I gotta say, of all the things I expected from season 4, (a) Octavia getting screentime and (b) her being weirdly chill about Catra having scratched her eye out were not among them. Ah well. What's a little more AU in an AU? xD
"No."
"Come on, Catra," Adora pleaded, almost a whine.
"Do you actively try to come up with terrible ideas, or does it just come naturally to you?" There was a muffled smack, followed by an indignant squeak and then a low growl. "If you want to die, there are easier ways."
"Catra, come on. Let me try it."
Catra adjusted the pack so that the weapon in question was further from Adora's grasp. "No. You are not touching the sword."
"Why not?"
"Because it's full of stupid broken magic, and if it knocks you out—again—I'm not dragging your sorry, unconscious ass all the way to Bright Moon!"
"Catra, please. I need to try it. If I can access even part of its magic, I might be able to call Swift Wind for help." Normally she could feel their connection even without the sword, but after the runestone broke, the familiar sensation had been replaced with an… emptiness. A blank, buzzing hole in her mind where She-Ra's magic used to reside. It was an unpleasant sensation, but it paled in comparison to burning, stabbing pull of the wound in her side, or the way her head pounded with every step. The light that filtered through the trees overhead, weak though it was, still made her feel like someone was jabbing needles through her eyes.
She realized Catra was staring at her. "Swift Wind?" Catra repeated. "Tell me you don't have a stupid Rebellion friend named Swift Wind."
"Oh, um." They took another step, and Adora missed her footing, fingers unconsciously digging into Catra's injured shoulder as she regained her balance. Catra inhaled sharply. "Sorry. Uh, he's—Swift Wind is my horse."
"Your horse," Catra repeated. "You're going to call your horse for help?"
"My flying horse."
"Your flying horse."
"He has a horn, too. And he talks," Adora mumbled the last part. He talked a little too much, if she was being honest.
"Your flying, talking horse with a horn," Catra said, slowly.
"Could you stop repeating everything I say?"
"I'm just making sure you realize how ridiculous it sounds."
"Oh, come on—you must've seen him at some point. Rainbow wings, flowing mane? Never shuts up about revolution? Or hay? Or apples?"
Catra made a choked noise almost like a laugh. "I don't know whether I should pity you or check you for brain damage."
"Wow, you're annoying. The point is, if I can use the sword to call my magical, flying horse for help, we won't have to walk the rest of the way out of this pit full of three horrifying things that want to kill us."
"It's a canyon," Catra corrected under her breath.
Adora glared. "Make that four things."
"Yeah, I'm not worried," Catra responded with a smug grin. They took another step, the sword still decidedly out of Adora's reach.
Adora sighed. This was going nowhere fast. She needed to touch the sword—needed to find out if any part of her magic was recoverable in its current state, or even if she could just hold the blade long enough to use it as an ordinary weapon. The knife Catra had given her before they left the cave was stuck through her belt, but… it was a woefully inadequate defense against the foes they faced.
She noticed the way Catra's face tensed whenever Adora had to lean harder on her to get past rocky terrain; the way she kept shifting underneath Adora's arm though trying to find a more comfortable position; the way the four lines of blood marking the bandage on her arm were slowly melding into one large stain. Adora had tried to pull away from her support earlier and walk on her own, but wobbled and nearly fell within the first few steps. Catra immediately pulled her back, hissing an insulting rebuke under her breath.
Adora hated it. Hated being so useless, weighing them down when she should be protecting was no doubt in her mind that to escape, they'd need She-Ra.
They needed magic.
Another wave of uncomfortable warmth pulsed through Adora's body, and she barely refrained from shivering. Magic for fighting, sure, but also maybe She-Ra's healing… or they might be in trouble.
She might be in trouble.
Her fingers flexed, still too far away from the gleaming metal of the sword jutting from the bag around Catra's shoulders. Ugh. If she could just get them to shift a little bit, the hilt would fall right into her hand.
…Hm.
This was going to hurt.
On their next step, she clenched her teeth and intentionally misplaced her footing, allowing her knee to buckle and almost drag them down to the ground. A very real cry of came from her throat as the pain in her side flared higher, almost blacking out her surroundings in its intensity. She heard a muted, pained grunt and an extremely rude word as Catra's arm tightened suddenly around her, tilting down to keep them from hitting the ground, and then—then—
Something shifted, and the cold feel of smooth metal knocked against Adora's hand. The contact was like an electric shock, quick and sharp, and before she could think better of it, she closed her hand on the hilt.
