A/N: This is a She-Ra Princesses of Power fic for the new netlix series, but I can't find the category on fanfiction so I guess? The right thing? Is to post to the older show? I don't know...can anyone help me out here?
"Come on!" Catra said, as she held out her hand to the empty air, realizing a moment too late that Adora wasn't there to take it anymore. It was an old habit that she hadn't quite been able to shake.
It wasn't as though Scorpia had much of a hand to help up, or that she'd want to run alongside her on top of the wall. As for Entrapta offering assistance to climb a wall was a ridiculous notion. Her hair could easily climb the wall for her, if she so desired. There was no point.
Not that Adora was unable to climb the walls of the horde herself. It was just what they had always done, a part of their friendship for as long as they'd known each other. The loss sank into Catra's skin for a moment, weighing her down more than Adora ever had.
Catra clenched her hand closed into a fist. That was enough of those thoughts. There was a war to fight, no time for sentimentality.
Catra swore that she wouldn't get trapped by her thoughts of Adora, and she broke that promise a thousand times a day at least. If anything it was getting worse instead of better. The worst was at night. She was so used to the sounds of Adora's calm breathing, the occasional restless movement as a leg kicked out in a dream, it was weird to have a bed to herself again. Her nights now consisted of waking up a hundred times in a panic, realizing that Adora was not there and that she needed to go look for her. After a few seconds the panic would wear off and she'd remember just what had happened. Adora wasn't with the Horde anymore. Adora wasn't coming back.
She wasn't about to go to Scorpia or Entrapta to ask them if they could share a bed, what a ridiculous notion that would be, as big a sign of weakness as any, a perfect reason that she should be kept from going out on missions or that she shouldn't be a squadron leader. No, she wasn't about to give anyone in the horde that much power of her. She'd done that once, and look how that had turned out.
And yet as the days dragged on, Catra felt worse with each. The lack of sleep had started to show. Her skin had gotten paler, dark enough she hoped others wouldn't notice, but sallow looking, sickly. Her eyes felt sunken, and the bags under them had darkened considerably. She had started wearing eyeshadow to cover it up, borrowing it from Scorpia. She claimed that the smokey eye was because she wanted to look fiercer, more like a commander. If anyone noticed, they didn't say anything.
She tried not to care too much. She'd never really cared about her appearance, and only cared about this now because it threatened her position. But the effect the lack of sleep had on her movement was a different story. Her movements felt sluggish and her head fuzzy. A headache behind her eyes became a permanent source of pain. She could leap far, but with each day Catra felt the distance dwindling. As for the likelihood that she'd aim herself correctly—well, she just hoped she wasn't going to need to do any complicated maneuvers anytime soon.
What Catra needed was an answer to her insomnia.
What she got instead were some clever plans for different traps that Entrapta had been working on and some badly timed jokes and gular laughter from Scorpia.
"Alright, so explain this one again." Catra pointed at a small disk. She rubbed her temple, frustrated with just how fast Entrapta talked about all her different inventions.
"It's an pocket dimension trap. When it gets set off in a room the closest people to it will get sucked into a pocket dimension where there isn't anything but empty space. The person won't be able to leave the trap and no one will be able to get to them for twelve hours. They also won't be able to communicate with anyone on the outside and vise versa. But it's only strong enough to pull one, maybe two princesses, into the pocket dimension at a time."
"Right…so how is this helpful again?"
Scorpia thought for a moment before laughing at the image in her head. "Well we could always use the trap on a princess when they needed to use the bathroom, and then they'd be really really irritated by the time they got out"
"Ri—ight." Catra said, trying not to roll her eyes. She didn't want to insult either of her teammates, but sometimes they were on such strange wavelengths. It was nothing like how it used to be.
Catra bit her lip to pull herself off that train of thought.
"What else do you have?" She finally asked Entrapta, trying to find something useful to build a plan off of.
Entrapta listed off several other items with about the same—if not less—amount of functionality. There were bombs that made people keel over with laughter, a pair of goggles that allowed you to see a person in the dark provided they were wearing green, a pair of walkie-talkies that would explode if they were jostled too much or came in contact with water, and a necklace that would turn yourself invisible for ten minutes but only to people wearing a horde jacket.
