, but that part might be…..”

“It’s not important Adora. Seriously. It doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t think that…”

“Adora,” Catra sighs, it being enough to stop the other woman in her tracks. “I’m the only Magicat on Etheria. It doesn’t matter.”

“I know, it’s just….it could be more about you, and….”

“I really don’t want to think about it, Adora. Please.”

Adora finally relents at that, taking a deep breath as she nods. “Fine…But I do think it’s important.”

Even if Catra does agree with that, she still doesn’t want to think about her eyes and what they may or may not mean. She knows that Adora’s not going to forget it, and it’s going to be a tough conversation one day, but for now, she just wants a reprieve.

“What about the….what about the coordinates though? We can’t ignore those.”

Catra really didn’t think they’d be able to.

“I think….there’s nothing for me there. Wherever there is,” she starts, and Adora’s brow furrows. “My family obviously came here a long time ago, so it’s not like I would know anyone there. Plus, they would have been cut off from Etheria when we were put in despondos anyway. They probably think anyone who came here is dead. If they were even still thinking about them.”

“I know, I know,” Adora sighs, this clearly not being how she wants this conversation to go. “I”m just thinking that….I just know that if I could, I’d want to go back to where I’m from. Not just because of my parents, but to learn more about me. What clothes we wear, what parties we have, what food we eat….I’m just having trouble understanding why you wouldn’t even want to think about it, I guess.”

Catra can tell that, by the way she’s wording it, Adora’s trying really hard to make it clear that she’s not judging. She’s confused, because it doesn’t agree with how she would tackle the situation. 

Which is fair. 

And she deserves Catra’s honesty, so here goes.

“I….I’m not a good person, Adora,” she starts, and she doesn’t even need to look at Adora to know that she wants to argue. “Just listen to me, please?”

“I…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just…listen,” she sighs, taking one more second before she starts. “I’m not a good person. The things that I did here, on Etheria are….they’re bad. My legacy is bad . And because of what the Horde did, that’s the legacy of the Magicats. I’m their legacy.”

“And if those books are right, then that is not a Magicat legacy. I could be the worst Magicat in history .”

“Catra! That’s….that’s ridic….”

“It’s probably the truth. And I don’t want to go to where I’m from, my planet, and tell them that not only were mostly massacred, but the one who wasn’t killed, became a mass-murdering warmonger.”

“And I know you don’t agree with any of that, but it’s what I know. So can we just….drop it. Please.”

“I….can we at least think about it?” Adora questions, and Catra can tell that she’s actively trying not to fight back directly. “You know that I don’t think you’re any of that, so I won’t even….we won’t even go there.”

“We’re going to space anyway, right? To give magic back to the universe. So, I’m not saying we have to go see the Magicats, but could we at least bring the coordinates with us? In case you change your mind.”

Catra’s working on accepting other points of view. At not seeing them as a direct attack on her. The fact that it’s Adora helps, and that it’s actually pretty reasonable, so with a final breath, she nods her head. 

“Yeah…that’s um….that works. We can do that. If you want.”

“I do…I do want,” Adora smiles wide, but only for a second. “Only if you want to though! I don’t want you to do it just because you think that’s what I want to hear.”

“No….no you’re right,” Catra reasons, because Adora is. “There’s no harm in it. It’ll just give me more time to think.”

“Maybe just….don’t tell Entrapta? Not that…I don’t think she’ll…..she might just try to go there because of all the new tech that the Magicats might have, and not think about what it could mean outside of that.”

“Of course,” Adora reasons, and Catra thinks that Adora gets it. It’s not that Catra thinks that Entrapta would do anything to hurt her, it’s just that Entrapta thinks differently than the rest of them, and she probably wouldn’t consider what it would do to Catra if they went there.

Catra sighs, nodding her head before she gets to her feet, twisting her torso side to side to stretch out. “I think I’m ready for a break.”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah of course. Do you want to….”

“I was hoping to just go to bed for a bit. You don’t have to come with me.”

Adora shakes her head at that, quickly muttering out, “No I want to!” before she looks back at the books for a second. “Do you mind if I keep reading? I’ll keep notes and tell you everything I’ve learned, but there’s just….some of this stuff will be really important for your quality of life! Like all the little things that the Horde never cared about.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I trust you.”