The world wrenched violently away.
The buzzing, electric feeling of wrongness returned to her, pulsing through her body, overriding all other thought and sensation. Trying to access the sword's magic felt like… like trying to walk through a blizzard without a coat, the burning cold piercing down to her bones, jagged fragments of ice whipping and biting at her skin, swirling around her, drowning out the world in a sea of consuming white. But… it was there. The magic was there. If she could just reach it—
She stretched out toward the magic, but a juddering shock of pain coursed through her the instant her mind touched it. No, something whispered. Wrong. An image flashed into her mind. The woods—the Crystal Castle. Light Hope. Close, the something whispered again. Fix.
Fix? The runestone… the Castle could fix it?
She didn't have time to wonder. The sword jerked sharply from her grasp, snapping her connection to its magic. Aches and pains returned, slowly at first and then all at once, insistently pressing through the haze left behind by sword's broken magic. Her skin boiled in the wake of its icy touch. A voice, angry, and concerned, filtered through the buzzing in her mind. "—told you not to touch the sword, you absolute moron—"
"Mmph," Adora forced out. It was supposed to be a word. She hadn't quite decided which one.
It wasn't as bad as when the runestone had first broken, but everything… hurt. Well, everything had hurt before. But there was something extra now; like the aftermath of a stun baton, where every muscle clenched involuntarily and then ached for days after. Her skin prickled and burned, and a bone-deep exhaustion had settled beneath the new haze that covered her vision. Standing was… proving to be a challenge.
"That's what you have to say for yourself? Really? I should just drop you right here, or throw that stupid sword in the creek and leave it—"
"Catra." The word slurred slightly on its way out of her mouth.
The blur of Catra's head whipped toward her. A faint glint in the distance told her the sword had been thrown several feet away. "What?"
Her head spun violently, nausea building in her stomach, but somehow Catra's strong grip held her upright. The pain in her side flared, reminding her how much she did not want to throw up again.
"I think. I need… to sit down."
"No shit." Catra was already moving, almost carrying her.
They almost made it to a nearby tree before Adora's knees buckled for real this time, bringing them both down faster than intended. Something snagged Adora's shirt on her rapid descent, yanking it up her back and pressing the front edge of the garment into the wound on her side. A strangled sound escaped her throat.
"Agh—Catra—"
"I know, my stupid claw is stuck. Hang on." The shirt pulled higher for a moment before a frustrated growl and the sound of tearing fabric. Then—a sharp inhale.
Silence.
Even through her fog, Adora knew something was wrong. She looked up, blinking in a futile attempt to clear her vision, and saw Catra kneeling at her side where they'd all but fallen to the ground.
"Catra?" Concern wormed its way into her voice.
Catra's gaze was fixed on Adora's back. The shirt had slid back down once freed from Catra's claw, but it had ridden high enough to—
Oh.
"Your back," Catra said, finally, her voice distant.
Adora sighed, shallowly, rubbing her spinning head with one hand and swallowing against her growing nausea. "Yeah."
"I didn't…"
"Yeah," Adora repeated. Catra didn't know. Why would she?
Catra's mouth worked for a moment before producing sound. "You were She-Ra. Why…" she trailed off, question left unasked.
Why did it scar? Why did it hurt Adora, not just She-Ra?
"I don't know. My connection to She-Ra wasn't as strong back then… maybe I was tired, maybe whatever stupid, magical force controls She-Ra wanted to teach me a lesson—I don't know," Adora repeated. She didn't have the energy for this conversation. Not right now, when she felt about two seconds from passing out.
Adora's back itched under Catra's unrelenting stare. One of Catra's hands twitched, like she wanted to reach out but stopped herself.
"It wasn't supposed to," she said. "It wasn't supposed to leave scars."
If she had the energy, she would have shrugged. "It's in the past."
Catra flinched from the words.
"Why are you being so casual about this? Don't you care?"
She certainly did at the time. It hurt. A lot, and not just physically. Throughout her recovery, each stinging line of pain on her back was a fresh reminder of how badly their friendship had broken. Glimmer's face twisted in sadness and anger every time she saw the bandages on Adora's back, or saw her flinch from a movement that pulled at the still-healing wounds. Adora didn't really understand why. The hurt had been inside her since the moment Catra refused to come with her. It was just visible, now.
