Chapter Text
The music started before sunrise.
Not loudly.
Shadow Weaver hated loud music during warm-ups.
Just enough for the piano to seep through the studio speakers in soft, cold notes while the fluorescent lights buzzed awake overhead.
“As you wake up in a cold sweat
Little girl, what goes on in your head?...”
Catra held her développé until her hip trembled.
“Higher.”
Her leg rose another inch.
“Again.”
Sweat crawled down the back of her neck. The studio windows were black with early winter dark, turning the room into a mirror. Tiny dancers in black leotards stood frozen at the barre behind her, all of them watching without meaning to watch.
Nobody looked directly at Catra.
That would’ve been stupid.
Shadow Weaver stepped closer, heels clicking against marley flooring. “Your standing leg is weak.”
Catra clenched her jaw harder.
She was nine years old and already knew the rules:
don’t cry,
don’t complain,
don’t shake,
don’t stop before Shadow Weaver says stop.
The song continued softly in the background.
“All this hatred in your heart, yet
I mourn the most for all the things I never said...”
“Again,” Shadow Weaver said.
Catra lifted her leg.
Again.
Again.
Again.
By the eighth repetition, her vision had started blurring around the edges.
By the tenth, one of the younger girls quietly started crying at the barre beside her.
Shadow Weaver didn’t even glance over.
“Catra,” she said calmly, “if a six-year-old can hold herself together better than you, we have a problem.”
Catra straightened immediately.
The pain vanished. Or rather, it stopped mattering.
That was different.
“There,” Shadow Weaver said. “Better.”
And just like that—
warmth.
Tiny. Barely noticeable.
But Catra would have crawled across broken glass for it.
The studio smelled like hairspray, old rosin, and stress.
Mothers lined the hallway outside Studio A holding coffees and garment bags like weapons. Some whispered frantically over schedules. Others sat in silence with the exhausted expressions of people who had already spent too much money and too many years here to leave.
Every wall was covered in framed competition photos.
Smiling girls.
Perfect makeup.
Perfect posture.
Perfect scores.
And at the center of the largest wall—
Catra.
Nationals, age eight.
First overall.
Another picture beside it.
Regional title winner.
Another.
Scholarship finalist.
Another.
Another.
Another.
A shrine built out of trophies and twelve-inch smiles.
“See?” Shadow Weaver said, walking a new mother through the lobby. “Discipline creates results.”
The woman nodded nervously.
Beside her stood a tiny brunette girl in pink tights, staring at the trophy case with wide eyes.
Shadow Weaver gestured toward the center shelf.
“Those are Catra’s.”
Catra stood ten feet away pretending not to listen.
Her chest burned anyway.
Those are Catra’s.
Not:
I’m proud of you.
Not:
You did well.
Not:
I love you.
Just trophies behind glass.
But they were hers.
Which meant she mattered.
At least a little.
The little brunette looked at Catra like she was something dangerous.
Good.
Fear was easier than friendship.
By noon, two girls had been sent out of rehearsal crying.
One because her turns were sloppy.
One because she forgot the choreography.
Shadow Weaver didn’t yell often.
That would’ve been easier.
Instead, she spoke in that cool, disappointed voice that made everyone feel stupid for existing incorrectly.
“No,” she said as a group routine restarted. “Again from the top.”
Groans echoed quietly around the room.
Catra reset immediately into first position.
“Some of you,” Shadow Weaver continued, “want praise more than you want excellence.”
Her eyes flicked briefly toward Catra.
Only briefly.
But Catra noticed.
Always.
“Again.”
Music.
Movement.
Sharp breath.
The studio became rhythm and mirrors and pressure.
Catra danced like something chased her.
Maybe something did.
During lunch break, the other girls gathered in clusters across the lobby floor eating protein bars and apple slices from plastic containers.
Catra sat alone beside the costume racks tightening the ribbons on her pointe shoes.
She preferred it that way.
Mostly.
“Hey.”
Catra looked up.
Scorpia stood nearby holding a juice box.
She was older. Taller too. Loud in a way Catra found deeply suspicious.
“You dropped your hair tie earlier,” Scorpia said, holding it out.
Catra stared at it for a second before taking it carefully.
“…Thanks.”
“You were really good today.”
Catra’s shoulders tensed immediately.
Compliments felt fake unless they came from one person.
“Obviously,” she muttered.
Scorpia blinked.
Then laughed awkwardly. “Okay. Uh. Sure.”
She walked away.
Catra hated the weird twisting feeling that followed immediately after.
Regret.
Too late now.
Across the room, Shadow Weaver emerged from her office speaking to two competition judges visiting for an upcoming regional event.
“And this,” she said smoothly, resting a hand briefly on Catra’s shoulder as she passed, “is my best student.”
The world stopped.
Not outwardly.
Nobody else noticed anything.
But inside Catra’s chest, something lit up so violently it almost hurt.
One of the judges smiled at her. “You’re the little prodigy we’ve heard about.”
Catra sat straighter.
Shadow Weaver removed her hand a second later.
Cold again.
“You’ll be doing her solo first this weekend,” Shadow Weaver continued. “She understands pressure.”
Catra tried not to smile too hard.
If she smiled too much, Shadow Weaver sometimes looked annoyed.
Too proud.
Too needy.
So Catra just nodded once like it didn’t matter.
Like her entire life had not just rearranged itself around one sentence.
My best student.
Mine mine mine.
Rehearsal ran until almost eight.
By the final hour, everyone was exhausted.
Foundation makeup had melted under stage lights during mock run-throughs. Hair gel flaked across foreheads. Ankles were wrapped in beige tape.
One girl sat against the wall silently crying while stretching her hamstring.
Nobody acknowledged it.
Crying was normal here.
Shadow Weaver clapped once.
“Solo rehearsal. Catra.”
Instant silence.
Catra stepped forward automatically.
The opening notes of her competition piece filled the room.
That same soft song again.
“As you wake up in a cold sweat
Little girl, what goes on in your head?...”
Something tightened in her stomach.
Shadow Weaver watched from the front row chairs with frightening stillness.
“Five, six, seven, eight.”
Catra moved.
And suddenly none of the pain mattered anymore.
Not the burning arches of her feet.
Not the ache in her spine.
Not the fact she'd been awake since five in the morning.
Because when she danced well, Shadow Weaver watched her like she mattered.
And when Shadow Weaver watched her—
Catra existed.
She spun across the floor, sharp and precise, every movement cut clean enough to bleed.
Turn.
Leap.
Extension.
Land.
Again.
Again.
Again.
When the music ended, silence swallowed the studio.
Catra stood there breathing hard.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Shadow Weaver rose slowly from her chair.
Walked toward her.
Stopped directly in front of her.
For one horrible second, Catra thought she’d done something wrong.
Then Shadow Weaver reached up and adjusted a loose strand of hair near Catra’s face.
Gentle.
Almost maternal.
“You could be extraordinary,” she said quietly.
Catra felt physically dizzy from relief.
But then Shadow Weaver’s expression hardened again.
“But don’t confuse talent with value.”
The warmth vanished instantly.
“You are not special because you win,” Shadow Weaver said.
Her hand dropped away.
“You win because I made you special.”
And Catra—
still breathless,
still aching,
still desperate—
nodded like that was love.