For Fio in the SPOP Writers Discord Server Gift Exchange, who said she would love a CatrAdora soulmate AU!
Special thanks to Crack-Fic Casey who did an amazing job betaing this for me.
Sparks
Adora knew the moment it happened that this was the scene that was going to play on repeat in her nightmares from then on. Weeks have passed since. She figures she should be desensitized to it by now... But every time her sleeping mind brings up the smoking ruins of Thaymor, she knows she is going to have her heart broken all over again.
"Come with me," she breathes, her heart in her throat. For the first time since she can remember, she allows herself a hope that she never allowed herself before. Her hand reaches out to Catra, pleading. "You don't have to go back there. We can fix this."
She knows she's dreaming, not only because she recognises the memory. It overlaps easily with other memories, those of the two of them sat side by side, planning their lives together. Adora and Catra versus the world. It doesn't stop the pain when Catra all but says no. It hurt more than the shock staff did, watching her back away into the smoke, eyes wide as she took in Adora's new form, sparks drifting away...
Adora never wants to be without her.
She wakes up feeling cold. A quiet gasp leaves her lips. Adora curls in on herself as she sits up, a weak hand reaching for her feet, knowing that it will find nothing. She feels the tears running down her cheeks, focuses on keeping her breaths quiet. When finally, she gets her emotions under control, Adora wipes her eyes and looks to the floor. The light of the moons lets her see clearly both Glimmer and Bow, sprawled out in their sleeping bags. She notices the sparks gently flowing between them. She allows herself a short moment of envy before smiling, glad for their company. She owes them both so much. It's not their fault Catra chose to stay with the Horde.
Adora knows on some level that she shouldn't blame herself. She still does.
The Rebellion is full of words and customs that Adora doesn't quite understand at first. She takes notes, makes lists. She tries so hard not to let on how much she doesn't understand but Bow and Glimmer seem to see right through her.
Adora sighs as they both give her a meaningful look over lunch. She must have been ruminating too hard on the last word she learnt, but she's getting better at asking, honestly.
"What's a wife?" Adora surrenders, smiling awkwardly as she reaches for another fruit. Or was the word sweet bread? Whatever. It's tasty and will help her overcome her embarrassment. "Netossa called Spinnerella her wife earlier. What did she mean by that?"
Glimmer chuckles. "That's what's been bothering you?" There's nothing mean-spirited about the way Glimmer says the words, her smile fond as she leans across the table on her elbows.
"Spinnerella is Netossa's wife, which means she is her life partner. When two people love each other very much and are married, wife is one of the words used to describe what one person means to the other." Bow provides helpfully. His eyes sparkle as he sips at his soup. Adora quickly learned that Love was one of his favourite topics. She takes a moment to process his answer, excitement thrumming through her at discovering that there are words for these things.
"Does that mean that you are Glimmer's wife, Bow?" she asks, perfectly serious. Adora does not expect Bow to then choke on his food. His face darkens visibly as he turns pleading eyes towards the Brightmoon Princess.
Glimmer laughs out loud, but there's a blush on her cheeks too as she waves at Adora while shaking her head.
"No, Adora, Bow and I are not married. And if he was married, Bow would probably use the word Husband or Spouse." Glimmer reaches over to give Bow a helpful thump on the back. He coughs and nods his thanks, even if the hit was probably more forceful than required.
"Adora, you're going to kill me," he wheezes.
Adora blinks at them both, confused. She'd felt certain there for a second that she'd found a word to describe the distinct sparkling feeling she gets around certain people, like Bow and Glimmer, where it's clear that they belong together.
"But you both love each other," she says. It's evident to her that love is a big component of the sparks she senses between them.
The two share a look, one that Adora recognises from years living with cadets sharing the 'help me out here' thought. She frowns.
"Love comes in many forms," Bow says slowly, warily. "Glimmer is a dear friend to me but it's not... We're not..."
"It's not like we're soulmates," Glimmer rolls her eyes, crossing her arms as she pouts and turns to face out into the gardens.
If anything, the sparks that Adora feels between Glimmer and Bow intensify. Wincing, Adora allows herself to ask one more question before hopefully steering the conversation back to the safe topic of food.
