Chapter 45: Glass Figures
Catra initially suspected she wasn't truly awake when she first realized she was in space, standing in a room and staring through a triple-paned window at a debris field floating against a backdrop of stars, nebulae, and dust. When the doors in the far back of the room hissed open and Taline walked through, only to ignore her and sit at a table opposite a life-sized and fully corporeal Pip, she knew for certain she wasn't truly awake yet.
"Two visits in one day?" the real-Pip said, feigning surprise. "I'm touched."
Taline sighed and slumped forward, running her hands through her hair. "Not right now, Evie."
Catra gasped. It made sense now, why Pip had seemed so familiar when they first met. Catra had seen flashes of Evelyn way back on Prime's citadel, through his memories and a few of Taline's. She just hadn't made the connection years on, when Pip first appeared.
"You're the one stopping by my cell," Evelyn said. "If you needed a minute, why didn't you just take it before coming in?"
"First, it's not a cell, and second, because I can't take a minute out on my own. You don't personally commandeer a frigate and pull it from the front lines to respond to a distress signal without someone higher up the chain hearing about it and snooping for answers. Add to it the fact the captain has made such a big deal about it and any moment I don't look like I'm actively doing something I have half a dozen officers hounding me to file my official report of the incident with High Command."
Evelyn snorted. "Sounds like you need to get a Sentinel or two, then. You'd have no problem with people harassing you if you did. They'd put a stop to it."
Taline made a non-committal expression. "Maybe. Rumor has it High Command is actually going to mandate all mages have one. I guess there's some new findings that suggest the Beast grabbing one actually spawns a whole new, separate infection point. Getting one now won't change the fact the captain is still pissed off and it's my fault, though."
"Oh, please." Evelyn rolled her eyes. "Norognev will get over it, he's a big boy." She drummed her fingers on the table. "I know you, Tal. You wouldn't just come here to hide. You've made progress."
Taline nodded. "I've made more than just progress, I've gotten you what you wanted. There's a station…Phoenix station. Small, but it's got everything you told me you needed to finish this out. Was going to go to a new PhD from the Heartlands but I'm yanking it and giving it to you. That"—she reached into the breast of her Enclave uniform and withdrew a modest tablet, handing it over to Evelyn—"and I've started looking at staff. Here's where I think you could start."
Evelyn's eyes darted across the pad. Catra edged around to try and read it, but she couldn't make sense of the words no matter what she tried.
"Lysithea, surname redacted…quite a juvenile record. Currently in prison for…" Evelyn trailed off. "Rewiring the multistory PA holo-projectors in her home world's major commerce district to play, on repeat, a recorded performance of the punk idol group Spiritina and the Loo-Keys instead of the hourly Exaltations of Prime programming." She lowered the tablet and fixed Taline with a look of surprise.
"She's wicked smart, doesn't just suck up to authority, and is cheap, since she's currently incarcerated on the Emperor's prison planet on Theranis IV." Taline leaned back in the chair far enough her back popped and she grimaced. "There are others in there for you to look through too, but Lysithea is the only one that I think you wouldn't be able to live without. Give me a list of six or seven more…might be able to swing eight, we'll see. You'll have enough funds for six months."
Evelyn nodded. "More than enough time."
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Taline asked. "You started less than a year ago…you nearly died. The fact you didn't is a miracle, and now you want to plunge right back in? And I'm helping you….Empire above, I can't believe I'm helping. What would mom and dad have said?"
Evelyn reached forward and covered Taline's hand with her own on the table. "I have to do this, Tal. My team and I were so close to a breakthrough, and I'm the only one that can finish it in such a short amount of time. Anyone else and it will take years to get them back up to speed, by which time it will be too late. Ignominite will change everything, I promise."
A beat passed between them. When Taline nodded, Evelyn squeezed her hand, pulled back, and said, "I want Corynth on as my security again."
Taline sighed once more and ran her hands through her hair a second time. "I'll see what I can do about that, but my sway when it comes to the affairs of another Battlemage are nonexistent."
