Catra slunk around the Kingdom of Snows' palace, darting and weaving amid the crowd of people in its vast main ballroom.

Technically she was doing so in plain sight, but nobody cared enough to pay attention to her. Anyone who wasn't a royal guard, or the mistress of ceremonies herself, was busy dancing, mingling, and otherwise doing whatever they could to forget their worldly cares.

After all, Princess Frosta's Princess Prom lasted for one night. One night each decade where the dignitaries of Etheria were allowed to be themselves, in public, without social or political consequence.

In the bottom of her heart, Catra wished she could join them. She wished she could afford such a luxury. Instead, she forced her mind, her heart, to stay on task.

She had objectives tonight.

And while those objectives technically tied to her ex-comrade-in-arms Adora in several ways... just once, she wasn't going to dwell on it. She wouldn't dwell on how Adora's betrayal made her feel. How Adora had dragged her kicking and screaming through the entire emotional spectrum over a matter of days, while also threatening to destroy her way of life. How much Adora made her heart twist into a million angry, longing knots. How much—

Catra thwapped the side of her head. Focus.

Tonight, she had objectives. She and Scorpia had a real plan which could turn the tide for the Horde, and prove to Lord Hordak once and for all that she wasn't a waste of the Fright Zone's oxygen.

Though, if she also managed to get under Adora's skin with tonight's plan... well.

Good.

Backing away to get a fuller view of the crowd, Catra felt something hit her backside unexpectedly.

She whirled around to see that she'd hit the food table. She looked at the spread, full of hors d'oeuvres, finger foods and pastries. She shrugged, and grabbed a small plate. Nothing wrong with free food-slash-energy replenishment, she reasoned, as she hungrily nabbed some sweet mini-cakes and sushi rolls, ate a couple, and smiled as the flavors hit her mouth. The Horde never had food like this, out of sheer impossibility. Best to savor it while she could.

Catra turned around again to view the crowd—only for a robot head to engulf her field of vision. Her eyes met an ominous red visor starting back at her.

"I know what you're doing," the robotic head whispered in a hollow voice.

Catra's first impulse was to shriek. Her second impulse, a single moment later, was to clamp her hands over her mouth so as to not cause a scene with said shriek. Her third impulse was cycle through multiple methods of disabling the thing that had dared to sneak up on her. Her claws unsheathed in Moment Four.

Then the robot head took its mask off, and officially stopped being a robot head, which stunned Catra just long enough to not take advantage of Moment Five. Instead, she blinked, staring into the friendly female face now in front of her and uttered, "Huh?"

The purple-haired girl in front of Catra smiled. The smile was upside down, because face was upside-down, because her entire body was upside-down, because it was being held upside down by... her hair? Were those ponytails? They couldn't have been ponytails, they were absolutely massive. They rivaled even Scorpia's limbs and tail in their size... and blew them away in terms of flexibility, Catra discovered when the girl used those same ponytails to turn herself right-side-up.

"The total skulking around stealth act, the darting of eyes, the placing of random pieces of bait... I know what you're doing," the girl in front of her said... then, after a pregnant pause, launched into, "You're observing the social experiment too!" in the most manic, unhinged, ear-nicking voice Catra had ever heard.

Catra did not like being this caught off guard—physically, or comprehensively. "Wh-what?" was all she could say, again.

"This whole 'prom' has been an absolutely fascinating specimen to witness! I've been observing and recording how it affects people all night!" The girl used her ponytails to dart back and forth between random nearby dancers, craning her head towards almost anything which caught her eye, no matter how insignificantly novel. "You can tell so much simply by looking at the expressions on peoples' faces as they're forced to 'get along' with people they'd otherwise not have two words to say to! The passive-aggressive face scrunches, the eyerolls, the forced smiles!" She darted back in front of Catra, and sighed dreamily, clasping her hands together. "They're exquisite."

The girl then grabbed Catra's shoulders, and smiled wide, eyes sparkling into hers. "But, you! You're not just observing and recording, are you? You're performing an experiment on the experiment!" The girl applauded with both hands, and with two long strands of purple hair that again seriously moved by themselves what was going on, while cackling loud and long. "That's a fantastic idea I can totally get behind!"

It was rare that a single person could motivate Catra to back away out of instinct—sometimes Shadow Weaver or Lord Hordak could pull it off—but this new person was officially the third. After two backward steps, she straightened her suit's collar, cleared her throat, and said, "Yeah, you got me. It's all part of trying to find out just what everyone thinks the point of all this is. I guess we're in the same boat, huh?"