"Soulmates, huh?" Libra, Brightmoon's librarian, is an agreeable sort. He guides Adora through the rows of bookshelves towards a section near the middle. The end of the row leads onto a window with a cushioned bench beneath it, clearly a welcoming reading nook in contrast to the more studious desks and chairs in other sections. "I didn't expect the great She-Ra to be into romance novels, but here, I'll help you pick some out."
Adora does not ask what romance is. She's sure the books shall answer that. The blond man reaches up for various books that he grabs from the shelves, smoothly building a pile of dog-eared, battered looking tomes with colourful covers. He mutters some more to himself, debating various picks. Adora doesn't really listen, wondering quietly if she should ask him for haircare tips. His long blond locks look as silky as She-Ra's. Adora is having pretty intense hair envy.
Soon enough, the Librarian leaves her to a pile of books that he welcomes her to borrow so long as they don't leave the castle grounds. She starts pawing through them, confused at first by the art on the covers and unhelpful titles. The covers read like extracts from Plumerian songs: all flowery language and pictures of impractically clothed characters staring into each other's eyes. Adora sighs and scratches her head. Seeing that not one of these books indicates itself to be a treatise or guide on the subject of soulmates, she whittles down the pile to books that actually mention soulmates on the cover and picks the one that she likes the look of most. Adora isn't fooling herself really: she knows she decided to start with this one when she noticed the depiction of a pretty woman with cat ears on the front.
She's two chapters in when she realises that the book is clearly a work of fiction. The writing is immersive, unlike the dry manuals she was used to in the Horde, but as soon as she realises the book is treating the ability to find one's soulmate via a magic tattoo as fact, she forces herself to put it down.
"That doesn't make sense," she mutters, turning to the next book. She plucks one at random, skim reading through the first few chapters. There's mention of seeing the world only in black and white, until the main character meets this one person and suddenly the world is full of colours. Adora's frown deepens.
After an hour of rapidly flicking through the books, a theme emerges. All of these books are fiction. All of them make up some elaborate means of identifying one's destined life partner, be it an identifying mark, a magical connection of some sort, or a ritual used to reveal it. It's as though...
It's as though the writers don't know that it's something you can just sense.
That's one thing that the books have managed to confirm for Adora at least. Soulmates is the word for the connection she can feel between people. The way the characters are immediately drawn to one another, the confusing feelings the connection stirs up, the desperate need to be at each other's side, always... She knows that feeling well, can see signs of it aplenty in the couples she's sensed such a connection from, be it Bow and Glimmer or Spinnerella and Netossa.
A horrible suspicion dawns on her. She stands up, feeling queasy, and returns the books to their helpfully labelled places on the shelves. She's done looking at the question for now. There's an Alliance meeting she needs to attend in half an hour. Winning the war takes precedence over figuring out this... this... The Soulmates thing.
Still, she can't quite bring herself to put the first book she looked at back. Libra did say she could borrow it for a while.
It takes a couple of years before Adora lets herself reconsider the question again. Years full of pain and heartbreak, as she watches the woman that she loves with all her heart grow into the most formidable of opponents. She'd felt hope, for one short-lived moment, in the Portal Reality, that she could set things right, make amends. It didn't work out in the end. She couldn't save Catra. Not when she didn't even want to save herself. Now Adora doesn't even know if Catra is alive. There's been no sign of her in the weeks since Horde Prime's fleet arrived on Etheria. The last person to have possibly seen her would have been Glimmer, and she's...
Adora glances at Bow. She's sat on a log, watching him barter with a merchant among the latest batch of refugees that they're escorting. There's a nervous energy to him that she doesn't recognise, a desperation that she knows is because he saw Glimmer taken away. He's so strong, she thinks. She has no idea how he is holding himself together through it all. In his shoes, she knows she would be falling apart. She already is. Meanwhile Bow is working himself to the bone trying to fix up Mara's old space-ship with Entrapta. Adora grips her hands tight around her staff. She's so powerless now, so useless...