"That's fine, I already asked him to stay, and he said yes."
Taline frowned. "Then why did you ask me to try and get him?"
Evelyn smirked. "Just wanted to see if you'd push back on it or not. You like him, don't you."
Both Catra's eyebrows shot up as Taline pushed away from the table and stood so fast her chair nearly toppled backward.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Taline said, scowling when Evelyn started laughing.
"It's fine, it's fine," Evelyn said, waving her hands and stifling another giggle. "You don't have to play cold and aloof with me, sister. I'm impressed, really. Not just anyone can catch the eye of one of the youngest Battlemages in the Enclave's thousand-year history."
Taline gritted her teeth as she spoke. "He is currently the only person to have stood up to a manifesting Beast infestation and live, on top of saving your life. Forgive me for looking at him and feeling moderately impressed."
"Well, I just wanted you to know that you can continue looking at him, a lot, and I can continue forgiving you for it, a lot, as long as you also come visit me on Phoenix. A lot." She tilted her head in such a perfect rendition of the way Pip did it nearly broke Catra's brain when she saw it and said, in the sweetest, most innocent voice, "Did I also mention Corynth is going to be there as well?"
Taline huffed and rolled her eyes. "Just get me the list of people you want," she said, before storming out of the room.
Everything felt still once more after Catra watched her disappear down the hall. The door slid closed with a hiss. Another beat of silence. Then…
"Catra?"
She spun on her heel back at Evelyn, who was looking directly at her—seeing her.
"Catra, wake up."
"What?" A deep foreboding feeling invaded the area. Darkness started to creep in from the corners of her vision, sticking with her when she turned, panicking.
"Catra….Catra, you need to wake up."
She shot up out of the bunk, gasping for breath. Her hand went straight to her breastbone, feeling at the apeiron crystal still tied there, warm to the touch. Pip floated into view, blue once more and the size of a glass of water.
"Are you okay?" she asked, concern radiating from her big eyes. She had lost the deeply ingrained yet subtle expression of trauma-induced age Catra had noticed on Evelyn in the dream. Or was it a vision, technically?
::I'm alive,:: Catra said to her. ::Feels like I'm hanging on by a thread, honestly.::
She sat up, catching a glimpse of Diallo on the far side of the cell, sitting cross legged on another bed built into the wall. The next moment, a roaring headache stampeded through her head. Catra groaned, and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes to block out the light.
"Is there anything I can do?" Pip asked. "How do you feel? You look like you're in pain. Actually, dumb question, sorry, I know you'rein pain."
Despite having closed her eyes, Catra could still hear her as clearly as if she were speaking directly into her ear. Each word grated on her consciousness.
::Please stop talking.:: She gritted her teeth. ::No offense, but I think you being in my head and saying things is making it worse. Just…sit still and stay quiet for a bit. Please?::
Pip sent an indescribable imprint of 'understanding' through their connection, and Catra finally managed to relax.
"How did we end up in here?" she asked, speaking aloud this time to Diallo.
"The Vanguard g-got in right after I bopped Moriarty on the h-head. Then they threw both of us in h-here after." His voice seemed muted, and when Catra looked up, she noticed a thick sheet of glass stretched from floor to ceiling, separating their two cells. "They hit you pretty hard on the h-head. Do you not remember?"
Bits and pieces came back to her, and even if it hadn't, the pain in her head would have been testament enough. She nodded, immediately regretting it when only pained her head worse.
"I remember," she said. "You saved my life. He was either going to choke me out or crush my windpipe if you hadn't stepped in, although I suppose that only made you look even more guilty to the Vanguard. Thank you anyways."
"We were both dead if I didn't stop h-him," Diallo said. He took his glasses off and started cleaning it with his shirt, then replaced them on his face. "He began to s-suspect I was an insurgent too, near the end there."
Catra nodded and smoothed her fingers through her hair before putting her throbbing head into her hands.
"How long have you had n-nightmares like that for?"
