The area outside the runestone chamber was abuzz with magicat activity, as word had gotten out that Neara's daughters were going to complete the trial of D'riluth. Adora was sitting on a high rock ledge as the small crowd gathered below, she could only watch as Catra and Kywa prepared for the trial, she focused on Catra's face trying to read her expression but it wasn't giving anything away, she was worried about her, the more she thought about it the more she was certain there was something a little off about the way Catra agreed to doing the trial so quickly. Adora sighed loudly, trying to shake the niggling feeling in her gut.
Tao came over and patted Adora on the shoulder and then sat down beside her,"You're worried too?",
Adora nodded,"How come you're not down there with them?",
"Purrsians aren't magicats, so right now i'm in the same boat as you all i can do is watch",
"Do you think they'll be ok in there?",
Tao sighs,"I don't know Adora, I would love nothing more than to assure you everything will be fine, but after today's events...i just don't know. From what Percival has told me there was only ever one other time the trial was taken with conflicting siblings'',
Adora looked at Tao,"What happened to them",
Tao pauses for a moment before answering,"Neither of them came back", Adora looked down at Catra. Now she was more worried than ever and that niggling pain started to make her feel sick.
Catra and Kywa sit across from each other both of them dressed in a black tank top and shorts, a male magicat sits in between them in front of a fire pit, throwing in small pieces of bark and thin leaved branches that slowly fill the air around Catra and Kywa with a sharp and sweet smelling thick white smoke. Both of them had a female magicat sitting in front of them, each mixing up red ochre with a stone knife. Once the mixture was thick enough they started painting over the stripes on the girls fur as well as painting stripes on their legs and lastly the outline of the mask of D'riluth on their faces.
As the magicat was painting Catra's face she opened one of eye and looked over to Kywa," so have you done this before?",
Kywa answered Catra without opening her eyes,"a trial no, it hasn't been done for many years, way before our…..", her voice trails off, she pauses for a moment and frowns,"...our mothers time".
The female magicats finished their work and stood up. Percival appears from behind them,"It is time", both Catra and Kywa stand up. Kywa leaves behind Percival, Catra follows and notices that the stone knife has been left behind, she picks it up and hides in the back of her shorts.
Percival stands in front of the old stone entrance, the girls stand in front of him. He takes a moment to look at them both,"You're commencing this trial under less than ideal circumstances, the one thing you have to remember the inner chamber will sense your hostility to one another and try and use it against you", the girls nod silently and step forward to stand next to Percival as he waves his hand to open the door. Catra and Kywa walk past Percival and through the doors into a dark corridor, "D'riluth guide you", Percival says as the doors close and the girls are plunged into darkness.
They both create a small ball of light, moisture runs down the stone walls in pools across the dirt path, they exchange a wordless glance then start walking down the path behind them in the darkness appear several sets of evil red eyes. The shadows crawl across the walls and over the ceiling closing in on Catra and Kywa, Catra ears prick up at a familiar uneasiness and one of the shadows gently wraps its spindly fingers around her upper arm,"Thissssss one is filled with hatred", another shadow curled around Catra and came to rest on her other shoulder,"Yesssss, what a delightful sssssmell".
Another one dropped from the ceiling onto the ground behind her, running its fingers down her back, Catra freezes in place for a moment, the shadow crawled up her back,"Ah sssssshe wants to kill the other one", The other shadows give a low hiss. Catra closes her eyes,"Go Away" she says under her breath through gritted teeth.
Kywa turns around the shadows quickly hide behind Catra, "Are you ok?",
Catra quickly walks past Kywa, the shadows now divert their attention to Kywa as she walks behind Catra, one attaches its fingers around her shoulders,"The little one hassss caussssed you pain, sssssshe mussst ssssuffer",sticking out its fork tongue and licking her ear, Kywa narrows her eyes at Catra.
They come to the centre of the inner chamber, the runestones are ahead of them the colours are slowly fading, with the outer runestones slowing down their orbit. Behind the runestones is an iridescent waterfall. Kywa pushes past Catra,"There let's get this over with", she approaches the runestone ready to touch it when she spots Catra's reflection in the water pulling out the knife from her shorts, as soon as Catra lunges at her, the runestones platform suddenly ascends into the air, unleashing a torrent of water and washing both Catra and Kywa off the platform.
