A/N: y'all ready for some lore? I must emphasize again that I have not read the Fire Princess.

0000000000000

Crunching through the brush of the Whispering Woods with the dim light of dawn casting everything in dark blues and purples, Adora is hyperaware of how much noise Catra isn't making compared to the rest of them. Her footsteps are light and silent, and she's staring dead ahead as if there's something she wants to kill just out of her line of sight. Her arms are bound to her sides by a thin net of glowing blue that extends back to be held by Netossa, who's chatting quietly with Spinnerella about what the Woods used to be like when they were younger.

Adora has no idea what to say. She shouldn't feel the need to say anything, but she also shouldn't feel like she might explode.

"Sorry we have to keep you tied up," is what Bow goes for. "It's just, you know – last time we, uh, captured you, you were a pretty serious escape risk even while tied up. Also, uh," he scratches the back of his neck. "Sorry for kidnapping you that time."

Catra's face scrunches up. "Do you ever stop apologizing?"

Bow looks at her with those big brown eyes of his.

"Urgh," Catra rolls her eyes. "Don't worry about it. I'd have done way worse to you."

"Yeah?" Bow challenges. "Like what?"

"Like send you to Beast Island," Catra spits, pinning him with that glare.

Adora flinches.

"So!" Bow tries again, wringing his hands. "I think you'll like my Dads' library. Did you guys have a library in the Horde?"

"What's a library?" Catra asks.

"Oh," Bow says, with a glance at Adora, his shoulders sagging. "Oh, this explains a lot."

"Oh, what," says Catra, monotone, "was there something the all-powerful Adora didn't know?"

Adora's shoulders hike up. "I've never claimed to know everything."

Catra snorts.

"Just because you couldn't tell the obvious difference between right and wrong doesn't make me some sort of genius for figuring it out," Adora snaps.

"Well, I've never claimed you were any sort of genius."

Adora glares at her, but Catra isn't looking.

Bow clears his throat. "Well, anyway. I think you'll like it. The library. It's a collection of knowledge, and you love defeating your enemies with clever tactics, right? That's the application of knowledge! And my Dads have the biggest library about ancient Etheria."

"Yay," Catra says, deadpan, "I get to learn more about Princess magic."

"There's other stuff, too," Bow assures her.

"Like how to make you stop talking?"

"Like lots of stuff. Maybe there's something on First Ones ships! Or about their knowledge of space! That could help us learn about Horde Prime's empire."

"His empire's a bunch of giant ships hanging around in space waiting to destroy us. What else is there to know?"

Adora crosses her arms. "Cleary not much, since you refuse to tell us about anything that happened up there."

Catra's jaw clicks as she opens her mouth. "I have. I've told you everything I know."

"Have you?" Adora demands. "Glimmer's been – different, and you're not usually one for retreat, Catra."

Catra looks like she's chewing on her tongue. "I don't want to talk to you about it. And if Sparkles doesn't either, that's none of my business."

"Don't call her that."

"She said I could."

Adora's stomach twists itself in a knot and her skin prickles with heat. She feels like a grenade with a loose pin. "You have a pretty weird way of trying to show you've changed, you know that?"

"I didn't say I've changed," Catra hisses, ears snapping back. She's still glaring dead-ahead with razor-sharp focus. "I just don't want the whole world to blow up –"

"Which is change!" Bow points out, beaming at her. "And you came to us for help, that's change, too!"

"Well, you know me –" Catra hunches forward, her shoulders hiking up – "the layabout, the screw-up. Maybe I just couldn't figure out how to get out of this by myself. Don't expect great things."

"Don't expect –" the pin drops, and Adora explodes. "You trick your way into Princess Prom, destroy Frosta's palace, come up with the first assault strategy that has ever gotten through the Whispering Woods, invent new Horde bots, take over the Crimson Waste, almost destroy all of Etheria, almost conquer half of Etheria, and now that you're supposedly on the right side suddenly I shouldn't expect great things from you?"

Adora is taking in great, gulping breathes. Catra is staring at her. Her eyes have finally left the woods around them, and they are huge and round and open, like Adora's the one who said something ridiculous.