Adora smiles so wide at that, and for the first time in the last couple days, Catra feels something good.

There’s so much here that would have made Catra’s life sooooo much easier.

It’s infuriating.

Adora’s pretty sure that Catra’s not sleeping. Or at the very least, she’s not fully asleep. Adora hasn’t asked though, because Catra’s choosing to lay in bed and not be over here with her, and she wants to respect that. 

They’ve added a desk to their room, although Catra’s usually the one who uses it. Adora uses it for her diary - something that Perfuma recommended, and she finds extraordinarily helpful - but that’s about it, whereas Catra uses it for work. She’s claimed it for now though, books spread out across every square inch of its surface.

This Magicat really liked to talk, and about little things.

The documentarian was thorough as well, asking all kinds of questions that Adora wouldn’t even think to ask.

About Magicat bathing techniques, and how to best take care of their fur. Something that would have made Catra’s life so much easier.

About what foods Magicats can eat, and what can cause adverse reactions and stomach issues. Something that would have made Catra’s life so much easier. 

About Magicat sleep cycles, and how much they should sleep so that they develop properly. Something that would have made Catra’s life so much easier. 

About how to take care of Magicat claws, both when they’re older and when they’re kittens. Something that would have made Catra’s life so much easier. 

How to properly treat a Magicat’s fangs when they grow in, and how to best handle their teething. Something that would have made Catra’s life so much easier.

It’s all things that would have made Catra’s life so much easier.

She obviously wouldn’t have had these books when she was younger, but she should have had her parents. Magicats who would have known these things, and could have given Catra the life she deserved. Or at the very least, the life of a traditional Magicat.

So many little ways to get rid of the little pains that Catra felt when she was a kitten in the Horde. 

If they knew about the bathing techniques, Catra never would have had all that dry skin and dry fur, and all the pain and discomfort it caused her.

If they knew about the foods that Magicats couldn’t eat, since leaving the Horde, Catra would know not to have the meals that have led to her spending nights on their bathroom floor as Adora rubs her back.

If they knew about the sleep cycles that Magicats are supposed to have, Catra would have been able to follow them, and wouldn’t have had the stunted growth that she did that led to her being bullied and bullied so much when they were kids.

If they had known about how to take care of Magicat claws and fangs, Catra wouldn’t have been in so much discomfort and pain when they started to come in, and had ended up biting and clawing everything in sight. 

Catra didn’t get that though. She didn’t get any of that. 

Now though, Adora wants to be able to give her that. She wants to make her life so much easier, in every  way that she can.

And there’s so many ways that she can, now that they have these books. 

And truthfully, she hopes that Catra agrees to go to the Magicat planet. 

She understands why Catra doesn’t want to, even if she doesn’t agree. In truth, there’s not many things that Catra and Adora agree on specifically related to the way that Catra sees herself. Adora hopes to change Catra’s opinions over time though, and help her realize how good she really is. 

That’s a long term goal though. Her short term one is making Catra comfortable, each and every day, and the best ways to do that are both in this book, and on the Magicat planet.

But it’s ultimately Catra’s choice, not Adora’s. She’ll make what she thinks best known, but she won’t force Catra to do anything she doesn’t want to do. 

She can hear Catra moving around a bit behind her, and Adora puts her pen down, taking a breath. Either Catra’s woken up, or she’s done fake sleeping and wants Adora to come over. 

Regardless of what it is, Adora knows where she’s needed. So she gets up, and walks over, kneeling beside the bed. It  takes a second, but Catra cracks an eye open, and Adora’s relieved to see a small smile grace her features.

“Hey Adora.”

It never fails to get Adora’s heart beating just a little bit faster, that turn of phrase. 

“Feeling better?” Adora asks, and she’s infinitely relieved to see the smile on Catra’s face as she nods, stretching out just a little bit, like she does after every nap. “Big stretch.”

Catra blushes a bit at that, like she does every time Adora says it, countering by ducking her face into the mattress. She still hasn’t answered Adora’s question though, so Adora stays silent, giving her time to answer.

“Yeah…..I’m feeling better.”