"Hey Adora, are you holding up okay?" Netossa's voice startles Adora out of her spiral. Her grip on her staff slackens, and she looks up to see the two wives that have steadfastly stood at the heart of the Alliance. Adora sighs as she takes in the sensation of their shared bond – playful sparks flitting in the wind. The steady bond between the two is something that Adora has come to find comforting. It reminds her of the innocent what-ifs she used to dream of.
"I'm fine," she replies, fully aware of how unconvincing she sounds. She interrupts what ever call-out Netossa was away to deliver with a question of her own. Adora's hands shake a little. "Hey, can I... Can I ask you guys something?"
They exchange a look full of sparks aplenty before sitting down either side of Adora. The company feels nice, though it feels hard to voice her question with the two looking expectantly at her.
"What do you want to ask?" Spinnerella says, her voice soft like the hand she places on Adora's shoulder.
"How..." Adora swallows. She's not allowed to tear up. Not when all these people are losing their homes and fleeing harm. Not when she should have been able to prevent this. "How did you guys know? That... That you were it, for each other?"
There's a moment of silence as the two princesses assess Adora's question. It's actually refreshing, to ask something that won't affect a life-or-death situation but should address an uncertainty that's been gnawing away at her for longer than she'd care to admit.
"Well, that is an interesting question. Do you want to go first, Spinny?" Netossa grins, playful and fond as she looks across to her smiling wife.
"Of course, dear. Let me think." Spinnerella crosses her arms, her sleeve scarf brushing against Adora's arm as she hums. "I wonder if it was that time Netossa offered to exchange chockers," there's a sarcastic smirk on Spinnerella's face, as she glances meaningfully at a reddening Netossa, "or the time she took me to the singing river and-"
"Hey," Netossa interrupts, looking flustered in a way only Spinnerella can get her. Adora's eyes are wide as she watches Netossa spin her hand in the air in frustration. "I was going to say something sappy, like the first time we kissed or something."
"Right, because you had no inkling when you started holding my hand under the table at Alliance meetings." Adora forgets sometimes just how ruthless Spinnerella can be. She's generally so gentle, but the competitive nature of her and Netossa's relationship is definitely an aspect that Adora admires. Spinnerella relents on teasing Netossa and turns back to Adora, her voice dropping to a stage-whisper. Her eyes twinkle with mirth. "Honestly, don't tell Netossa, I figured she was something special the first time I laid eyes on her, though it's only when she first caught me in one of her nets that I knew I was a goner for her."
Spinnerella's face is terribly fond when she looks back to Netossa once more, the other woman speechless, her eyes wide in quiet awe. Adora's heart pangs, but she is grateful. It confirms a long running suspicion, even if she's not sure what to make of it yet.
"Hm. I... Why do you ask Adora?" Netossa coughs, finally regaining her composure as a smug Spinnerella sits up and hums. "Has someone caught your eye? Do you need someone to talk through your feelings with? Please don't say it's Huntara, because I'll-"
"No!" Adora blurts out. She can't deny finding the teasingly nicknamed 'Princess of the Wastes' attractive, but she is definitely not telling these two that she's pining over Catra when she's not busy agonising over not-being-good-enough for Etheria. "No. I just... I figured it was something that should be obvious. Like... Like when you first meet your person you..." Her mind goes back to when she was five years old, helping a spiky haired kitten-girl out of a carboard box. Gold and blue eyes had met hers, a sharp incisor drawing Adora's gaze to the cheekiest grin she had ever seen. "You just know? Like you can feel this spark between you; when your hands touch it's like a current flowing through your veins and just being near them invigorates you? I..."
Honestly, if she'd never experienced this before finding the sword, Adora would just put it under weird She-Ra stuff, like how she can sometimes hear what Swiftwind hears, or feel the shift of Etheria's magic in the soil under her palm. Wait, no, like how she used to be able to... She glares at the staff in her hands and sighs.
A hand against her back, gentle. Netossa's, Adora thinks as she closes her eyes.
"Listen," the woman says, her voice gentle but matter-of-fact. "It would be so easy if it was like in those Soulmate Romances," there's humour in the cadence Netossa uses, a wistfulness that has Adora turning to look at her. "Everyone's experience of love is different. Moons above, when I first met Spinnerella, I found her so annoying," a teasing grin, clearly aimed at the mentioned spouse who huffs in response, "but the key really is in communication. In both parties agreeing to give each other a chance and working to make the dream a reality. Love wouldn't have so many songs written about it if it were easy."