"Maybe you're heart's just not it in," Adora snaps, and Catra flinches, her face shuttering closed again.

Netossa steps up gently between them. "Why don't we take it one step at a time. Both literally and figuratively." She gestures for them to keep walking.

Adora hadn't realized they'd stopped. She feels her face heat up as they start to walk again.

Catra's back to staring into the woods. "Entrapta invented the new horde bots," she says. "It was my idea to make them weapons, but I can't take credit for the actual work."

Which is the kind of thing Adora's never heard her say before. Usually, Catra can't wait to take credit for things.

000

Bow's Dads' house, when they get there, is just as Adora remembers it – all grand columns and creeping vines – but there's a new wardrobe by the door for Bow to hang his bow and arrows. As they enter the first floor of the vast library, Adora looks around to see if anything else has changed – and catches Catra surveying the bookshelves, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. She doesn't spare a glance at the artifacts in glass containers, but stares at a row of thick tomes with her ears perked forward in interest.

A door at the other end of the library opens. "Bow! Adora!" Lance runs forward and gathers them into his arms. "It's so lovely to see you."

"Dad," Bow says, head squished into Adora's shoulder. "The world is ending."

Lance lets them go with a sigh. "Well, be that as it may..."

"We'll do everything we can to help," George adds, walking around his husband to embrace Bow and Adora in turn. "The world won't end if we have anything to say about it."

"We appreciate your help, sirs," Adora tells them. "We know it must be difficult with, uh, what you've been through –"

George turns to Spinnerella and Netossa. "Well." He grips Bow's shoulder. "With how highly my son speaks of you, we're...honoured to have you here. I never thought I'd have a Horde soldier under my roof," he adds, looking coldly at Catra, "but, in light of current circumstances, and since Bow's vouched for you as well..."

"Great," Catra says, "Then we can get to work. We need everything you have on Princess Runestones. Specifically, on how they're connected to each other."

"Catra," Adora hisses. "I'm sorry," she tells Lance and George. "I think she meant, 'if we can please look at anything you have on Princess Runestones and how they connect to each other, that would be very helpful'."

Catra rolls her eyes.

George puts a hand under his chin. "We do have a small number of texts that we collected to study the Runestone shard we showed you last time –"

"The one that was guarded by the terrifying elemental guardian you let loose on the library!" Lance specifies, smiling at Adora. She's pretty sure he's being genuine.

"...Yes," George continues, with a sideways glance at his husband. "But because of my history with the Princesses, it's not much. In fact, after my village was destroyed, I even burned a number of volumes and old manuscripts on the subject in my rage. I'm not sure they were the only copies, but given the current state of affairs, I'm not sure we could find them again."

"The Princesses destroyed your village?" Catra asks. She has an expression on her face that Adora's never seen before.

George lets out a long sigh. "No. I fought in the original Princess Alliance. Because of that, I wasn't home to help when the Horde invaded my village. The Rebellion wasn't enough to match them, and they burned it to the ground. I blamed the Princesses for that for a long time. But I realize now that I was just deflecting the blame from where it belonged. And as Bow's shown me, turning away from the fight didn't solve anything."

The expression Adora doesn't recognize on Catra's face grows brittle, like she's going to scream. George looks curiously back.

"It's this way!" Lance interjects, steering them through the long room to the alcove that displays the Runestone shard. "You said you were looking for information about how the Runestones are connected to each other?"

"Yeah," Bow says. "We were actually wondering if it might be possible to disconnect them from each other."

Lance and George frown at each other. "Disconnect the Runestones..." George mutters.

"Well, the royal line of Magicorpions was disconnected from their Runestone decades ago, when it was stolen by the Horde," Lance says, running his forefinger along a line of titles on a nearby bookshelf. "And that could have disconnected it from the others. But I've never heard of a Princess disconnecting from their power on purpose."

"Not in any of the thousands of years of Etherian history?" Bow asks.