"What do you mean nightmares 'like that'?" Catra asked. "Nightmares are nightmares."
"Not like what you just w-woke from." Diallo frowned. "I recognize it. The tossing, the s-screaming. You would not wake no matter h-how I called to you. I've only seen n-night terrors that bad from someone touched by the Beast."
Catra glanced down to Pip sitting cross-legged on her knee. She nodded with a sad look on her face that seemed to say "he's right, you know," and Catra sighed.
"Three years now," she said, reaching up and caressing the apeiron through her shirt. "That's how long it's been since I've been exposed to an imprint of its essence. Longer than that actually. The nightmares should have died down by now at least, but instead they're getting worse. I don't know what the deal is." Catra didn't feel comfortable disclosing what the nightmare was, how different it was from her usual fare. The best she could do was just say they were "getting worse."
"Beast terrors evolve w-with time," Diallo said. "They never remain s-static. Take it from someone who lived through the last w-war. It's quite common actually…even Taline gets them."
"I've never been directly exposed though. Just an imprint, like I said."
"Then consider yourself l-lucky, although judging by your reactions wh-while asleep, you could have f-fooled me."
That only made Catra more anxious. In truth, she worried over why her nightmares had not only failed to abate, but shifted entirely to now include moments that weren't hers. Why was she visiting Taline's memories in her dreams? Why had the apeiron crystal grown so hot when she woke up? Catra was already plenty fucked up to begin with having grown up in the Horde under Shadow Weaver's care. A part of her feared her exposure to the Beast, no matter how far removed from actually touching it she had been, had only fucked her up worse over time.
Pip crossed her arms and shot her a stern look, no doubt reading her sentiments. Catra ignored her.
"So what now?" Catra asked, pushing the conversation with Diallo forward before Pip got the wise idea to actually try and say something to her about her warped self-opinion. "I don't suppose we're going to come out of this one with a slap on the wrist, huh? Undercover operatives typically don't get out of jail. Look, they even took my tech away." She held up her right arm in front of her to show Diallo her PDA was missing.
"I will be released because of my political position. You will be released because Taline will come for you."
Catra perked up at that. "Really? What makes you so sure?
"Don't misunderstand me," Diallo said, his face darkening, stutter gone entirely. "She will not come for you out of any sense of altruism. She will come for you because you are her Sentinel, and Taline cannot sit by and let her new Sentinel rot in a hidden station prison cell."
Any feeling of relief Catra might have been feeling fled the moment Diallo finished his sentence. "What are you talking about?"
"I understand Taline has been a huge help to you since arriving on station, but you've seen only a carefully curated side of her."
Catra felt her fur stand on end and she scowled in time with Pip, sitting cross-legged on her knee. "Is this about Archanas again?"
"Among other things. She is not who she portrays herself to be, and I have a feeling you will discover that soon enough."
"If you know something then just tell me."
"I already told you it wasn't the first time she stepped foot on that planet when her and I first met. After the final confrontation with the Beast, and after her sister's passing. That period of time was filled with such atrocities that many who were lucky enough to live through it succumbed after the fact—from the nightmares that plagued them, from the horrors they couldn't forget. Not atrocities done by the Beast, but acts of evil and self-interest perpetrated by the people themselves."
"Yeah, it was a war," Catra said, frowning. "Bad shit happens. People suffer."
"Justify it however suits you," Diallo said. "Evil begets evil, and malice and cruelty expressed in some engender more of the same in others. Everyone has skeletons in their closet, and she has more than most. Far more than most. It would be foolish of you to operate under the assumption she cares in the way you hope. That is all I'm trying to impress upon you. She did not make you her Sentinel out of a sense of charity."
Catra growled and actually pushed away from the bed to stand, the shooting pain in her head be damned.
"I'm tired of this," she said. "Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful you saved my life but speaking in these twisted half-implications reminds me of someone I'd really rather forget." She stopped shy of the reinforced glass between them and slid all five claws down it. She couldn't even leave a mark. "What did Taline do? Tell me now or shut the fuck up about it, forever."
