Tao grabs Catra around the waist, struggling to pull her off Kywa who she has pinned to the ground,"This has gone on long enough!",
Catra struggles against him shouting at Kywa, "YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY YEARS I SUFFERED AT THE HANDS OF THAT WOMAN! NO IDEA!",
Kywa slowly gets up onto one knee trying to steady herself, Catra pushes herself out of Tao's grip,"Let me go!", She runs back at Kywa, extending her claws and swipes her, Kywa is caught off guard, she tries to get out of the way but is too slow and one of Catra's claws catches her right ear and slices it, Kywa yowls and grabs her ear.
Tao growls loudly, "I said that is ENOUGH!", he grabs Catra a little more forcefully this time, pushing her over towards Adora,"Hold her!", he goes over to Kywa to help her up but she snarls at him and slaps his hand out of the way and gets to her feet by herself, she checks her sliced ear, she looks at her fingers there is a little bit of blood, "Well at least you're consistent at hurting people" she shouts at Catra. Catra growls and gets ready to go back over, Adora holds on tight to her,"Catra, don't please".
Tao bares his teeth and shouts at both Catra and Kywa,"BOTH OF YOU NEED TO COOL OFF NOW!",Catra and Kywa stop arguing and go quiet, rattled by Tao's anger, he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, turning away from them, "I am so disappointed in the both of you", he walks off.
His words cause Catra to feel a strange unfamiliar tugging in her chest, an emotion she can't quite place. Tao's words have affected them both, their heads are down and their ears are drooped. After a silent moment Kywa walks off without saying a word.
Catra stays, she stares at the ground still trying to place the strange feeling in her chest, her ears prick back up when she senses Adora staring at her, she looks over and Adora has her arms folded, Catra sighs,"What?",
"Did that make you feel better?",
Catra rolls her eyes,"Don't start Adora",
"No Catra that is a serious question", Adora comes and stands beside Catra,"did getting into a fight with Kywa make you feel better?",
Catra looks at Adora for a moment and then frowns,"...Not really",
"Didn't change any of the hurt did it?",
Catra shakes her head,"I thought it would",
"You don't know why Kywa did what she did", Adora said sympathetically.
"You're making excuses for her?!", Catra said with annoyance in her voice.
"I'm not making excuses, people making choices Catra, not all of them are good, you of all people should know that". Catra flinches at Adora's word, but couldn't deny she had a point.
"Remember what I told you. When we were in the portal?",
How could i forget, Catra thought,"you made your choice, now deal with it",
"Exactly and I never understood why you opened the portal-",
"I wanted to cause problems on purpose", Catra says in a slightly lighter tone.
"...Catra", Adora said seriously.
"Sorry bad joke",
Adora sighed, "maybe once both of you have cooled down, you might be able to under-"
Catra interrupted, "No Adora, I'm not ready to understand just yet, you...you have to at least let me be angry".
Adora goes to say something but stops and just nods silently.
Kywa jumped down to a small riverbank away from everyone, her eyes still red and her chest heaving, she put her hand under the trickling waterfall bringing it up to her sliced ear, letting the coolness ease the pain, she winced a little at the initial sting and checked her fingers to see if she was still bleeding, she wasn't.
Still might need a stitch, she thought to herself, she sighed heavily and put her head in her hands, she was upset at so many things finding out her mother was gone, when she didn't even get a chance to say goodbye, finding out that her own sister was the cause of it, but the thing that got to her the most was,
Now i don't feel bad about leaving you in that box!
Why did she say that to Catra?, She ran her fingers back through her hair, that wasn't even what happened that day, I didn't just leave her there to be taken!.
Because you wanted to hurt her, said a matter-of-factly part of her brain. You wanted to hurt her because she is to blame for taking your mother away. She felt her tears resurfacing and stuck her head under the cold water of the waterfall, the rising sorrow in her chest slowly subsided as the ice cold water hit the back of her neck. She left her head there for sometime before flicking her hair back and feeling the cold water run down the back, the relief didn't last long as she felt another pang of guilt.
Her thoughts drifted to how she had spoken to her father. Sure you had every right to be angry, anger though is one thing but to be that vicious, she shook her head, he was only doing what he thought was right and she had the nerve to treat him like that. She rubbed her temples and sighed loudly, if one of her own children spoke to her like that she'd be heartbroken so she could only imagine what her father was feeling right now. She stood up and tried to stretch out the stiffness in her muscles, ringing out her wet hair, she might as well head back, she would have to face both of them eventually.
