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It was a wonderful afternoon in Brightmoon. Catra was sitting lazily on an exquisitely comfortable couch in one of the many high-ceilinged lounges throughout the castle. She was leaning against Adora, who was gently stroking her hair. She had been trying to grow it out since the defeat of Prime, but she had made frustratingly little progress in the months that had passed. Still, it had grown enough that she had started to wear it in a messy ponytail. Melog was laying on Adora’s other side, nuzzling her lap in a way that Catra didn’t feel comfortable doing around other people. Instead, she had her arms and legs tucked in as close as she could to Adora’s body, effectively making She-Ra, the mighty princess of power, her personal shield.
Just a few feet away, Scorpia, princess of the newly re-founded Scorpion Kingdom, was sitting on the opposite, equally exquisite, couch. Adora had invited her over to talk about some logistics about the development of the fledgeling kingdom but also just to talk, as Catra’s only real friend from her time in charge of the Horde. The first priority of the conversation had been quickly forgotten.
“I’m so glad that Perfuma has been helping out so much,” Scorpia said enthusiastically. “I was super nervous about the whole thing since pretty much everybody who lives there now is ex-Horde and they really don’t like princesses, I mean, like, they really don’t, haha. So, Perfuma, she started hosting this meditation circle thing like a few times a week, and everybody was super hesitant about it at first, but then word started spreading around and now like a hundred people join in every time, so everybody has just been, like, super chill lately and it’s been really helpful for getting stuff done.”
“Wow, that’s great!” Adora said. She was someone who had a seemingly endless endless tolerance for social engagements, but Catra could tell that Scoripa’s unyielding enthusiasm was starting to get to her. “Perfuma always knows how to bring out the best in people.”
“Yeah, she’s amazing,” Scorpia said, thoughts clearly on things other than Perfuma’s therapy skills.
“Flower girl really knows how to get shit done,” Catra said. She herself had become one of Perfuma’s therapy patients since the war ended. Catra had been categorically against the idea at first, but after some convincing by the Best Friend Squad™, and after she had been sentenced to court mandated therapy for her crimes against Etheria, she had decided to give it a shot. Considering all she had done, it was an extremely light sentence, one that sparked protests, not only in Brightmoon itself, but many other kingdoms as well, especially in Salineas. Regardless of what the aggrieved masses wanted, the Queen’s decision was final, and Catra was genuinely grateful for what Perfuma had done for her now. It had gotten to the point where she had started to occasionally feel happy coming out of sessions.
“Y’know, this got me thinking about…” Scorpia trailed off and started blushing. “Aw shucks, this is embarrassing.”
“Scorpia, whatever it is, you probably did something ten times as embarrassing in front of Hordak when you were a Force Captain,” Catra said.
“Oh, Wildcat, you’re always right,” Scorpia said. “Oh, man, remember that time when I—”
“Scorpia.” Catra interrupted. “What were you going to tell us?” She felt Adora’s body heave slightly as the blonde chuckled quietly.
“Oh, right.” Scorpia chuckled. “So, yeah, I’ve been hanging out with Perfuma a lot more lately, but that’s mostly been with other people also there, so we never really get to hang out, y’know, like, just us, which has been really annoying. But like, I don’t know how to tell her that and I always feel like I never have the right opportunity to do it. It’s been really frustrating!”
“Are you asking us for advice for how to ask out Perfuma?” Catra smiled.
“I guess I am?” Scorpia smiled nervously. “Gosh, Wildcat, I know I just said it, but you’re always right on the money.”
“She really is.” Adorable smiled and gave Catra a little extra scratch behind her ear.
“Of course I am.” Catra purred. “Unfortunately, I’m probably the last person you want to ask for advice on that. You might not have known this, but I tried to kill the girl I was in love with, several times, actually.”
“But thankfully, you never succeeded.” Adora planted a kiss on Catra’s forehead.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t trying that hard.” Catra blushes. “Anyway, I’m sorry, Scorpia. As much as I would really like to help you with this, I probably can’t give you any helpful advice.”
“Yeah, I guess not,” Adora said, as if she just realized that confessing your love to someone while on the verge of death and then kissing them to save the world wouldn’t be a universally applicable experience. “You could probably ask Spinnerella and Netossa for help, though. I doubt they got together in a life-or-death scenario.”
“Knowing princesses, you can never be sure,” Catra said. “Maybe you should wait for something to blow up and then ask her out. Better yet, blow something up yourself!”