"It happened," she said, exhaling slowly. The world was, finally, starting to spin a little less. "It healed. I'm okay now."
We can be okay, too.
Catra sat down heavily, staring into the distance as the claws of one hand dug into the dirt, then tore up a handful of grass.
"I'm…"
Adora's eyebrows raised despite herself. An apology?
"I didn't mean for it to happen," Catra started over. No, not an apology. But maybe as close as she could get.
"Or maybe I did, I don't know." Catra tore up another fistful of grass. "No, I did. But even if I wanted to hurt you, I didn't think it actually would. Just She-Ra."
Adora nodded. Surprised and pleased as she was that Catra was opening up, even if just a crack, she was too tired for this. A shiver ran through her as her body decided it was done with "uncomfortably hot" and made an about-face into "freezing" territory.
"I k-know," she said, unable to keep a stutter from her voice. Catra's eyes were on her immediately, and Adora knew that conversation was over. For now, at least. She let her eyes briefly slip shut, tilting her head back to rest against the trunk of the tree.
"I hope your grand plan to touch the sword was worth it," Catra said. "You look like shit."
She felt her mouth pull upward into a crooked grin. "Thanks."
Catra lifted a handful of grass and slowly let it fall, a soft wind blowing the thin blades into a nearby patch of light that filtered through the trees overhead. If it wasn't for the fact that Adora could see the oppressive, vertical rock face of the canyon wall just beyond the trees, it would almost be pretty here. Almost.
The knowledge that they were being hunted by beasts with teeth and claws longer than your entire hand didn't exactly help.
"Did you get to call Gentle Breeze, or whatever?"
Adora groaned. "Swift Wind."
"That's what I said."
"No," Adora said. "The sword's magic is there, I think, but it all felt… wrong." she shivered again. "I don't know if I can access all of it. Parts of it, like my connection to Swift Wind, are out of my reach."
The whispering something and images of the Crystal Castle came back to her memory. If there was a chance the sword could be repaired… A wave of heat passed through her body and she winced, the motion pulling at her wound. Agh. She had to bring it there. After she healed up a bit.
"Hm. Well, guess we're back to doing this the long way, then." Catra rose, brushing grass from her legs and squinting through the trees toward where Adora could just hear the rushing sounds of a small stream. "Stay here. I'll refill the canteen." She grabbed the canteen from where it had fallen.
Then over her shoulder, she added, "Don't touch the sword."
Adora gave a shaky laugh. "Wasn't—planning on it," she managed. She relaxed into the support of the tree and let her eyes close, concentrating on the sound of Catra's footsteps through the underbrush and the soft babble of running water.
Catra plunged the canteen into the stream.
The first time she'd filled this canteen, Adora's blood had been caked in her claws, trickling away downstream in thin streaks of muddy red. The water ran clear across her fingers, now, but Adora's blood still stained her hands. A stain no stream could wash away.
She'd been angry, back at the Battle of Bright Moon. Beyond angry. Enraged. Adora had hurt her, destroyed her, cast her aside like she was nothing. It kept her up at night, until emptiness and sorrow turned to fire and rage; a ball of flame in her chest that kept her moving when all she wanted to do was curl up and cry. But underneath it all, it still… it just hurt.
At Bright Moon, staring at Adora—so strong, so confident, so perfect, so happy without her—
She wanted Adora to feel that pain, too.
She didn't even think about it until later, after the battle, when she found She-Ra's—Adora's—blood under her claws. Guilt washed over her, then, but she pushed it aside. She'd seen She-Ra heal with no evidence of injury. It would happen again. That's just the way it worked: Adora's pain was temporary; Catra's lasted.
So Catra let herself forget. There was no reason to remember. For the rebellion's golden warrior, those eight marks might as well have been a papercut.
Catra shivered, remembering the pale lines scoring Adora's back. She'd been wrong.
She was starting to wonder what else she'd been wrong about.
A snort of ugly, unfamiliar laughter broke her thoughts. Catra shot to her feet, heart racing, canteen slipping from her fingers and splashing its contents onto the ground.
Octavia.
The Force Captain sat a short distance away on the other side of the shallow stream, looking almost comfortable. Her own canteen rested nearby.
"Wow. I always knew you were terrible at your job, but really." She stood, brushing herself off and then gesturing to her eyepatch with a wide, humorless smile. "Two working eyes, and you still didn't notice me? Pathetic."