"The pursuit of knowledge is never-ending," the girl said, holding up a finger as both girls walked across the ballroom floor. One of her hair-tendrils then morphed into a hand, which extended itself to Catra. "Entrapta, Princess of Dryl. And you are?"

"Catra." Catra shook Entrapta's hand, then picked at her plate of leftovers, munching another cookie to calm herself, and downing a glass of water. "I'm a plus-one."

Entrapa's hair-fingers went to her chin. "Oh, right, those are a thing here. A quaint—if incoherent—custom, which I've formed separate hypotheses about, even." She drummed the tips of her fingers together, a manic, enthusiastic glint in her eyes. "Still, always great to meet a fellow woman of science we're going to take over the world one day did I say 'take over' I meant innocently and peacefully change for the better."

Catra tilted, then shook, her head. "Wait, you're a princess. Didn't you bring a plus-one?"

Entrapta shifted her gaze peripherally, staring far away with wide eyes. "Uh, right. Of course. Yeah, you see, uh, plus-ones, those tend to be in... short supply, when you live a life like mine," she muttered, almost too low for Catra to hear.

A tuft of blond hair wafted across Catra's own peripheral vision, for just a few more seconds than she was comfortable with. She resisted gritting her teeth as a familiar churning feeling washed through her heart. "Actually, I can relate to that." She reached for another piece of sushi on her plate to distract herself—only to find out that her plate was empty. Catra looked up to see Entrapta in mid-chew.

Entrapta noticed Catra's stern glare moments after swallowing. "Ooooh, sorry," she said. "I hope you don't mind. Usually for me just a couple of pieces of tiny food are enough for a meal, but tonight's experiment has been way more draining work than I thought. Lots of maneuvering required to stay out of sight long enough to capture candid moments. I've been swinging all over this palace!"

Upon hearing Entrapta's words, something in the back of Catra's mind reminded her why she was actually here. She stopped. "Wait. You've covered the whole castle grounds already? And recently? That means you know where everyone is?"

"Pretty much." Entrapta reached into the pocket of her overalls and took out a small portable screen, covered with dots on its digital display. "I have the locations of everyone in this palace cataloged, and being tracked in real-time, don't ask how. Not like it matters—this is the only room relevant to my purposes. Or, I should say, our purposes... wait." Entrapta looked up, her eyes sparkling again. "We're in pursuit of the same knowledge! I don't often ask this, because, well, I don't often get to ask this, but..." The wide smile was back. "You want to do this together?"

"So... first you steal my food, and now you want me to help you stalk people," Catra said.

"Observe a habitat," Entrapta replied without skipping a beat. She tapped on her screen, showing Catra multiple flashing numbers above the dots. "This is literally a once-in-ten-years experience. I mean, just run the numbers, and the opportunity clearly justifies the means. Anyone with a rational scientific mind would agree." Entrapta stared into Catra's eyes. "Right?"

Catra looked back into Entrapta's eyes. Several seconds passed, wherein Entrapta merely blinked while maintaining her same jubilant expression.

Finally, Catra looked at Entrapta's device again, and made a big show of sighing with an shrug. "Sure, no problem. Believe me, where I come from, what you're asking could sometimes be taken as a good thing."

Entrapta's eyebrows shot up. "People like being experimented on where you're from? Wow," she sighed. "Where is this paradise?"

"Tell you later," Catra said, committing the contents of Entrapta's map screen to memory. "Now, speaking as someone who's spent most of their life scaling surfaces, you'll have a much better lookout point from up there." Catra pointed to a high second-floor balcony. "From up there, you'll be able to see everyone, but no one will even be trying to crane their necks that high, much pay attention to you."

Entrapta squealed. "Thank you so much, new assistant! Oh, you are not going to regret this team-up one bit!"

And in a blink, Entrapta was scrambling and swinging away, towards her new perch. Catra looked down at her plate and sighed, walking back to the food table to grab just a few more cookies before carrying out the rest of her plan.

On the way, she looked up again. Entrapta had been nice. If a little... jittery. Shame about the whole Princess Alliance member part, because she'd actually made for enjoyable conversation. Plus, anyone who could get around Catra's honed personal defenses was definitely Horde material.

Even better, that enjoyable conversation had been a merciful distraction from the girl who she was supposed to actually be targeting by proxy tonight. Adora had barely crossed her mind for the last fifteen minutes, and she hadn't had a single urge to look at Adora from across the ballroom.

Like she was doing right now.

Hell.

It'd been a nice feeling for Catra's head and heart to not be spinning, if only for a few minutes.

She'd fix that. The second she figured out how.