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The Heart Blossom flickered in the warm light, the breeze gentle and soothing, as the former members of the princess alliance — with an additional few — sat around the bonfire Bow had started for the night.
Adora was mostly happy observing and occasionally adding something of her own. This last month had been busy, the reconstruction of the many kingdoms and towns conquered and destroyed by the Horde, and subsequently Horde Prime, had been strenuous. Adora knew her attention span wasn’t the best but the exhaustion of the work they’d been doing had been getting to her more than she expected — or wanted to admit, for that matter. Not to mention the still ever present doubts and unease she had been feeling after all that had happened.
She wanted to think she was getting used to the peaceful nights surrounded by her friends and allies, and she was. Really. But it wasn’t easy adjusting to the changes that were happening. And it wasn’t like she didn’t try to listen to what the people around her were saying. It was just that it was easier to get distracted by their expressions and laughter and banter.
But one particular topic caught her attention, as did the shift in the general mood, and she found herself chiming in.
“Well at least one thing we all have in common for sure,” Adora said, trying to lighten the mood. “We all hated Horde Prime.”
“Oh yeah,” Perfuma agreed.
“With a burning passion,” Glimmer mumbled, Bow simply nodding along.
“He was so creepy,” Scorpia said, shuddering at the thought.
“I think anyone of us would’ve gladly killed him, if we’d had the chance,” Catra said, from her spot next to Adora, staring into the fire.
“And yet you didn’t,” a deep voice spoke out for the first time that night. Seated next to Entrapta across the fire, Hordak stared directly at Adora with something akin to curiosity but not straying far from disdain.
“Didn’t what?” Entrapta questioned, looking back and forth between him and Adora. Around the fire everyone seemed to do the same.
“Kill him,” Hordak replied simply, his gaze still fixed on Adora, whose eyebrows were now starting to furrow.
“Uhm,” she said with a nervous chuckle, “pretty sure I disintegrated his essence into nothing.”
Hordak’s expression didn’t chance in the slightest. “But you didn’t let him suffer.”
Adora’s mouth opened to reply, but Hordak continued over her.
“Not like he did with the people of this planet and so many others before it,” he said, his tone shifting into anger and disgust. “Not like he did to me or your people or your friends or your Catra.”
At that Adora’s mouth snapped shut, her jaw clenching.
Her cheeks were hot, although she didn’t know if it was from the fire in front of her or the lingering gazes of her friends, whose eyes were either flickering between Hordak and Adora or carefully avoiding either of them.
The silence was becoming stifling, Adora’s thoughts soaring in her mind with seemingly no end. Her mouth struggled to form an answer, opening and closing like someone drowning.
“O—kay” Bow, being Bow and wonderful and she was going to have to hug him so tight he might bruise later, said with a yawn, “maybe we should call it a night, we all have had a pretty long day.”
Glimmer’s eyes stayed on Adora for a moment longer before her brain caught up with Bow’s words. “Oh!”
She noticed the look Bow was giving her and continued, yawning theatrically, “Yeah, oh stars, I’m soooo tired, let’s get to bed.”
The others soon followed suit, saying their goodnights and scurrying to bed. All the while Hordak’s gaze never leaving Adora. Eventually Entrapta dragged him as Catra dragged Adora to their respective rooms.
Adora’s mind was still focusing on Hordak’s words. Images of burning towns. People screaming. Clones marching through. Ships in the sky wherever you looked, covering the newly acquired stars.
And then of a different type of horror altogether. A group of strangers, faces distraught as they recounted their tale. Another face, of a man who’d lost everything he didn’t even know he still had. And of a younger man torn by betrayal and guilt and love and anger, all swirling inside of him without being able to ever be resolved in the circumstances. And finally, of the same person sharing a tent with her right now, laying on the ground, barely breathing and then — lifeless in her arms.
“Do you wish I would’ve done worse?” she blurts out, the words barely registering.
Catra turns around, halfway to the bed they share. “Huh?”
Adora blinks back, a deep, shaky breath escaping her lungs. “Do you wish… I would’ve done worse?”
“To Prime,” she clarifies.
Catra looks back without answering, then up and down at Adora almost like she’s scanning her. She turns around once more, her back to Adora as she walks towards the bed.
Adora’s left standing there staring at her, wondering if she should follow or just wait.
She opts for the latter, sitting cross-legged as Catra leans across the headboard.
Adora looks across the room, trying to distract herself with the items strewn about the place, before she hears, “Sometimes” and her gaze settles on the girl in front of her again.
“Sometimes,” Adora repeats, weighing the answer in her head.
She contemplates for a long time if she likes the answer or not. She’s conflicted, she decides. Should she have done worse? Should Horde Prime have payed for his crimes against the universe in a different way? Not dictated by her?
“Why didn’t you?” Catra asked.
Adora blinks a few times before replying, in a whisper, “I don’t know.”
Catra scoffs gently. “Yeah, you do.”
Adora frowns at her as the Magicat pushes off the headboard to sit closer to her, her legs on top of Adora’s.
“I— I just—“ she starts, huffing with frustration. “Revenge isn’t justice. He hurt so many people, so many planets are destroyed and will never be able to be brought back because of him-“ her fists clench and unclench at her sides, “-and so many of my- of our friends and— and you were— you were dead, Catra. He hurt you. And I hate him, I hate him and I wish he could’ve seen the world we’re rebuilding so he could be seething, and maybe he is but—“
She takes a deep breath, because holy hell was she rambling. She looks back up at Catra who is still looking at her, listening patiently and Adora can’t help but apologize out of habit.
“Don’t apologize,” Catra says simply. “Finish the sentence.”
Adora swallows the lump in her throat. “But. I would’ve been worse than him if I’d done any of the things he did to all those people. And sometimes I wish I had—“
“But you didn’t.” Catra says for her. Her hand comes up to Adora’s face, Adora can’t help but lean into the comforting touch. “You didn’t. Because you’re Adora. You’re kind and genuine and so strong. So you didn’t.”
Adora’s pretty sure if this were happening the other way around, Catra would be teasing her endlessly for the lovestruck face she prides herself on not having but is decidedly using in this moment.
“I don’t think everyone would agree,” Adora says, chuckling.
“Well, screw them,” Catra says. turning away from Adora and getting under the covers.
Adora smiles at her, following her lead. She hugs Catra close to her chest.
“Hey, Catra?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you repeat that in front of everyone tomorrow?”
“Absolutely not.”
Adora laughs. “I love you, too.”