She was approaching, now, taking a casual step into the shallow water of the stream. Catra took an involuntary step backward, glancing behind her. No—retreat wasn't an option. Maybe Catra could outrun her, but Adora… She turned her gaze back to Octavia, letting some of her hatred and anger bleed into her expression.
"Oh, you're gonna fight?" Octavia asked, with condescending excitement. "Good." An enhanced stun baton crackled to life at her side, glowing with its intense energy. "I was starting to think this might be boring."
Catra stepped in a steady, predatory arc to the side, claws flexed at her sides. Octavia was slow. With Catra's speed, this shouldn't have been a fight at all—but with her reflexes slowed by injury, a hint of apprehension crept into her mind. She glanced down to the stun baton, capable of delivering a shock strong enough to incapacitate the beasts, if you could get close enough to deliver it. A shock like that would kill a normal person instantly. And it wasn't just her life this time; if Catra died here, so would Adora.
Sweat dampened her palms. She'd have to be careful. And in a fight, that meant not making the first move.
She straightened, affecting a casual tone. "Sorry, but—" she pointed from one side of Octavia's face to the other. "Do I look at the eye, or the eyepatch? I just—I don't want to be rude—"
That did it. Octavia leapt forward with a snarl of rage, recklessly swinging the baton. It was comically easy to dodge, and left Octavia wide open for a set of deep scratches on her ribcage. Catra used the inertia of her movement to swing up and around onto Octavia's back, where she reached down for the exposed skin of her target's throat—but she'd forgotten she was fighting someone with more than just arms. The unpleasant sensation of a tentacle started to wrap around her leg and she pulled back sharply, scoring red lines into Octavia's cheek and flipping away just before the tentacle could solidify its grasp. The soft impact of the landing sent an agonizing jolt through her ribs, and she stumbled. Stupid. She couldn't fight like she usually did. Fortunately, Octavia was too busy cupping her bleeding cheek and making enraged, pained sounds to notice. The scratches ran dangerously close to Octavia's remaining eye.
"Whoops," Catra said. "Missed." She was too tense for any real enjoyment to make its way into her smile, but it did the job anyway. Octavia barreled forward again, her stance a little tighter. Catra still managed to leave a new set of scratches on Octavia's arm, almost forcing her to drop the baton.
Just when Catra was starting to think she might be able to win this by simply wearing her down, it all went sideways.
Catra wasn't quite sure how it happened. One moment her claws were swiping toward the exposed flesh of Octavia's throat, but then the stun baton abruptly changed trajectory, swinging toward her—she ducked out of its reach—but it was a feint. A sharp elbow cracked against her temple, sending the world spinning in a flash of sparks. Something cool and unpleasant wrapped around her ankle and yanked, and that was all her ruined balanced needed to send her flat on her back on the hard ground, the air rushing from her lungs in a pained gasp. Shit, shit, shit. Red eyes floated before her dazed vision, glowing and merciless, and again, again, she couldn't breathe—
A dangerous voice filtered through her panicked fog. "Aw, kitten. Having trouble?"
A hand grabbed her arm, her injured arm, and if she could breathe she would have screamed. It pulled her from the ground, then held her upright.
"Let me help with that."
Something smacked against her back, so hard she was sure she felt something crack. The force of the blow sent her stumbling forward and then falling into the stream, cold water sending a shock through her chest and rushing up over her head, filling her nose. She scrabbled at the pebbles and sand below her and pushed upright, breaking the surface. Air. Somehow, she was breathing again—ragged, desperate gasps for oxygen, her hands braced against her knees as moisture automatically formed in her eyes, blurring her vision. Red eyes flashed before her again, and she unconsciously reached for her throat. No. He wasn't there. She could breathe.
A splash from behind her reminded her too late that she had lost awareness of her surroundings. She tried to move, but her body wasn't fast enough—sharp talons scraped her scalp as a hand buried itself deep in the thick hair behind her head. Catra struggled, lashing out with her claws, but another hand clamped down on her bandaged arm and squeezed, tearing a cry of pain from her throat.
"A tank shell was too good for you," Octavia taunted from behind her. Nausea curled in her stomach at the closeness of her voice, and the confirmation of what she already knew. "You know how we dealt with lost little kittens in the Horde?"
Catra turned her head as far as she could and spat. Octavia laughed.
"Well." There was a cruel smile in Octavia's voice. "Let me show you."