There was no use. All of the items were about as functional as a knife without a blade. They weren't going to have a chance for Entrapta to come up with more useful items, though. They had to act quickly. They'd gotten intel that a couple of princesses were going to be searching through a temple near Mount Candilla for some sort of game changing first-ones tech inside. It was a rare opportunity to try and capture such a small group, plus Entrapta could make use of whatever the item was the princesses were looking for. The rest of the princesses had their hands full with an attack the horde was directing at a civilian town near Mystacor.
Catra had a feeling she knew who one of those princesses at Mount Candilla would be. She wasn't going to let an opportunity like this pass, regardless of how useless Entrapta's new items might be. The only one that was actually functional was Entrapta's new first-ones tech tracker—now smaller and lighter than before. Catra hoped it worked. She tossed everything into a bag, and swung it over her shoulder.
Then she swung the bag back off of her shoulder and pulled out the walkie-talkies, setting them aside carefully before swinging her bag once again back over her shoulder. That was one item they could probably do without.
Catra tried to think of some sort of plan on the way. Thinking about it, the pocket dimension thingy could actually be kind of useful.
"If Adora's there she's going to be flanked by that princess Glimmer and that Bow character. If we use the pocket dimension to separate them, that'll leave She-Ra to have to defend against all three of us at once."
"Hey, that's actually a good plan!" Scorpia said. "Better than bladder control."
"Bladder control?"
"Yeah, the plan I came up with earlier! I named it."
"Great." Catra said, rolling her eyes. She actually chuckled a little bit, not able to help herself.
Entrapta had other thoughts. "What if it's two other princesses? What do we do then?"
"Then we fight them. It's not like any of the others are all that powerful by themself."
"Yes, yes, good plan." Entrapta nodded.
Catra rolled her eyes again. These two were going to be the death of her. She rubbed her temple again to block the headache there. She wanted to get this over with as soon as possible and get back to the Horde, back to her bed. Even if it was useless she needed to try to sleep again.
Fortunately the mountain appeared in the distance, and with Entrapta's new tracker it wasn't too difficult to find the temple they were searching for either. They flew around for a bit, following the tracker, before landing in front of a cracked doorway that appeared to lead downward into the ground.
They surveyed the landscape. Mount Candilla was covered in strange trees, but there was a lot of space in between them, so they hardly had any cover if they stayed outside of the temple. It was a pity, because Catra's last foray into a first-ones temple had gotten her stuck with Adora and traversing back through painful memories. She really didn't want to have to go inside if it was going to be the same sort of story.
With no other options Scorpia pushed at the door. It was weakened from years of no use and crumbled beneath her claws with hardly any effort. When Adora finally came knocking it would just look like it had crumbled sometime over the past century, she wouldn't be any the wiser.
They ducked into the temple, careful to avoid touching the technology. Entrapta began her search, but Scorpia and Catra stayed by the entrance, ready to strike at the first sign of any of the princesses.
Finally, after an hour, when Catra's legs had begun to get tired of the lack of movement, they heard voices.
"How do you know if we're getting close."
Catra tried to ignore the excitement she got from hearing that voice. She'd been right. It was Glimmer who was checking out this temple, and that meant…
"I just know. I can feel it."
Adora.
Catra's body tensed down to her toes. She readied herself for action, prepared to jump out as soon as she saw them.
"Hey, I think I found something!" That voice belonged to that other kid Adora was always hanging around with, Bow.
Catra listened to the rustle in the trees as the other two caught up with him.
"Yes! This is it!" Adora said, sounding excited.
The sounds of bootsteps drifted down the tunnel. Catra counted in her head, waiting until they got loud enough before she pounced. They just needed to separate Adora from the other two for a moment to get the plan to work.
Her claws sprang out of her fingertips as she jumped toward Adora.
She cried out in sudden pain, jumping back from Catra and raising her sword. "For the honor of Grayskull!"
Adora glowed for a moment. The glow starting from the tip of her sword engulfing her down to her boots. The light became too bright for Catra to look at, and as she blinked away the tears that sprang up from the bright light, her old friend was gone, replaced by She-Ra Princess of Power.