The sound of a heavy metal bolt sliding free echoed nearby, right outside in the hall. Catra, Diallo, and Pip all turned their attention toward the door. Two Vanguard soldiers dressed in full kit, rifle included, stepped into Diallo's cell and flanked the exit, while a third walked all the way in and loomed over him sitting on the ground.
"Get up," he said. "You're free to go."
Diallo looked unsurprised. He merely stood and headed for the exit, stopping just shy of it to turn and look at Catra, pushing his glasses up his nose again.
"That glass c-could withstand a direct hit f-from the guns of a fleet d-destroyer. I wouldn't exert yourself upon it out of f-frustrated. You'll just b-break your hand."
He disappeared through the door and out the adjacent cell without another word. One of the three Vanguard, Catra couldn't tell who, muttered a phrase that contained the words 'special political privilege' and 'bastard' in the same sentence before they too followed him out. The door shut behind them with a clang. Catra listened to the sounds of their feet retreat down the hall. After a moment, she heard another door open, then shut, and she was alone with Pip, once more in near complete silence.
"I don't like that man," Pip said, whispering in case she flared Catra's headache again.
::I don't like that he keeps implying things without explaining them,:: Catra said, returning to the bed and trying to keep her headache from spiraling further. ::Reminds me of a certain someone. She always used to imply in her tone of voice or choice of words that I was worthless and would never amount to much. And that was when she chose not to say it outright to my face, which also happened all the time, too.::
Pip flashed her a sympathetic look, then said, "You don't seriously believe what he said, though, do you?" When Catra didn't respond, she floated right up to her face and put both hands on her hips. "I don't believe for a second anything that he said about Taline. She's not perfect, but she isn't a monster. She doesn't have crazy secrets she's hiding from you, she's not playing some mind game, and she's not just using you. Diallo doesn't know what he's talking about."
"He's worked with her, Pip. For years now, and Taline's kept you on such a short leash you can barely tell me anything about her let alone yourself." Pip moved to respond but Catra didn't let her. "I don't believe him, for the record, but I also don't think he's just making shit up out of thin air. People do fucked up things in war all the time. Hell, I've done fucked up shit just trying to get back at the Rebellion back home. As much as I look up to her, I'm under no impression that Taline is a saint. If she's ashamed of something, she'd try to hide it just like anyone else."
Catra had half a mind to ask about what she had seen in the dream. Did Pip know Evelyn had modeled her after herself? Pip couldn't even recall being built by her.
"He's playing with your emotions and your insecurities," Pip said. "On purpose. Don't listen to what he says."
Catra heard the door at the far end of the hall outside her cell open up, heard another group of people approaching by the heaving thunking of their boots against the floor. The bolt to her own cell slid free and the door burst open, allowing Taline to stride through with two more Vanguard escorting her.
Taline locked eyes with her. "Wait outside," she said to her escorts. She didn't look happy, she didn't sound happy, and she didn't break eye contact with Catra waiting for the Vanguard to leave. They listened to their footsteps retreat down the hall. Again, the door in the distance opened and shut.
"What the hell did you do?"
Catra flinched. She'd already known Taline was frightening when upset. Never abusive like Shadow Weaver, but Glimmer had filled Catra in on just how scary her mentor could be on those rare times she'd slacked on her training or shown up late. Taline had just never directed that at her before, and no amount knowing beforehand that she was in store for a major ass chewing helped soften the blow when it finally arrived.
"Nothing to say for yourself?" Taline narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. "Can you not explain to me whyyou broke into the office of one of the most powerful people in the empire next to Horde Prime himself? Can you not explain why, in the middle of one of the most important public appearances this person was to make in a long time, you're up here setting off general alarms across all of Phoenix Station?"
"I had to—"
"What you had to do," Taline said, interrupting her hard enough even Pip shied away, "what you were supposed to do, was return that drive I gave you to Diallo. Not play secret agent and paint a target on your back large enough even an anti-orbital canon could hit you with an indictment on charges of grand espionage!"