She struggled again as the hand clenched in her hair suddenly tightened and bore down, but her opponent was strong—too strong. Something kicked the back of her leg and she was falling, knees splashing into the cold water, the hand forcing her down, down—she struck blindly upward, feeling her claws graze something but it wasn't enough, wasn't nearly enough—her head was underwater.
She was drowning.
Adrenaline coursed through her and she bucked and writhed like a wild thing, but a heavy knee buried itself in her back, pressing her face and chest into the stones at the bottom of the shallow stream until coarse sand ground into her skin. She hadn't recovered her breath before being forced back underwater, and struggling against Octavia's grasp only intensified her body's need for oxygen. Her lungs burned. Cold water filled her nostrils, her mouth.
She was going to die.
She was going to die in a canyon, in two freaking feet of water, killed by Octavia.
Pathetic.
She writhed again under Octavia's vicelike grip, feeling herself weakening, the burning need for air. Her body tried to inhale despite her closed-off throat; a horrible, panicked, choking sensation. She lashed out desperately, but her motions were sluggish. In a moment she wouldn't be able to hold back any more. Water would flood her lungs. She'd be gone.
Her body automatically tried to pull in air again, and she felt a trickle of water down her throat. Her eyes closed.
Then: the pressure on her back and head twitched. Lessened. Disappeared entirely.
In a last desperate bid for life, her body rocketed up out of the water, collapsing onto the soft dirt and sand and drawing a deep, ragged inhale before dissolving into a fit of watery coughs. Air. Sweet, blessed, wonderful air. She rolled onto her back and heaved more oxygen into her lungs, blinking dizzily up at the sky.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a voice rang out.
Adora.
With great effort, Catra managed to push up on one elbow in the soft ground to see Octavia standing nearby, one hand holding a short knife poised over something shiny and golden that was wrapped tightly around her other arm.
On the other end of the golden rope stood Adora. At this distance, with the white of the bandage at her side blending into her shirt and the deep, dark circles under her eyes less visible, she almost looked imposing.
But… that rope. She was using the sword. Worry twisted in Catra's chest.
Idiot.
Octavia snarled and brought her knife down on the rope. Its length crackled with a bright, jagged, golden energy, causing both her and Adora to stumble and cry out. Somehow, Adora regained her footing first.
"Told you," she said, voice a little weaker than it had been a moment ago.
"Fool!" Octavia shouted. "I'll kill you both." She grabbed at the rope in preparation to yank Adora closer, but it glowed with its unnatural, crackling energy and pulled away from Octavia, shifting form back into a sword in Adora's grasp. Adora's eyes closed, and Catra saw her sway.
No way was she doing this alone. Shakily, Catra pushed herself to her feet, extending her claws and letting her expression settle into a murderous glare. At the moment, she probably couldn't manage much more than a weak swipe before falling over, but, well. Octavia didn't need to know that.
Octavia glanced behind her at the sound of movement and hissed in annoyance, stepping to the side so she was no longer directly between Catra and Adora.
"Maybe you'll kill us," Adora said, finally, her voice stronger than Catra could remember hearing it in the past day and a half. "Or maybe we'll kill you." She lowered the sword into a fighting stance, and Catra could almost imagine Adora's torn, bloodstained shirt as She-Ra's white and gold uniform, red cape fluttering behind her.
"Do you really want to find out?"
Octavia took a half-step back, glancing from Adora's sword to Catra's claws. She lowered her head and snarled, then pulled a small device from a pocket, flipped a switch, and threw it on the ground. A red light blinked and it emitted a high pitched shriek that neither Octavia nor Adora seemed to notice, but made Catra want to claw her ears off. She dashed toward it and stomped it into the ground until both light and sound faded away.
But the damage was done. There was no way the beasts hadn't heard that.
Octavia gave a vindictive, humorless laugh. "You're dead anyway. I don't need to waste my time." She backed away a few steps, then turned and disappeared into the trees.
Neither of them moved until the sounds of Octavia crashing through the underbrush faded, then disappeared entirely.
There was silence for a moment. Then the sword clattered to the ground, and Adora followed.
A/N: Aheh. *cough* Sorry.
I know generally where this is going, but I also know it's gonna take a little time to actually solidify in my head-so I can say pretty certainly that there's not going to be an update next weekend, although I'm hoping for the week after. I generally post little status updates on Sunday night on my tumblr (adoras-last-braincell), if you're interested.
'til next time!