Catra sprang at her again. She felt her movements were sluggish, but as long as she could keep up with She-Ra's sword it shouldn't be a problem to separate her from the others. Scorpia could take care of the other two, and Entrapta would show back up now that the fighting had started.
Catra jumped at a wall, trying to bounce off of it and onto She-Ra's back, but she missed ever so slightly and ended up getting clipped by the sword instead. She jumped back to prevent any damage, and circled She-Ra from a slight distance instead, looking for an opening.
"How did you know we would be here?"
"We have good intel. The Horde's always been good at finding people. You know that."
Suddenly, they heard a shout from behind them. Catra didn't look, but she saw She-Ra's eyes go big.
"Entrapta?!" Glimmer shouted.
"No way." She-Ra said.
It was the perfect diversion. Catra pulled out the disk, pressing the button on top and tossing it at Bow and Glimmer before tackling She-Ra to the ground.
She-Ra grabbed at Catra, trying to pull her off, but she clung on. The sword came down, whacking her just hard enough in the head, to force her to tumble off, and She-Ra scrambled up and ran toward her friends.
It was too late.
Or so Catra thought, as she watched She-Ra run towards the disk, but nothing seemed to happen.
"Oh wait, that disk has a timer of thirty seconds, it won't go off immediately!" Entrapta shouted at Catra, realizing what had happened.
"You don't think you could have told me that sooner?!" Catra Shouted. She-Ra grabbed the disk and tossed it back toward Catra. It landed at her feet. "Oh no you don't!" Catra threw it back, smacking Glimmer in the forehead.
"Ouch!" Glimmer rubbed the spot.
She-Ra grabbed the disk again this time tossing it at a wall, far away from everyone's hands. Catra slid on the ground grabbing at it. She knew she was running out of time now. Once more she tried to aim it at Glimmer, but She-Ra tackled her to the ground, trying to grab the disk out of Catra's hands. She-Ra's sword flew through the air and clattered to the ground a few feet away. Catra couldn't stop trying to wrestle with Adora though. She felt her own muscles start to tire out way faster than was normal. She wouldn't be able to keep up this wrestling for much longer.
Catra bit She-Ra's hand, trying to scramble out of her grip.
"Ow!" She yelled. "Oh no you don't!"
She grabbed at the disk again before Catra could throw it. They were both shoving and pulling at each other when the disk clicked in their hands. A loud pitched shriek emitted from it, and without any other warning, both Catra and Adora disappeared.
The pull came from behind Catra's temple. It was a disorienting feeling to get sucked into another dimension. It left her wanting to heave on the ground. Judging by the look on She-Ra's face, she wasn't feeling too well either.
Catra watched, turning green, as She-Ra transformed back into Adora, climbed over her, and dry-heaved nearby. Catra looked around. They appeared to be in a basic four walled room with no windows or doors, and everything was a weird tone of purple.
"What was that?"
Catra coughed. "Other dimensional travel."
Adora's eyes went wide. "What?! But how do we get back."
"Oh don't worry, we'll only be stuck in here for twelve hours thanks to you." Catra banged her head back on the ground a couple times, frustrated. She pulled off her backpack and rustled around in it to no avail. She tossed out some of the items, but they were all completely useless, just as she'd known they were when she shoved them inside her backpack in the first place.
Adora tried punching the walls and the floor, but to no avail. She came away from her attacks with nothing but bruised knuckles and a bruised ego.
"Why does this keep happening?" Adora punched the wall once more for good measure before she slid down it and sat using that same wall to prop herself up. She grabbed at the pair of goggles Catra had thrown across the room, and started fiddling with them.
"Beats me. If I had a choice I would never be in a room with you again."
"I don't remember you ever being so mean."
"I told you before, Adora! I've changed. There's no point in pretending I'm the same person I was. Don't pretend you're the same person either now that you dance around in that stupid white dress all the time."
"It's not stupid! It comes with the powers."
"Well great! It wasn't enough for you to be the perfect person in the Horde I guess then, was it? You had to go and become a super powerful princess who wears a stupid dress too!"