"Oh, no," George corrects, taking out a scroll and laying it out on a table. "The Princesses only started using Runestones at all about one thousand, five hundred years ago." Adora walks over to the table and looks down at the scroll. It's an old painting of five Princesses, each glowing a different colour, standing in a circle and holding hands. Around them, flowers bloom, and a frozen lake sparkles under a clear, moonlit sky. "No Runestones," Bow observes, coming up behind Adora. "But paintings from this era usually include symbolic depictions of whatever's relevant to the subject of the painting."

"Exactly," George says. He slides his finger along the edge of the scroll, where several symbols are inscribed. "We have several moons as they appear in the sky, water, flowers, snowflakes, lightning...but no Runestones. No rocks at all, for that matter."

"But the Runestones are so central to the Princesses' powers," Adora argues.

"Not for us," Netossa says, looking at the Runestone shard in the glass case. "Spinnerella and I, Entrapta, the Star sisters – we've never used Runestones."

"Then how is your power different from that of sorcerers?" Bow asks. "I've never understood that."

Netossa shrugs. "Sorcerers have to learn magic. Our power just is. We inherit it, and it's a part of us."

Spinnerella comes to stand beside her wife, peering at the Runestone shard. "I tried asking my father about it once when I was little, and he just told me some story about how the wind listens. It was a good story, but I think his point was that our family's always been able to harness the power of the wind, and that I would get the hang of it eventually. Which Runestone is this a part of?" she asks. "I don't recognize it."

"No one knows," Lance says, an enthusiastic gleam in his eyes. "Some say it's a leftover Runestone from when they were first made. Others hypothesize that there was once a sixth Runestone Princess –"

"Which is absurd," George interjects, "seeing as how that would mean the five Runestone Princesses would be unable to keep the planet balanced if they were missing one –"

"But I've always thought," Lance continues, bringing a hand to his chest, "that it was a piece of the Black Garnet. We currently only have artist renderings to identify what it looks like, and –"

"That's not the Black Garnet," Catra interrupts. "I've seen it, and it's way darker than that."

Lance and George blink at her. "You've...seen the Black Garnet?" Lance breathes.

"Yeah?" Catra shrugs. "It's in the Fright Zone. We used it to freeze over the Whispering Woods."

"That was you?" Lance screeches, hands flying to the top of his head, his eyes wide behind his glasses. He starts pacing. "It's always been said that the Runestones keep Etheria balanced, but to have an observable effect of that magnitude...Did you record your findings?" he asks eagerly.

"Um," Catra's taken a small step backward, eyebrows high on her forehead. "I'm sure Entrapta did."

"If this shard isn't from the Black Garnet," George says, putting a hand on Lance's shoulder, "then I'm afraid we have no idea what it's from."

Catra looks at Adora. Just for a brief moment, only long enough to get her attention, but it's there. "They said something about you fighting off an elemental in here?"

"Y-yeah," Adora manages. "Yeah, it was guarding the Runestone shard."

"And those elementals are First Ones tech, right?"

"Oh, right," Adora says, crossing her arms. "We learned that when you infected me with that virus in the Northern Reach and all of the First Ones tech went haywire."

"Exactly," Catra says. Her ears are drooped downwards but her tone is determined. "It infected the Runestone on your sword, and the elemental that was guarding the First Ones tech in the mine. What if the Runestones aren't just connected to the First Ones tech that makes up the Heart – what if they are First Ones tech?"

Adora goes cold. "You mean...all of them? They built the whole system?"

"Well, yes," Lance says. "The First Ones brought innovative technology to many areas of Etherian life. Though the records of how exactly the Princesses used this technology to make the Runestones are lost –"

"The Princesses didn't make the Runestones at all," Catra growls. "Or if they did, they were tricked. They don't need them to do magic," she jabs a thumb at Spinnerella and Netossa, "So the Runestones must have been made to be part of the Heart. The First Ones made them specifically for the weapon, to collect the Princesses' powers and connect them to the trigger, She-Ra's sword."

Spinnerella puts a hand to her mouth. Netossa's mouth is hanging open.

"That's...quite a theory," George manages.