“Catra!” Adora scolded.
“I’m joking!” Catra laughed. “I would never encourage anyone to ever blow something up.”
“Catra, you tried to blow stuff up all the time when we were Horde cadets!” Adora said.
“Yeah, but I never told other people to do that,” Catra said. “I needed to save all of the blowing stuff up for myself.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Adora said.
“And yet, you’re still in love with me.” Catra teased, planting a kiss on Adora’s cheek.
“Yeah.” Adora smiled. “I am.”
“Gosh, you two are just such an amazing couple,” Scorpia said.
“Oh, you don’t have to say that.” Adora blushed.
“I’m serious!” Scorpia insisted. “I mean, without you two, none of us would be here right? That’s worth celebrating every day!”
“Scorpia, let me say what Adora won’t and sincerely thank you,” Catra said. “We’re just as glad to be alive as everyone else, but I think we’re content to only have one holiday named in Adora’s honor.” The day in question being the day that the last of Horde Prime’s remaining forces on Etheria finally surrendered to the Rebellion. Officially, She-Ra Day was only for the eponymous warrior princess herself, but everyone Catra had celebrated with had given her due credit. Maybe one day everyone would remember her for the good she had done.
“Fair enough,” Scorpia said. “But I’m still going to make sure that everybody knows that She-Ra couldn’t have saved the universe without my best friend, my Wildcat.”
“Thanks, Scorpia.” Catra smiled.
The moment was quickly interrupted by Adora’s tracker pad going off. Quickly, she pulled it out of her pocket and looked at it. It was a much smaller model than what Bow and Glimmer had used during the war. In the time since, Bow and Entrapta had had a lot more time to focus on improving technology that wasn’t intended to be weaponized and they had created a model that could more easily fit inside the average.
“I just got a message from Glimmer,” Adora said. “Apparently there was an avalanche on the route to the Kingdom of Snows and they need She-Ra’s help to clear it.”
“Oh, shit,” Catra said. “That sounds serious.”
Adora stood up, leaving Catra to rebalance herself into a more upright sitting position. Melog gave Adora a pissed-off look and curled up in Catra’s lap. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.” She gave a cocky smile that Catra couldn’t help but find endlessly endearing. “I am going to need my hoodie back, though.”
“Oh, come on!” Catra turned her body away from Adora and clutched the sweatshirt she was wearing tightly. It was Adora’s custom-made white She-Ra pull-over hoodie with gold lines doing down the length of the arms. It had She-Ra’s armor crest designed emblazoned on the front and the name ‘She-Ra’ in First Ones’ writing on the back. Adora had gotten it from a very lovely tailor in Brightmoon after Catra and Glimmer had insisted that she get new clothes. Unfortunately for Adora, Catra had found the hoodie very comfortable and started wearing it at every opportunity she could. She would never say this in front of anyone other than Adora, but the main reason she liked it so much is because it smelled like her. “You know how much I like this one.”
“Catra, I’m going into the mountains,” Adora said. “I need something warmer than this.” She gestured at the sleeveless turtleneck and tights she was wearing.
“Ugh, fine.” Catra groaned and took off the hoodie as slowly as she could without irritating Adora and handed it to her. Underneath the hoodie, she was wearing another one of Adora’s shirts, a loose-fitting dark red button-up with the sleeves rolled up.
Adora took the hoodie and batted out the inside to get rid of any fur that was there before putting it on. Catra thought she looked so adorable in the slightly oversized sweatshirt. “Thank you,” she said. “Are you sure you’re going to be alright here on your own for a few hours?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Catra said. “Don’t forget that Melog and Scorpia are still here.” She started stroking her hand through the Krytian’s mane.
“Okay.” Adora smiled. She leaned forward and kissed Catra on the lips. Catra closed her eyes but she could tell that Scorpia was doing the sparkly-eyes thing she always did when something cute happened in front of her. It was annoying, but far more tolerable than Glimmer telling them to get a room whenever they were even mildly physically affectionate around her. “I’ll miss you, my kitty.”
Catra felt her face go red. “I’ll miss you more, my princess.” she smiled.
Adora stood back up. “Glimmer’s going to be here in, like, a few seconds to pick me up,” she said. “I don’t know when I’m going to get back, but hopefully before dinner. You’ll be fine if I’m not though, right?”