Stars above does Adora know love is hard. But something in what Netossa said sticks with her.
"Thanks," she says, giving an earnest half-smile for what feels like the first time in months. "That helps actually."
The couple cheer, before starting to bicker about the early days of their romance, Spinnerella wanting to know exactly in what ways Netossa found her annoying at first. Adora chuckles and gets up to go help Bow move the large First Ones ship part that the Merchant has finally agreed to part with.
Communication, she thinks, and giving each other a chance... Maybe, one day.
Around a month later, the moment happens. It's tentative at first: an argument in the spare room on Mara's ship, Catra torn up and scared, lashing out because it's all she's known. And then she asks Adora to stay.
It took a lot between that moment in space and Adora finally telling Catra the full extent of her feelings. Like, a world-ending amount of a lot. But they both survived, learned to talk to each other about their desires and affection, suffered through therapy sessions together and finally discovered what it was like to be able to relax in each other's arms while in company.
Adora has never been happier. She's leaning back in Catra's arms, feeling the rumble of her purr vibrating through her back, giggling as Catra tickles at her sides when she flicks her ponytail in Catra's face one time too many.
"Careful Adora," she whispers playfully, a single claw drawn out to poke at her skin, "or that hair-tie is going to join the pile."
The pile of broken hair-ties in their bedroom is plenty full. Adora only has a few functional ties left. The only reason she's still tying her hair up is to see how long it will take Catra to snap through the rest. Adora is starting to like the feel of her hair draping over her shoulders. She just grins up at the love of her life.
"Alright," a chirpy Glimmer calls out to the room. "I'll go next. My question for the room is..."
Glimmer taps thoughtfully on her chin as she observes the whole room. It's an all-princess sleepover, with Bow and Seahawk sprawled across cushions next to their other halves. Entrapta is sat happily in the corner, sending messages to Hordak via her data pad between observing various interactions and catching up with Scorpia. Perfuma is the very image of relaxation as she hums along to the song Bow is playing from a small speaker, a memento from one of the Best Friends Squad's now many travels into space. Adora taps her fingers along to the tune, trying to remember the steps of the accompanying dance. Frosta, sat next to Spinnerella and Netossa, is positively vibrating in anticipation of the question Glimmer is thinking up.
"When did you know you were in love?" Glimmer knows exactly what she's doing to Frosta as she drops her hands to her hips, a confident smirk on her face. Frosta groans and collapses onto her back, protesting loudly at Glimmer's clear busybody-ness with regards to her love life. Catra laughs, but Adora feels a now unusual spike of anxiety at hearing the question. She's going to have to answer that. She doesn't have it in her to lie by omission. Timidly, she looks up at Catra who's teasing a blushing Scorpia. Adora wonders what Catra will make of her answer.
They go around the room, listening to various couple's answers. Scorpia and Perfuma's answers are every bit as sweet and romantic as Glimmer and Bow's are, harking back to the days of the war, when battle forced them to confront the truth in their hearts. Entrapta starts a long tangent and threatens the room with a slide presentation before Catra asks her nicely just to confirm the when. Adora is pleasantly surprised when Entrapta phrases it as within their first three meetings. Her impression of other people's perception of love has her thinking it takes them forever to see the obvious.
Seahawk and Mermista's answers make for a long and epic back-and-forth, as the two describe a series of mishaps involving fire, water, and being kicked out of several venues on their first proper date. When SeaHawk threatens to start a new shanty Glimmer masterfully redirects the rooms attention onto Frosta.
Frosta's answer is like pulling teeth, with Glimmer, Mermista, and surprisingly Perfuma taking turns to ask for elaborations and salient details as nineteen-year-old Frosta describes finally building up the courage to approach the person she likes. She refuses to name them, claiming that she doesn't want them to face the inquisition. The glower Frosta directs at the three has Adora stifling a chuckle. Adora melts a little though, when Frosta describes how their saying yes to a date had all her uncertainties flying out the window instantly. They've been on three dates now. Frosta is going to visit their family next month.
