"Catra, I didn't tell you because on top of everything I guess I didn't want to have to have you believing that I had killed your father." Cyra confessed, earning a scoff as Catra curled a bit closer against her side—the effects of the pain killing tea seeming to finally set in and making her less guarded.
"I have no room to judge." Catra stated drowsily "At least you didn't stab your best friend in the back literally."
Cyra glanced down at the teenager, watching as her expression crumbled.
"By the roar I was so awful...How can Adora even look at me after everything I did."
Cyra had no idea how to deal with this sudden display of emotion from the usually aloof teenager. Shifting slightly she began to run her fingers through Catra's hair, earning a purr from the smaller girl who leaned into the touch.
"Other races besides us Magi-cats are capable of infrangible loyalty. Seems to me like Adora really cares about you." she replied, smiling a bit before adding "and it's obvious you care about her."
"Well duh."
Cyra couldn't help but laugh softly at the girl's slightly slurred words, the usual attitude coming out as much more childish than her usual attempted nonchalance.
"You probably should try to get some sleep. That tea is really effecting you." the queen stated, earning a grumble from the girl.
"I'm fine...Besides, you're not going anywhere, you're comfortable." Catra responded and this time Cyra couldn't help but laugh aloud.
"How about this. You get some sleep...I'll stay right here until you wake up and kick me out?"
Catra woke up sometime later, feeling both stiff and sore but also almost incredibly warm, which surprised her since she made a point to keep her room on the cooler side of things but it didn't take her long to realize where the extra heat was coming from.
The fact that she wasn't alone.
What the...ugh please tell me I didn't do what I think I did. She thought with a huff as she pulled back slightly Ugh...Whatever that stuff was she gave me made me act like a freakin' kid. She thought, although she couldn't stop that one part of her that thought of how good it felt to actually be able to get near someone without the fear of being pushed away—either literally or figuratively—so she slowly moved to return to her place beside of her mother.
It's not like anyone else is going to see this...and I can always blame the tea.
Meanwhile Adora stood in middle of the training room, trying not to show too much of her power off despite the fact that she was basically being begged by a group of school-aged children.
"No wonder Princess Catra talks so much about you. That sword must be able to cut through anything." one girl that Adora recalled was called Kissa said, catching Adora off guard.
"Wait, Catra talks about me?"
she asked, reverting from her 'She-Ra' form as she turned her attention on the girl.
"Oh please, she told us all about you being the only person who could beat her." A boy, Mecka retorted, crossing his arms before smirking "She told us everything including that you forgave her for a lot of crap. To be honest it was kinda gross how much she did talk about you."
"I think she has a crush on you to be honest." One of the older kittens stated from the back of the room, earning a glare from Kissa
"Don't say something like that Kaz, you could get Catra in trouble!" she stated, catching Adora by surprise
"I doubt Catra likes me like that but what do you mean that she could get into trouble?" Adora questioned as Kaz scoffed.
"There's this old rule that royals had to continue the bloodline or whatever but I doubt Queen Cyra would even care about that because after all, she did marry a mage from one of the villages besides anyone from an elite family." Kaz answered almost nonchalantly as he leaped up onto one of the obsticals in the room, crouching there as he glanced over to the door "The only one that would care really is that bastard Amur."
"isn't that Catra's cousin? Why would he care?" The whole concept behind the magi-cat's culture was starting to sound even more complicated than it had in Catra's letters.
"Because he's the mutt that wants to be king when he can't even fight without his magic. Not to mention he sucks as a teacher...Like seriously we would have been sitting ducks had it not been for Catra coming in to teach us."
"Wait Catra teaches classes? I thought Scorpia was the one over that?" Adora couldn't help but question. After all, Catra really didn't get on well with most people and she didn't know a thing about kids and that was without even mentioning the fact that Shadow Weaver had not been the best teacher either.
"Scorpia helps since Amur is still basically on grunt duty." another girl in the group responded
"Either of those two are a better teacher than Amur. I mean, at least they show us what to do besides just telling us. Catra's wicked good at finding weak points and helping us get stronger. Like my balance isn't the best but it's slowly getting better." Kissa said and for the first time Adora really understood just how different Catra was compared to what she expected.
"I never would have thought that Catra would be good with teaching anyone anything." she confessed, thinking back to what Catra had said all that time ago inside the first one's temple.
"yeah well you never really had much faith in me."
Adora knew that she wasn't completely blameless in the whole thing with Catra, that she could have tried harder—did more—but that really hadn't changed much had it? She hadn't trusted Catra to really change, despite knowing that there was good inside of her.
"She's rough and a smart ass but she's not cruel. Hell, she won't even spar with us without using protective gear." Kaz snapped her out of her thoughts by saying, although this brought back memories from the fright zone.
Catra had her wrist broken once by Lonnie during a sparring session. We only had those armor plates over our torso that basically just told us if we were out of the game or not. Adora realized she learned how not to do things based on how it affected her in the fright zone. She doesn't want these kids to feel like she had.