"Well I'm not powerful now! So are you happy?"
"You're right! I should fight you right now and take you down a peg since you're so weak." Catra growled at Adora, lifting herself into a crouch. "Maybe then I'll actually be able to sleep!" She pounced on Adora, but Adora pushed her away, surprisingly easily.
Catra fell against one of the laughter bombs, causing it to explode and for both of them to keel over in laughter, tears springing to their eyes. Adora pointed at Catra's position on the floor, laughing mercilessly. Catra pointed to Adora's hair, which had gotten tangled in the attack and was now just a giant puffball. They collapsed on top of each other, giggling, holding each other's shoulders.
At the height of their laughter it actually became painful to continue. Catra's side felt like it was going to burst open, like she couldn't get enough breath to do anything except for collapse in on Adora. She wheezed for breath, gasping for air. Adora was doing the same, one hand on the painful stitch in her side, the other hanging onto Catra's shoulder for support. It was a surprisingly evil invention, maybe Catra would have to have Entrapta make a few more.
The laughter lasted for a good ten minutes before it started subsiding. As soon as Catra noticed how close she was to Adora, so scrambled away, leaving Adora wheezing out the last of her laughs, but also looking at Catra with something like worry behind her eyes.
Adora slid back to the wall, leaning against it once more. As the last of her giggles subsided, the look of concern grew more pronounced.
"What even was that attack just now, Catra? You didn't have any force behind it."
"I don't know!" Catra said from the floor, where she had slid after she had tossed Adora off. "Maybe the new dimension just threw me off somehow!"
"Come on, Catra, that's not like you and we both know it. You're always on top of your game."
"I already told you! I'm not the same person! YOU DON'T KNOW ME ANYMORE!" Catra huffed on the floor, staying down. She rested her head against the cool surface of the pocket dimension, wondering for a moment just what it was made of. This was her worst nightmare.
She didn't want to be around Adora any longer than it took to try and capture her for the Horde. It brought up too many memories that Catra had been working hard to block out. And now she had to not only be around Adora, but be around her for twelve hours in a small room? Curse that Entrapta! This was all her fault!
"Well that's fine. I don't want to fight you anyway." Adora muttered at Catra's silence.
Catra eyed Adora out of the corner of her eye. She was leaning against one of the walls and had closed her eyes in her own frustration.
"It didn't have to be this way, Adora."
"Yeah it did." Adora let out a long sigh.
"I still can't believe you actually left."
"I wasn't going to be able to be part of the Horde as soon as I knew what they were really doing. I wish you'd come with me. The worst part about this whole thing is losing you."
Anger flashed across Catra's mind. "That's not for you to decide. I already told you I'm not gonna be in your shadow anymore. I'm not a princess or anything special so I've had to work three times as hard to get everything I have now. I'm not about to give that up."
"I know! I know that's how you feel but I—"
"Don't! I don't want to hear it! We already talked about this and there's no point discussing it! I'm too tired to talk about it anyway."
There was a long pause as both of them turned away from each other. Neither of them wanted to be reminded of all of the things between them. There was too much pain there to go through it all again.
It was Adora who looked first. She studied Catra for a moment, looking at her closely.
"Why are you so tired?"
Catra gave a dramatic sigh and met Adora's eyes. "I don't know Adora, maybe because fighting the princesses of power is exhausting."
Adora frowned, but she leaned in closer to Catra, studying her closer.
Catra slid away on the floor slightly. "What? What are you looking at?" She tried to sound irritated. "You're reminding me of Entrapta before she gets some crazy idea for an invention."
"No—it's that—" Adora paused, still studying Catra. "You really are tired."
"That's what I said, already! I don't know why this is some sort of big revelation."
"No, I mean. You really don't look very good."
Catra propped herself up on her elbows, her face suddenly stern. "Thanks…"
"No! It's—you look like you haven't slept in weeks."
Catra dropped herself back down on the floor, looking away from Adora once more. "Maybe because I haven't." She mumbled under her breath.
"But that's—Catra! That's not good!"
"Don't start pretending to worry about me! I don't need your sympathy, okay!"