"That sounds really nice, Frosta," Adora says. It's a mistake, because now the Princess of the Snows is grinning at her with malice.
"How about you, Adora? When did you know Catra was the one? I'm dying to know." Frosta's smug expression is undeterred by Adora's glare.
Catra, clearly sensing Adora's unease, leans forward and tightens her hug around Adora's torso. The pressure feels nice, and Catra's purr helps ground her. The current between them is constant.
"I knew when we were like eight," Catra answers first. That grabs Adora's attention. "When Adora went and called Octavia a dumb-face for me."
Catra's smiling in that way that Adora now knows is just for her. She feels tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She had no idea Catra had figured it out so young. Not since she realised that Catra couldn't sense it in the way she could.
"I..." Adora's voice is quiet as she starts. "I thought everyone just knew instantly. We... The Hoard didn't teach us the words for love or... or Soulmates," she chokes a little on the word, feeling her face warm up at Netossa's suddenly sharpened attention. Catra has gone bizarrely still. Adora can't stop now though. The words are just starting to pour out. "But I've... I have always been able to tell? When... When two people belong together, I mean. It's like I can sense the sparks happening between them when they're near each other."
Adora twists herself around, desperate to see Catra's face as she says the next part. She looks stunned, confused. Her ears are attentive, and her tail is bolt upright still. Adora gently puts a hand on Catra's cheek, massaging some of the fuzz near her hairline. Sparks are raining out from her touch.
"That day that we first met: I'll never forget. When I held your hand to pull you out of that box, I felt so many sparks running through us, I was convinced that was why your hair was all spiky."
Catra stares, dumbfounded, as Adora tells her the most startling thing she has ever heard.
Catra once spent so long thinking Adora didn't love her, that Adora wasn't letting herself choose love for herself, that she had convinced herself that it could never be. It took a dumb, misguided rescue mission, a noticeable redesign of She-Ra's outfit, and a repeated number of desperate pleas from the blond woman for Catra to even suspect her feelings could be returned. To hear that, for Adora, their love for each other had always been obvious, it's making her question things...
The room around them is a cacophony of noise. Disbelieving shouts from Glimmer and Bow, who probably had to put up with Adora's repressed pining the most, a sarcastic quip from Mermista as Entrapta twitches, slowly inching up towards them with her recording device at the ready. Frosta seems to be having a crisis. Whether it's at the thought that Adora might just know who her date is, or worrying about whether they are actually soulmates, who knows.
Catra's breath stills as she stares into Adora's silvery-blue eyes. The moment feels electric, like Catra could almost see the sparks reflected in Adora's eyes. Catra will not be surprised if it turns out her tail is entirely puffed out.
She thinks back to their childhood, to their teenage years on the rooftops of the Fright Zone. So many moments of Adora, confidently speaking of their future together, side by side, hand in hand. She remembers how even on the roughest training days, Adora would beam upon noticing Catra enter the room. And then...
Adora's heartbroken, defeated look when Catra had zapped her, trying to bring her back to the Fright Zone on Shadow Weaver's orders. How every time she saw her after, she seemed more distant, despite her eyes lingering on Catra more than was safe on a battlefield. They've spoken, since, of how they both bee-lined for each other in combat; how it was in part driven by their mutual need to touch, to reach and connect with the other. Adora always looked so pained...
"You..." Catra's voice is a whisper, her mind now replaying a conversation they had while in the Portal. Adora asking Catra what it was she really wanted. "You figured out that I couldn't tell the same way you do. When you joined the Rebellion."
Adora's small, teary-eyed nod has Catra shaking. All this time, Adora had known that their love was meant to be mutual. She had spent years essentially grieving because she realised that Catra had never known, couldn't know, because they'd both committed to opposing sides of a decades long war. Adora had looked so relieved when Catra had let out her deepest secret, the words 'I love you too' slipping out like a truth she'd been holding in, but found so obvious.
Catra thinks to all the little moments since, the wonder in Adora's eyes whenever they wake up together, the way her eyes seem to fix on some floating speck of dust when they hold hands, the way Adora's touch sometimes makes Catra's fur stand on end in the most pleasurable way. There have been times when they've been together, that Catra has felt like she can feel, and maybe fleetingly see the sparks that Adora mentions.