Dozens of responses came and went in Catra's head. She tried to trap one of them, but they raced by too fast for her to corner. Her fur stood on end. Her heart somehow both beat so fast she feared it might stop, and simultaneously lodged itself in her throat, closing it up. This whole situation triggered images of Shadow Weaver, demons she thought she'd conquered long ago. Catra was reduced to a huddled mass, pushing into the corner of the cell. It'd been so long since she'd felt this ashamed.
Then Taline said something that broke the spell. Something that Shadow Weaver would never have asked her.
"I don't understand, Catra. I may have a soft spot for you, but that doesn't mean you can take advantage of your relationship with me for things like this."
Catra stilled. The question, the change in demeanor…it was so different than anything Shadow Weaver would have ever done it actually stopped Catra in her tracks. "What did you say?"
"Did Diallo put you up to this? I know you were on rotation with Dax when he arrived. I know you were on his security detail. Did he talk to you before he came to see me? Is that why you stopped by at the same time? Did you accept being my Sentinel so you could do this? So he could try some new way to get me to go to that damned planet again?"
Tears welled in Taline's eyes as she spoke. Catra could count on one hand how many times she had accidentally made Adora cry when they were growing up, how terrible it had made her feel and how quickly and effusively she had worked to mend things between them the handful of times it had happened before Adora's defection. She couldn't handle tears, and the thought of having brought Taline to the brink of them shook her.
"That's ridiculous," Catra said. "Taline, do you even hear what you're saying? I sent a paper application in months before I'd ever met Diallo, how would I scheme with him for something like this? Why would I scheme with him? I wouldn't do that to you, you mean too much to me." As much as Catra wanted to make things right, Taline still looked moments away from ripping her head off despite the tears and she didn't dare so much as move from the bed.
The three scars on Taline's cheek, given to her by the Emperor when she defended them against his wrath and only visible if one were looking at her from a certain angle, seemed to shimmer in the low light of the cell. All at once, the light dimmed further. A suffocating feeling bloomed in the small space they shared, a strong sense that the walls were closing in on them.
The corners of her vision pulled in, darkness seeping around like an ever-marching creep of vines. From that darkness, shadows bloomed. Moving shadows, and voices in the air began to whisper. When Catra turned her head to look directly at whatever was lurking, she saw nothing except new shadows in the new corners of her vision. When she strained her ears to hear the whispers, the seemed to grow farther away and more vigorous at the same time, and she still couldn't understand them.
"What's going on?" Catra spoke the question out loud even though she intended it for Pip who, for her part, looked just as terrified as Catra felt.
"Lies!"
Catra jerked up and saw Taline, eyes ablaze and skin patterned with white-hot ley lines of magic, standing straight backed with her hands fisted and trembling at her sides. Her hair swirled about her, weightless amid her display of magic. Catra felt it buffet her in waves emanating from Taline, a miasma that seemed to incarnate the very concept of rage and betrayal.
I wouldn't do that to you. Catra's words from earlier echoed around the cell, incorporeal, and now spoken by a man whose voice she had never heard before. You mean too much to me.
"Lies, all of it lies! You lie!"
"Taline, what are you—"
Pip floated up between them before Catra could do anything. "She can't see you," she said. "She's somewhere else right now. Don't get up, it's dangerous."
The shadows grew more defined and pulled further toward Catra's center vision. It almost seemed like she was in a different space entirely—a vast open courtyard, hundreds of stories up, surrounded by skyscraper buildings on all sides.
Dozens of persistent shadowed forms ran by or grouped up and moved as a team. It looked like they were fighting, if Catra had to guess, phasing in and out of the small area of the cell as they moved about. Judging by the frantic whispers around them, it almost sounded like they were fighting, too. Taline was looking through her, of that Catra was certain. There was no recognition in her eyes.