“I will.” Catra nodded. She and Melog would probably just raid the kitchens if Adora wasn’t going to be there to pressure her into having a formal meal.
Glimmer suddenly appeared next to Adora in a flash of pink sparkles. “Ah, I finally found you!” she said, almost out of breath.
“I told you where I was,” Adora said.
“There’s like thirty lounges in this castle, Adora,” Glimmer said. “I checked like twenty before I got here. Are you ready to go?”
“One second,” Adora said. She blew a kiss to Catra. “I love you.”
Catra blew a kiss back. “I love you too.”
“Okay, let’s go!” Glimmer grabbed Adora and teleported away before she could respond.
“Wow, she’s fast,” Scorpia said.
“Yeah, Sparkles still has no chill,” Catra said. “Can you believe she still doesn’t warn me when she’s about to teleport me? Even though I’ve vomited in front of her because of that, multiple times.”
“Yeah, she actually scares me,” Scorpia said. “Why is she the only princess who gets to actually be a queen ,again?”
“Nepotism, probably,” Catra said. “And, apparently, her mom was immortal so she’s probably gonna live, like, a fucking million years or whatever.”
“Oh, that is terrifying,” Scorpia said. “Anyway, I feel like I just talked about myself a lot. So, how have you been? What’s new with my favorite ex-Horde leader.”
“Don’t let Hordak hear you say that.” Catra chuckled. It stung having people still only associate her with what she did with the Horde, but she knew that, of all people, Scorpia didn’t mean anything by it. “But, yeah. I’ve been good, I think? That’s probably been the first time in my life where that’s been true. A lot of people have been dicks, obviously, but Glimmer, Bow, and especially Adora have all been really amazing.” It was even more people than that, though. Perfuma had been one of the first people outside of the Best Friend Squad™ and Entrapta to be kind to her, even before the war ended. Micah, after some convincing by his daughter, had started to warm up to her, even after what she had done with the portal. It turned out that they had a lot more in common than she initially would have guessed. Glimmer’s aunt, whatever her name was, was never unkind to her, but they didn’t exactly have a close relationship. The other leaders of the princess alliance, mainly Frosta and Mermista, continued to, at best, tolerate her presence, mostly because of insistence by Glimmer and Adora. At least she wasn’t getting punched or drowned.
“That’s great,” Scorpia said. “And again, if you ever need me to tell some assholes how cool you actually are, just let me know.”
“Scorpia, it’s alright, really,” Catra said. “If some people still want to hate me, that’s totally fine, justified even. Gods only know how many people I’ve hurt.” She crossed her arms and clutched her shoulders.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Scorpia stood up and started closing the distance between them. The way her pincers were outstretched brought back a very specific stressful feeling in Catra that she hadn’t experienced in a while at this point. “You need a hug? We both know that I’m-”
“Stop!” Catra put up a hand. She had spoken harsher than she had meant to. Melog had gotten out of her lap and was now growling at Scopia with a spikey, red mane.
“Wildcat, are you okay?” Scorpia’s face looked crestfallen.
“Scorpia, just—” Catra let out a breath. Melog changed back to its much softer, wavy, blue mane. “I don’t need a hug right now, okay?”
“Oh, um, okay.” Scorpia looked like she didn’t know what to do with herself. Her feet shuffled nervously.
“Scorpia?” Catra said.
“Yeah?” Scorpia asked excitedly.
“You can sit back down.”
“Oh.” Scorpia stepped back and set herself down on the opposite couch.
“Can we just talk?” Catra pulled her feet up onto the couch and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“Yeah, of course, anything, Wildcat.” Scorpia nodded. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Back when we were both still living in the Fright Zone,” Catra started. “I pushed you away, I screamed at you, I—” She paused for a breath before continuing. “I hurt you.”
“Catra, we’ve talked about this before,” Scorpia said. “I’ve seen how much you’ve changed since then and I’ve forgiven you.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Catra said. “I’ve been talking with, um, my therapist.” She didn’t want to derail the conversation by bringing Perfuma’s name back up. “About what… about the way I do things and why. Fuck, I’m not doing a good job of saying this, sorry. This isn’t exactly easy for me to talk about.”
“Sorry, Wildcat,” Scorpia said. “I’m here for you, okay?”
“Thanks, Scorpia.” Catra smiled.
“You know, if you ever need somebody else to talk to about this, you should definitely ask Perfuma,” Scorpia said. “She’s really good with helping people through their feelings and she helped me a lot when I first joined the rebellion.”