"Catra! I can still be worried about you."
"No you can't. You don't get to do that anymore."
They huffed into silence again, Catra looked away, but Adora wore a frown and continued to study her former friend. She slowly crawled over toward Catra, trying to get a closer look without rousing her.
Adora noticed the sallow color and the attempt from Catra to just how tired she looked under smudged makeup.
"Okay. This is what's gonna happen—" Adora's voice was stern this time. She wasn't about to take another 'no' or 'mind your business' for an answer. "We're stuck in here for twelve hours, so you're going to tell me exactly what's going on so that the next time I have to kick your butt I don't have to worry about your well-being at the same time."
Catra let out a single hoarse laugh. "Yeah, whatever."
"I'm serious." Adora grabbed Catra's shoulder with her hand, forcing her to stay where she was and making it difficult for Catra to look away. "Tell me what's up."
"I don't want to."
"Then I'm gonna set off another one of those laugh bombs right into your face."
"You wouldn't."
"Try me."
Catra noticed the small metal disk of the laugh bomb in Adora's hand. Her thumb hovered over the button. Catra opened her eyes wide. "That's not funny."
"I'm not trying to be funny, but we'll still both end up laughing if you don't tell me what's going on."
"That's not fair."
"I'm not trying to be fair, either! I'm trying to be a fr—" Adora cut herself off before she could say the word. "I just want to know, okay!"
Catra looked away as best she could. She wasn't going to meet Adora's eyes when she said this. She mumbled the words as quietly as she could. "I'm not used to sleeping by myself."
Adora tilted her head, surprised. Her thumb wavered over the button, but she didn't drop it.
"Happy?" Catra asked, her anger coming back.
"No, I—I don't understand."
"I always slept on your bed, idiot!"
"No, I know that, but why didn't you find someone else to sleep with?"
"It's not the same." Catra pushed Adora off of her, stomping away to the other side of the small room, as far away from Adora as she could. "What do you want me to do? Sleep with Scorpia?"
"Well, I mean—"
"They'd all just see it as me being weak! What kind of Force Captain can't sleep in a bed alone!?"
"They wouldn't—"
"They would!" Catra rounded on Adora. She felt emotion rising in her throat. "You know what they're like. They use everything against you! Lord Hordak doesn't accept failure, and they all want to be in his favor."
"Catra—" Adora tried to approach, tried to comfort her by putting a hand on her shoulder again, but Catra pulled away sharply at her touch.
"No, Adora! You don't get to tell me what I should do to help myself sleep when clearly it didn't even make a difference to you when I was no longer there at your feet!" Tears sprang into Catra's eyes. "Did you ever even care? I really meant nothing to you, huh? You run off and make new friends and never have any problems ever again! You're just a perfect princess who gets everything in the world handed to them and hasn't had a bad nights sleep once in her entire life!'
Catra turned around to face the wall, not wanting Adora to see the tears now streaming down her face.
"Catra—"
Catra ignored her. She didn't want to hear anything she had to say. Adora didn't get it. She didn't understand. No matter how much she might say that she knew how Catra felt, she'd never been in her position. She'd always been favored, always been spoiled. Even now.
Catra heard Adora slide down onto the floor, and when she spoke her voice was suddenly timid, unsure of herself.
"When I first joined with the princesses Glimmer showed me this huge room that was supposed to be mine. The bed had all these overstuffed pillows and the moment I laid down I didn't know what to do with myself. It was the most comfortable bed I'd ever laid on, and yet it felt completely wrong somehow. I tried to flatten the pillows to help, but I only ended up destroying the bed on accident."
Catra heard Adora take a tight inhale of breath. There was a long pause where neither of them spoke before Adora continued once again. There was something in her voice though, like she was on the edge of tears herself.
"Glimmer and Bow helped me. They slept with me those first few nights, and whenever I have trouble sleeping I end up going to one of their rooms. It's not perfect, but it works. I've had more restful nights than sleepless ones." Adora took another sharp intake of breath, but it broke halfway through and Catra could tell the tears had started to fall without having to look at her. "It's not the same. I miss you more when I'm alone in my room. So, yeah, Catra, I get it."