Tao sits in a log chair in Percival's tent, staring at the flame of a burning candle and distractedly playing with his silver wedding band.
Percival pours out two cups of tea and offers one to Tao, which he takes, Percival then takes a seat across from him. They sit quietly for a moment, "I thought getting the girls here would be the hardest part",Tao said while aimlessly stirring his tea. Percival takes a sip,"I know things haven't gone well and the runestone has suffered because of it",
Tao shakes his head,"This is partially my fault, if i had swallowed my pride when Kywa got home i should have told her about Neara",
"Hindsight is a marvelous thing Tao, you couldn't have known then that this is how she would have reacted",
"I wasn't expecting Catra to be the cause of this either, her time with the horde was far more detrimental than i was lead to believe",
"To be honest, i would be more concerned with how she ended up with the horde in the first place",
Tao's eyes narrowed when he thought about what Kywa had said to Catra. "That is still something I will have to talk to Kywa about at some stage".
"There is still the pressing matter of the trial",
Tao gets annoyed at the sudden change of subjects,"Well answer me this Percival. How are we supposed to get them to complete the trial together? At this point I'm not even sure they want to talk to one another, there has to be another way to restore the runestones' power?",
Percival shakes his head,"The runestone is what connects all of our power here in halfmoon and the queen has always been the key to that".
Tao finishes his tea and places the cup on the table and closes his eyes. Neither of them hear Kywa come in, "Father?" she asks cautiously.
Percival gets up, "I shall leave you two alone".
Tao says with false bravado,"don't bother, there's nothing left to say, I would rather you go find Catra and bring her here",
Percival raises an eyebrow, "of course" he leaves the tent without another word. The tension in the air starts to build before Kywa finally speaks.
"Father, I'm sorry i-
Tao interrupted,"What have I told you girls about apologies? Never apologise to anyone….they are empty words unless you're willing to put in the work to make things right"
Kywa says nothing and just stands there uncomfortably, Tao continues, "and later you WILL explain to me how Catra ended up with the horde",
Percival reenters the tent with Catra and Adora. Tao notices they quickly exchange a glance at each other but nothing more is said. A small bubble of hope rose in his heart he was certain he saw remorse in both their eyes but he wasn't entirely sure. He steadied his nerves, he was never the best disciplinarian he always left that to Neara but right now they needed direction.
"Sit, both of you",he said as forcefully as he could muster, both the girls sat down across from their father, they said nothing.
"Thanks to your rift earlier the runestone has been affected", both Catra and Kywa get ready to open their mouths to say something. Tao cuts them off immediately.
"NOT A WORD! From either of you!, you've both said and done more than enough, now you will listen!". They both look down at the floor. Tao eyes them both before continuing.
"This is no longer about you two!, this affects everyone in halfmoon!, with the queen…..gone, the power of the runestone needs to be restored".
"What do we need to do?",Catra asked coolly.
"Complete the trial of D'riluth",Kywa answered without looking at Catra.
"Who is D'riluth?",
"I can answer that for you", Percival said,"D'riluth was the first Magicat born from the cosmos and upon her was bestowed the power of continuum, which automatically put her at odds with the ancient First Ones, they did not like the fact that a single being could control illusionist magic as strong as that, So as to protect her power from them she split it across two runestones, which is why it was important there was always at least two children descendants of D'riluth in order to hide the magic from the First Ones, this was like this for many millennia until your mother Neara, but now with her gone the runestones are slowly losing power"
"And so are all the magicats?" Kywa asks
Percival nods,"Yes if we don't complete the trial soon we will all be powerless".
Kywa sighs,"You already know my answer is yes, I will complete the trial".
Catra frowns and looks to Adora for guidance, Adora nods,"I'd like to go with Catra, if that's possible"
Percival shakes his head,"Unfortunately you are a First Ones descendant and the inner runestone chamber will not let you in",
"So you're saying it will be just Kywa and I?", Catra asks.
"Yes, i know things have been difficult but you'll have to try and work-"
Catra interrupts,"Ok i'll do it, when do we start?",
Percival gets excited,"As soon as possible"
Catra gets up to leave, Kywa stands and clears her throat, "Thank you Catra", Catra takes a moment to inhale, letting the anger simmer down before speaking,"I'm not doing this for you". Catra leaves without saying another word, Adora follows Catra outside,"That was impressive, i wasn't expecting you to say yes", Catra frowns,"Yeah well i did". She didn't need to tell Adora that getting Kywa alone was exactly what she wanted.