A crack formed in the ballistic glass behind her. That crack spread from its one pinprick center outward, scintillating their reflection—Catra's looking at it and Taline facing away from it—into a thousand fractured splinters.
Catra nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw a new shadow reflected in those splinters. A tall, amorphous blob of a person stood there as if they were inside the reflection, and they had just one defining feature: two nearly perfect circular eyes like unblinking lamps of starlight, staring out at them from its mask of shadow.
You know me, Taline.
There was no logical reason to assume it was the figure in the glass speaking, but somehow, she knew.
You mean too much to me, and you know I wouldn't lie to you about something like this. The Barrier is our only chance. We need you, now more than ever.
Taline spun on her heel and roared. "You've lied the entire time!" She lunged and threw a hand out, where a bolt of lightning lashed out and struck. It shattered the partition into pieces, obliterating the man in the reflection as shards of glass exploded outward.
Catra dashed forward from the bed and grabbed Taline by the shoulder, intent on shaking her out of whatever headspace she had dragged thee both of them into. The moment her hand touched Taline's skin, it burned, and Catra yanked back with a hiss and a curse.
Taline rounded on her, finally noticing she was there but clearly not registering where she was, what was going on, or even who Catra was. In fact, by the way her face contorted further in rage, it seemed like Taline mistook her for one of the shadowed figures still darting around about them—no doubt phantoms from her past.
A life-sized blur of blue materialized to Taline's left, just as Catra was certain Taline was about to call forth another bolt of lightning for her specifically.
"Stop!" Pip stood there, corporeal and glowing, much larger than she had ever appeared before. "Taline, you need to snap out of it. You're not in the Heartlands. Corynth and the Daiamid are gone, there are no insurrectionists. You're scaring Catra half to death!"
Taline gasped and recoiled, taking a full three steps back before shaking her head and blinking rapidly. Pip disappeared and reappeared, miniature and see through once more, perched on Catra's knee with a perturbed expression.
The shadows abated, and the grueling, suffocating feeling that had infused the cell retreated too, along with the voices. Taline's eyes returned to their normal color, the ley lines disappeared, and her hair fell, mussed, back to her shoulders.
Catra sprung from the bed the moment Taline's eyes shifted to the shattered glass and widened in horror, closing the distance between them in two wide steps and pulling her into a fierce hug. Taline tensed a moment, then embraced Catra back, squeezing hard enough there was no space between them. If those shadows and visions were a roaring sea storm threatening to put her under, then Taline clung to Catra like she were the one anchor there capable of keeping her grounded.
"Catra, I'm—"
"No," Catra shook her head and pulled Taline in tighter. "No, don't apologize. You scared the shit out of me but you didn't hurt me. You came out of it before anything bad happened, I promise."
Taline and Corynth had history. Personal history. He had apparently rescued Evelyn early on, had stood up to the Emperor, and also saved everyone on the galaxy. He had also betrayed Taline in doing so. Catra had no idea if it was a true betrayal or not, and part of her wondered if that even mattered. Adora had betrayed Catra, even though it made sense why and even though it was the right thing to do. Even after Catra herself understood, it didn't change the fact it felt like a betrayal and hurt like a betrayal and, from a certain standpoint, that's all that mattered.
So, yeah. Catra understood now, why Taline thought the things she thought. She didn't even need the full context, she just understood. So many things, little things that she didn't understand or otherwise overlooked…they made so much more sense now.
"I saw her." Taline's voice came muffled against Catra's shoulder. "Evelyn was there. She pulled me out. I was lost and she pulled me out."
Catra angled her head to scrutinize Pip behind her. Pip set her jaw and didn't meet her eyes.
::Does she know?::
"The one time I showed myself to her was the only other time in the eight years I've been with her that she had an episode like that," Pip said through their link. "Seeing me triggered that in her. It's part of the reason I didn't pry her away from meditating on that apeiron around your neck after so many years. Until she gave it to you, I was afraid it was one of the few things still keeping her grounded."