The silence that followed was poignant. When Catra finally spoke she had stopped the tears running down her face. "We're both messes…huh?"
Adora let out a laugh that turned into a sob halfway through. "Catra, if you came with me to the princesses you'd be able to sleep again. We both wou—"
"Stop it. I can't stand you asking me again. I'm not switching sides. I told you that."
"Then…maybe we could just…not be enemies—" Adora, realizing what she said added the last part quickly. "Just for right now, until we get out of here?"
Catra looked down at her feet, considering for a moment. "I would be…okay with that."
"Let's rest for a moment."
Catra turned around slowly, looking up just enough to see Adora beckoning her over with her arms. They didn't speak as they cuddled up next to each other gently. Catra pulled Adora close, hugging her waist. Adora embraced Catra holding her tightly. The cold stone floor hardly mattered at that moment, not when they used each other as pillows. They twisted themselves a bit until each one found comfort, and before Adora could even notice, Catra had already fallen asleep.
Catra woke up to the sound of Adora's gentle breathing and a hand stroking her hair. For a moment she'd forgotten just where she was. She had dreamed about her and Adora's adventures in the Horde, had completely forgotten that Adora had left.
Catra looked up from Adora's waist, where she had still been holding tight, even after however many hours of deep slumber. Adora raised her head to smile at her.
"Did you sleep well?" Adora asked.
"You already know the answer to that."
Adora nodded and leaned her head back down on the ground. "I did too."
"Adora—" Catra started unsure of what exactly she wanted to say. "Just…thanks."
A smile played on Adora's lips as Catra watched her, but they didn't say anything else. Adora continued to stroke Catra's hair and Catra continued to hold on to Adora's waist, not wanting to let go.
"How much more time do we have?" Adora asked, looking down at Catra over her eyelashes.
"No idea, but probably not long. I don't know exactly how long we were asleep for…but a while—"
"Then—before we leave, I want to—" Adora leaned in closer.
"What?" Catra breathed, looking into Adora's eyes. Adora's cheeks were red, she was biting her lip slightly, unsure of herself. But Catra hadn't needed to ask, she already knew.
Catra pulled herself up, allowing her hands to slide up until they were behind Adora's head. She leaned over, closing the rest of the gap between then and kissed Adora, gently.
She backed off slightly, allowing them both to breath in stuttered breaths for a moment, before pulling herself close to Adora once more. This time Adora brought her own hands up to hold Catra's face and neck, to keep her close as they kissed.
When they released each other again, just long enough to get air, their breaths came in gasps. They pulled each other close once more.
Catra felt wetness on her cheek. She pulled away from Adora, wiping at her cheek in surprise, and when she finally met Adora's gaze she could tell that neither of them knew which one of them had been crying.
Maybe they both were.
They felt a familiar pull at the back of their heads. The disorienting feeling was back as they scrambled away from each other. A moment later they found themselves heaving this time on the floor of the temple.
Catra recovered first. Without making eye contact she held out her hand to Adora, who took it to help herself stand up.
They looked around themselves. Adora's sword was gone, as were their friends. Whatever had happened during the fight they'd find out once they got back to their respective bases.
Adora held on to Catra's hand as they walked down the hallway to the exit of the temple. They took one last look at each other, neither of them saying anything. Each of them turned away from the other at the same time, and began to walk along paths taking off into two different directions.
As they walked away from each other a feeling of sadness and loss washed over them both. They both felt it weighing in their heart of hearts. Regardless of everything that had happened, at the end of the day it didn't change a thing.
A/N: Wow! This is my first non Voltron fic since I made this account! Branching out!
I watched the season and loved it. I'm pretty excited for where they take the story and the characters. I died when Catra showed up in her suit to the ball! So I'm thinking there will probably be more stories where this came from, and we all have a lot to look forward to!
As always, if you like my work check out my other stories! I'd love to hear what you think of them, or for you to just say whatever's on your mind. I'd love for you to talk to me! seeminglycaptivating on tumblr and thechargrey on insta/twitter.
Thank you so much for reading! You are amazing!