Catra chuckled. Of course she would find a way to bring the conversation back to her crush. It’s not like she hadn’t done the same with Adora when she was still trying to convince herself that she hated her. “I’ll definitely consider it.”
“Cool, cool,” Scorpia said.
“May I continue?” Catra asked.
“Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” Scorpia nodded.
“Thanks,” Catra said. “This shouldn’t surprise you at all, but a lot of my problems stem from the way Shadow Weaver treated me as a kid. She would always, like, touch me in ways that looked like they were supposed to be comforting but were actually really scary. It’s like she was…” Catra’s voice trailed off. Her heart was beating at what felt like three times it’s normal pace. She took a deep breath in, then out. Slowly, her heartbeat went back down to a somewhat normal pace. “It’s like she was holding me there captive, even when she wasn’t using the magic she could have used to literally freeze me in place.”
“Oh, gosh, Wildcat, I am so sorry,” Scorpia said. “I remember that one time she had me and Entrapta caught in that spell and even for those few seconds and it was not pleasant.”
“Yeah,” Catra said. Scorpia’s act of solidarity was not as comforting as the princess was intending it to be, but it still meant a lot to her. “So, basically, that’s one of the reasons I find other people touching me to be so distressing. And when I met you, you were always so insistent on hugging everybody, including me, even when I tried to tell you no. I knew that you were nowhere near as bad as her, but every time it happened I couldn’t help but think of the way she…” Her voice trailed off again. “I know this doesn’t excuse any of what I did to you and I’m still so sorry for that, I just- I want you to know that what you did hurt me.”
“Okay, Wildcat, thanks for telling me,” Scorpia said. She looked like she was grappling with some conflicting feelings. “I want you to know that I’m sorry, and that I don’t want to hurt you again.”
“Thank you, Scorpia.” Catra smiled.
“And,” Scorpia continued. “I do want to hug you to apologize for the way I hurt you but I recognize that my insistence on hugging you when you didn’t want it was the thing that hurt you so I am politely asking for your permission to give you an apology hug.”
Catra sighed. “Yes, you can give me a hug.”
“Great!” Scorpia practically leaped off of the couch and picked Catra up an a chitinous embrace that was, to her credit, a lot less intense than what her hugs usually were. “I’m so proud of you, Wildcat.”
Catra hugged Scorpia back and, for once, she felt proud of herself too. She hadn’t expected to have that conversation today, hell, she was surprised that she was able to articulate her feelings about it. That language was still something she was struggling with. She felt tears start to form at the edges of her eyes. She was definitely going to tell Perfuma about this in their meeting next week.
When Catra was finally let down, she noticed that Melog was nuzzling itself up against Scorpia’s legs. “Aww, this little guy likes me too!” the princess said excitedly, leaning down to pet it with her pincers. It leaned in to the affection and started purring.
Scorpia looked like she was about to explode with happiness and Catra didn’t have the heart or emotional bandwidth to explain how Melog worked and why it was acting like that. All she could say was “yeah.”
It was late at night and Catra was curled up in bed with the mess of blankets of pillows. She would have been perfectly content to fall asleep right then and there, except there was something missing. Her ears perked up when she heard the sound of the large double doors to her room creak as they were slowly opened by someone trying too hard to be quiet.
Catra sat up. “Hey, Adora.”
“Hey, Catra,” Adora said quietly. “I am so sorry that took so long. Let me change real quick and then I’ll come to bed.”
“Mmm, okay,” Catra said lazily before flopping back down on the bed. She heard the sounds of Adora taking her clothes off and throwing them into her laundry basket.
“Ugh, I feel gross,” Adora said. “Should I shower right now or is it okay if I wait until tomorrow morning?”
“Do whatever you want,” Catra mumbled into a pillow. She was far to sleepy to be engaging in a real conversation right now.
“Okay, I’ll do it tomorrow,” Adora sighed. She opened one of the dresser drawers and then paused. “Catra, have you seen my pajamas? I swear I had a clean pair left.”
“I dunno.” Catra couldn’t help herself from snickering and thus giving herself away.
“Oh, my gods, Catra.” Adora walked over to their bed. “Take them off, now.”
“Damn, Adora.” Catra sat up and smirked. “It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?”
“You’re incorrigible,” Adora said.
“So you keep saying.” Catra yawned. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Adora leaned in and kissed her. “But seriously, give me back my pajamas.”