::And seeing you pop up just now was what grounded her, this time.:: Catra concentrated on breathing deep and steady, trying to match Taline's pace and nonverbally lead her back to baseline. Idly at thee back of her mind, she remembered how she had once gone to comfort Shadow Weaver when she was distraught only to be pushed away. What a difference this was.
::This has really been going on the whole time she's stewarded you?" she asked Pip. ::Eleven years now?::
"It's never been bad like this," Pip said. "It's been getting worse. Her nightmares have been getting worse with it. They've never gone away, Catra. It's why I'm so worried about yours, too."
Catra sighed and stepped back, holding Taline at shoulder length. "Diallo told me your other Sentinels used to run undercover jobs for you. Used to get things done for you without explicit orders, so they could push your goals forward without jeopardizing your public standing. When I tried to return the drive to him, he said this was one of those times—that by telling me my first 'assignment' was returning it to him, you were really telling me to infiltrate Moriarty's office and crack the algorithm protecting the drive's contents." She shook her head, emphatically. "I'd never betray you, Taline. The thought had never even crossed my mind."
Taline took a deep, shuddering breath. "You're supposed to put a bullet in my head if I'm on the verge of becoming an Abomination. You only ever take orders from two people."
Catra cocked her head. "Two?"
"Me, and yourself. Anyone else tries to get you to do something on my behalf, they're lying to your face."
Catra released her and stepped away, only just catching her jaw before it hinged open on its own accord. It was her turn to feel betrayed—Diallo had used her. "That fucking bastard."
"One of the Emperor's direct Imperial Administrators is being held on charges of conspiracy, collusion, and severe narcotics procurement. On top of stepping in as the new head of the station and its immediate surrounding regions while he is indisposed, I am likely going to be the one to personally execute him in a number of days when his trial concludes. The Emperor himself will likely come down from the Heartlands on a personal errand because of this, and if I thought my ass was under a microscope before then this will take it to a whole new level."
She took another shivering breath and ran shaky fingers through her hair. "And now, concrete proof of a phantom algorithm. One tying the upper echelons of Imperial governance directly with the Vestamid. Diallo tricked and used you, yes, and he's successfully blown the door wide open on something I cannot ignore."
Catra nodded and studied Taline for a moment. "Are we okay?"
To her surprise, that actually got a chuckle. "Aren't I supposed to be asking you that?" Taline asked, wiping a tear from her eye.
Catra smirked and nudged Taline with her elbow. "Nah. I'm okay. I didn't really think you were going to hurt me anyways, although I did get my hand singed when I touched you." She held her hand up, seeing that it was already starting to blister, and Taline grimaced.
"Put some salve on it and I'll see what I can do to heal it once it's sat for a bit. I'm still shit at healing runes, though."
Catra nodded again, and the tension between them seemed to have melted all on its own. For her part, Catra was relieved. She could count on one hand how many times she had successfully reconciled with a person after fighting with them. She wasn't upset with Taline, and Taline no longer seemed to be under the impression Catra was deceiving her.
"What happens next?" she asked. "Do I get to leave the prison too or do I have to stay here longer?"
Taline laughed. "Empire above, no. I'm getting you out right now."
"Are you sure you can swing that?" Catra asked, grinning now. "Don't you think springing your Sentinel from prison after they went rogue and attacked a Regional Administrator might look a certain way to people?"
Taline shrugged and walked past Catra toward the exit, shattered glass crunching underfoot as she went. "My reputation can take the hit, not that I really care. I'm heading off station and I want you there with me. You'll need to pack for a few nights, maybe longer."
"Off planet? Didn't you just say you were put in charge of a lot more things now that Moriarty is out?" Catra trailed behind her and Pip sat straight-backed and cross-legged on her shoulder. When Taline didn't immediately respond, she furrowed her brow and said, "Where are we going?"
"The Constable is already prepped and we push off in an hour." Taline stopped at the precipice to the door and glanced back at her over her shoulder. "We're going to Archanas."