"If that's true," Adora counters, "why would Hordak just let Shadow Weaver do what she wanted with the Black Garnet? Wouldn't he have recognized it was tech from off-planet and tried to use it?"

Catra brushes this away. "Hordak wasn't interested in using anything but Horde tech – he thought everything on Etheria was backwards. He didn't even know what First Ones tech could do before Entrapta came along. He had no idea about the Heart, or any of it. He doesn't understand anything about this planet, if his weird atmosphere machine is anything to go by."

"Weird atmosphere machine?" Spinnerella asks.

Catra stiffens. "Apparently the atmosphere is different where he's from." She shrugs, but it looks off with her shoulders tight and her arms crossed. "From what I've seen though, he's from space, so maybe he just doesn't understand what an atmosphere is."

Adora clenches her fists. Finally, some information about what they're up against. "What does he want to know about the atmosphere?" Bow asks.

"I dunno," Catra sneers. "I guess it was interfering with his experiments."

"You guess so?" Adora snaps. "This could be important, Catra. What was he experimenting with?"

"I don't have anything on this," Catra spits, hackles rising. "I told you about the Black Garnet and I'm telling you that your beloved Runestones are part of the Heart, isn't that what's important?"

"We just want to know if there's anything else Horde Prime could use against us," Spinnerella explains with more patience. "Or if there's something about Etheria that we could use to protect ourselves. Anything you could tell us would be helpful."

"I – I don't know."

Adora frowns at Catra. "What, you didn't think to ask questions when Hordak made you second-in-command and showed you all of his top-secret projects?" she growls.

Catra growls back. "No."

"And why not, huh?" Adora pushes. Catra's back is curving inward, and each inch she that shrinks away pulls at something in Adora, pulling the words out of her mouth. "It wasn't First Ones tech, and you were having too much fun using that against us?"

"Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Weren't you always nagging me about that?"

"And haven't you proven me wrong enough times by now? Haven't you used everything I ever let you know about me against you? Why not this? Why not use Hordak's stupid atmosphere machine on us?"

"I – nothing, no reason! Hordak was terrible at conquering Etheria, why would I use his garbage?"

"I'm more concerned about how it works," Bows says. He tries to get between them, but Adora steps around him. "What was he doing with the atmosphere?" she demands.

"Nothing!" Catra hisses. Her ears are all the way back. "It was some sort of thing to make the atmosphere more like what he was used to, I don't know."

"Well, do you remember anything about how it worked?" Bow asks. "Or does Entrapta? Maybe she could figure out –"

"He wouldn't have used it on Entrapta, and I only saw it for a few minutes, we couldn't –"

Netossa steps forward suddenly. "What do you mean, 'use it on her'?" she asks.

Catra goes still as stone. Adora's lungs shrivel up, keeping all of the air out.

"Nothing," Catra repeats – a third time. And her hand comes up to her throat.

Adora's air comes back in a rush. "You let him experiment on you?"

Catra's claws come out. "Shut up."

A laugh surprises Adora on its way out of her mouth. Several more follow. They sound hollow and cracked, and she can't feel her face. "So this was part of your 'calling the shots,' then? Part of getting back at Shadow Weaver? You just let Hordak suffocate you?"

I wouldn't have hurt you. Not like that.

"I didn't let him do anything," Catra snarls. "What would you know, you weren't even there."

"Then why would you stay there?" Adora screams. "You told me you knew they were manipulating us, you knew what they were doing was wrong. If Hordak was hurting you, then why – what in the world would make you stay? When you could've done anything, gone anywhere?"

"Gone with you, you mean."

"Well, what was your problem with me all of a sudden?" Adora shouts. "You just wanted to beat me for once? You'd never told me any of that before, how was I supposed to – What was 'really wrong,' Catra?" From Catra's face, Adora knows she knows what Adora means. "You kept running after power beyond all reason, so what was the reason? Were you really just playing along to get back at them? Did you want everyone to see what you could do and let you play with the big guns?"

"Big talk for someone who always did exactly as she was told because she was afraid people would stop seeing what she could do and letting her play at being a hero."