The shadows crawl into the inner chamber hissing with delight, as Catra and Kywa splash into the pool below. They both try to stand up as the torrential water still falls on them, Catra gets to her feet first with her wet hair sticking to her face. She eyeballs Kywa as she stands up, she looks at Catra and clenches her fists, "Come on then you wanna finish this now!"
Catra snarls and lunges at Kywa, Kywa is ready for her she grabs her and throws her against the wall and Catra falls into the water, she quickly gets back up to her feet and runs at Kywa tackling her Kywa lands hard on her back, Catra sits on top of her and puts her hands around Kywa neck forcing her head under the water, Kywa flails trying to get Catra to loosen her grip the shadows hissing became louder as they started to surround the girls. Kywa flailing started to slow down eventually one of her arms dropped into the water momentarily when Kywa brings it back out the red ochre markings are glowing and she extends her index finger, her claw touching Catra's forehead.
* * *What happened? Where am i?
Catra looked around. The surroundings were made out of grey marble
Halfmoon?! What is going on?!
Catra turned around at the sound of children laughing. She saw a younger version of Kywa running through the castle gates, then a younger version of Herself running after her,"Kywa wait for me!",
Kywa jumps up on a branch,"You're too slow!",
Catra jumps up and struggles to get up on the same branch,"No I'm not!",
Kywa scans the area, then points,"Over there, come on", she jumps down and takes off through the bushes, Catra jumps down and goes after her, they run through the forest until they get to the stream separating halfmoon from the whispering woods. Kywa has already picked out two boxes,"Ready?",
Catra smiles and nods,"Ready!", she runs and jumps into the box, Kywa giggles and carefully drags her box into the stream, the slow current gently moving the box downstream. Kywa brings her box into the stream and jumps in travelling just behind Catra. The stream starts to get a little faster, both of them are still giggling, Kywa turns her back distracted by a fish in the water and doesn't see the stream splitting into two, Catra's box heads off in the other direction.
Kywa turns back around and realises that Catra isn't in front of her anymore,"Elizabeth?!, ELIZABETH?!"
* * *Catra loosens her grip on Kywa's neck and falls back into the water. Kywa sits straight up out of the water, coughing and struggling for air. Catra looks down at her hands, surrounded by iridescent water,"What is this?"
Kywa's voice is hoarse, "It's called the lake of echoes", Catra frowns as she realises what she just saw, "Your memories?"
Kywa rubs her neck and nods. Catra sounds annoyed,"Why would you lie about leaving me in a box?"
"Why did you open a portal that killed our mother?",Kywa countered with equal annoyance.
Catra opens her mouth to answer the question, but says nothing. Kywa tilts her head trying to study Catra's face,"You don't know do you?",
Catra looks down at her distorted reflection in the water,"If you had asked that before I would've told you because I wanted to crush She-ra and the rebellion and it didn't matter what the cost was"
"Hang on, Adora is She-ra, how was that going to work?"
Catra sighed,"it made perfect sense at the time, the rebellion had taken my best friend and turned her into something else, there was a lot happening then….it's hard to explain".
Kywa cautiously comes a little closer to Catra sitting cross legged in front of her, the surface of the water shifted colours as Kywa gently ran her fingers across it, "Then help me understand"
Catra eyes widened, help me understand, the words sounded foreign to her, the only one that ever really understood her was Adora, that was only because they'd grown up together, help me understand, Catra repeated the words to herself, why did those words feel comforting.
"Why aren't you angry?"
"Oh no, I am still furious with you, your decision took her away from us, so I need to understand why".
Kywa notices the change in Catra's demeanour and gives her a soft smile,"however if you try to drown me again I will come back and haunt you".
Catra gave a small laugh and sat closer to Kywa, mirroring her cross legged pose,"I can't make any promises".
Catra looks around,"So how does this work?",
"Run your hand through the water and think of a memory",
"Any memory?",
Kywa nods, Catra closes her eyes and takes a deep breath running her hand through the water, the red ochre markings glowing, she brings up her index claw, her hand shaking with nerves and she touches Kywa's forehead. The red ochre markings lose their glow, "What happened?, It didn't work",
"Just take your time and try again", Kywa said reassuringly.
Catra repeats the process, the red ochre markings glow a little brighter this time and she touches Kywa's forehead. Kywa frowned and inhaled sharply. As a memory from Catra's past started to come into focus.