"You beautiful idiot," Catra chokes out, tears forming in her eyes as she smiles. She's grasping the sides of Adora's head now, but it's Glimmer she addresses with her next words. "Sparkles! Adora and I need some privacy, stat'."
The nauseous feeling of Glimmer's teleport magic is worth it when, after hearing the fading tinkling of Glimmer teleporting away from Adora and Catra's room where she's taken them, Catra gets to kiss a stunned Adora with all the passion a long night of socialising with their friends allows. Adora's certainly not complaining, her hands reaching into Catra's hair, her return kiss every bit as heated. They do however, both require air to breathe. When they gasp apart, Adora collapsing onto their rug, she looks stunned.
"Hey, Adora. You alright down there?" Catra snickers, enjoying the view as Adora catches her breath.
"I-" A gasp. Catra needing at Adora's abs is clearly distracting, but Adora is undeterred. "I thought you'd be mad?"
That stills Catra's hand, her purr trailing off like a question.
"Mad that my part-time Goddess of a wife has another bullshit power to add to her list? Or that you never told me?"
Adora hesitates. She nods, then shakes her head. Gently, she pushes Catra off her hips and pulls her knees in to her chin, knuckles whitening as she tightens her hands on her slacks. She takes a deep breath, exhales. It's been a while since Catra saw Adora counting the seconds between breaths.
She gives her wife the time she needs to answer. They have all night. They're not going anywhere.
"I... I thought, that maybe..." Grey-blue eyes, locked into the middle distance. Words timid, scared. Catra offers Adora a hand that she takes as she continues. "This, like, soulmate-sense thing. I know some people find the idea of it scary, having a pre-destined lover. I don't know if what I sense means that one will only ever have that one chance at true love. I don't even know if it's necessarily romantic. I just... Worried that if I told you, you'd think it was some mind game. That it was just a ploy to try and get you to leave the Horde... And then after Horde Prime, I-... I couldn't. I couldn't tell you that all the suffering we'd been through might have been avoided if we just talked. If I'd found the courage to tell you how I felt sooner."
Adora laughs, small and self-derisive. Her other hand goes to her forehead, brushing her hair back.
"I always found it so easy to show my appreciation for you with my actions. To listen when you needed an ear. To hold you when you needed held..." A sigh, deep. "It just felt so impossible to say, until... Until you..."
It's taking everything in Catra to stay still as she listens to Adora, lets her speak. The nervous worries Catra's been wrangling for all of her life like to remind her of their existence in moments like this: vulnerable, pivotal moments, where Catra needs to close her eyes and trust those she cares about. It's become easier with therapy, but it's still difficult at times.
"Until I did it first..." Catra finishes, squeezing Adora's hand in hers. "It's okay Adora. I'm not mad."
"...Why?" A single tear is running down Adora's cheek as she turns her head back to Catra.
"Because you left the choice with me." Catra replies easily. "You gave me the agency to act on my feelings myself. And because... You never stopped thinking of me. You believed in me at my lowest. You've helped me become the best version of myself I could ever be..."
Catra tries not to over-interpret Adora's responding sob. She strokes soothing circles onto her magnificent shoulders, holds Adora as she lets out all the emotion she's been bottling up.
"Because I love you Adora," Catra finishes with a kiss to her brow.
"I love you too," Adora responds, part laugh, part cry. Her arms reach out for Catra's waist as she buries her head in her neck. "I love you too," she repeats, and Catra can feel the smile on her face echoed on Adora's as she moves against her collar bone.
"Thank you for telling me," Catra says, rocking Adora gently as the tears finally seem to subside. She cards her fingers through the gorgeous long hair; the tie somehow having snapped by itself. "Do you want to go back to the party, or...?"
Oh, there are sparks for sure in Adora's eyes as she pulls back to glare at Catra.
"Cuddles!" Adora demands petulantly.
Catra chuckles, shaking her head.
"Come on, you big lump. Let's get up off the floor so we can cuddle in our sinfully comfy bed then."
And if Catra feels a spark as Adora grabs her hand and leaps up to guide her there, no one needs to know but the smile on her face.
Fin