Adora grabs Catra by the front of her jumpsuit and reels her in, almost lifting her off her feet. Catra goes easily, like she did at Princess Prom, like she's keeping plausible deniability, but this time there's no triumph in her sneer –

And she is very close. Like she was at the top of the Frost Palace, when Adora grabbed her to keep her from falling, face just inches away from Adora's own.

"Let. Go of me," Catra says, voice low and dangerous.

Adora's hands spasm.

You must let go.

Why is it always a cliff face, with them?

She feels a hand on her shoulder. "We've got this, Adora," says Netossa's voice. Adora's fingers go numb and Catra slides out of her hands.

"Why do you care, anyway?" Catra snaps, stepping around her. "I thought you were done with me." She stomps away through the library, and Spinnerella and Netossa share a quick look. Spinnerella goes after Catra, and Netossa squeezes Adora's shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asks.

And she is, isn't she? Catra walks away, and Adora counts her footsteps, like a reflex, like muscle memory, but that's all it is, isn't it? Catra used up her last chance long ago, Adora can't trust her anymore, so does it matter what was really wrong?

George clears his throat. "I think I...had better make sure they have everything they need," he says, and walks after Spinnerella.

Bow comes up to Adora. "Are you okay?" he repeats.

"Yeah," Adora says. Her hands are still numb. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Do you...want to look at the rest of the scrolls about Runestones? I think if we find enough information, we stand a real chance at being able to dismantle the Heart."

"Yeah," Adora says – the third time. She shakes herself. "Good idea."

"I'll make some tea," Lance says gently.

By the time he comes back, Bow has laid out a stack of thin books and a small mountain of scrolls over a large coffee table and sat next to Adora on a very comfortable couch. He's making notes on his tracker pad, and Netossa is standing by a nearby window, flipping through a large tomb, but Adora's just staring down at the same page of her book, the words blurring together.

Lance sets a cup of tea in front of her. "It's difficult, fighting with a friend," he soothes.

"She's not my friend," Adora responds, automatic. She doesn't look up from her book.

Lance sighs. "You both seem to have been through a lot. It's not fair that the war has done so much damage to people so young."

"Catra's done most of that damage," Adora counters. "She's the one who burned down Salineas, and the Whispering Woods."

"Then she has quite a lot to answer for," Lance says, somehow nonchalant. "In the last year, at least. Before that though...that was other people. People like her, who taught her. And you."

"But I left when I realized what they were doing!"

"And was that easy?" Lance asks.

Adora's hand clenches around the cover of the book in her lap.

"Maybe she needed more time than you did," Lance says.

"She needed to be held prisoner by an inter-stellar warlord to do it?" Adora exclaims. "And in the meantime, make the Horde even more powerful? If the world was already so awful for her, why did she have to add to it? Why did she have to hurt all those people and do so much damage?"

From the corner of her eye, Adora sees Bow carefully pretending not to listen to them. Netossa picks up another book.

"You know," Lance responds, taking a sip of his own tea. "It took George a while to let go of his anger at the Princesses, even after Bow showed us how much of it was misplaced."

Adora finally looks up at him, blinking. "But George never hurt anyone."

"True – well, I think he hit someone in a bar fight once – long story –" he waves a hand – "Regardless. It takes time to work through emotions. None of us will find the answers right away."

"It's not the same," Adora argues.

"It's never the same for everyone," Lance concedes, "but it's also not totally different. Give her time. She can't atone for her mistakes all at once. And give yourself time. We may have a deadline to save the world, but if we manage to do that, you can work through your feelings at your own pace."

"Not if Catra keeps blowing things up," Adora grumbles.

"Has she done anything destructive since she decided to help the Princess Alliance?" Lance asks.

Adora closes her eyes and sees Catra's hand going to her own throat.

Nothing.

Adora doesn't answer him.

They spend the rest of the afternoon going through the material Bow collected – or, Bow, Netossa, and Lance go through the material, and every now and again they hand something to Adora to translate, placing it gently into Adora's still-numb hands.

"Aha!" Bow says, after Adora tells him that the writing at the bottom of a scroll says 'heart.' "This is it, this is how a Princess of Plumeria connected to her Runestone the first time!"

"Didn't you say you were looking to disconnect the Runestones?" his father asks.

Bow grins at him. "I'm sure we can reverse-engineer the process with Entrapta's help."

"But would that disconnect the Runestones from each other, or just the Princesses from their Runestones?" Netossa asks.

Adora's stomach drops. "Like me, after I broke the Sword?"

"That did stop the firing sequence," Bows says.

She and Bow look at each other for a long moment, and Adora knows – if they're right, this could work, it really could, but it would mean giving up everything, and how could they even ask the Princesses –

"Hey," says a voice, and Adora jumps so hard she spills her tea. Spinnerella blinks down at her. "We're okay on our end, but I think it would be good for Catra to get some fresh air, and we'll need to leave soon anyway to get back to Brightmoon by nightfall. Have you found what we need?"

Bow shares another look with Adora. "I think so," he says. "But we'll need to talk to the others."

Spinnerella nods. "Okay then. Ready to go?"

Adora looks at Lance one more time, and he smiles at her, taking her hand. "You're welcome here anytime, Adora. And I hope to see you again soon."

Adora swallows. "We'll be back," she promises, and gets to her feet.

000

Adora watches Catra's back on the walk back through the Woods to Brightmoon. She's tied up again, but this time Netossa's walking beside her. Every once in a while, Netossa will murmur something to Catra, but Catra stolidly ignores her.

"What did you talk to her about?" Adora asks Spinnerella, who's walking beside her.

Spinnerella smiles kindly at her. "That's not for me to say."

"It is if she told you anything else about the Horde," Adora counters.

"If there was something of strategic importance, we'd let you know," Spinnerella says.

"Anything could be of strategic importance!" Adora argues. "With how little she's told us, how little we know, anything could be the difference between victory and defeat."

"That's not really the kind of thing we talked about."

Adora glares at the back of Catra's head. It's hanging a little, like she's watching her feet, but her back is straight. And Adora wishes – she used to know what Catra was feeling, just by looking at her. Or she thought she knew. But now she doesn't know any of it. Anything could be true.

Spinnerella nudges her gently. "I think she just needs some space for now."

"She needs to tell us what we're up against!" Adora's neck is warm and she's starting to sweat. "Information is the whole reason why she's here!"

"Not the whole reason," Spinnerella sympathizes. Adora flinches.

I wonder what I could've been if I'd gotten rid of you sooner?

Fine. Fine. If Catra's not going to tell her anything, then Adora will just figure it out herself, like she always does. She and the Princesses will discover the ins and outs of the space Horde the way they always have, though combat and teamwork and perseverance. Adora doesn't say anything else the whole way back to Brightmoon. By the time they've crossed the bridge and are approaching the castle doors, she feels better. She doesn't need Catra. The Rebellion doesn't need Catra, was doing just fine without her. They'll defeat this threat, just as they've defeated everything else the Horde has thrown at them. She doesn't need to know what happened on Horde Prime's ship. She doesn't need to know what happened in Hordak's lair. Adora doesn't need to hear a single thing that Catra –

"Adora." Catra's voice.

Adora stops.

Catra's standing just outside the castle doors, the setting sun lighting half her face in gold. The net binding her arms stretches into the castle, but Netossa's out of sight. "I just wanted...to say," Catra starts. Adora's heartbeat spikes, galloping in her ears. Catra's hands curl into fists at her sides. "About. What George said. He was right. I – blamed you. For a lot of things that weren't your fault. What I was doing – that was my fault."

Adora's trembling. "I know."

A pause. "I'm sorry," Catra whispers.

All the breath leaves Adora's lungs. She presses her lips together.

"You don't have to say anything," Catra turns away. "I just – you deserved to hear it, at least."

And as she walks into the castle, Adora counts her steps again, muscle memory, one, two, three...Adora's vision goes fuzzy at the edges, but she keeps counting, five, six, seven...

"Adora." Someone touches her arm. Air suddenly rattles into her lungs and then stays there, trapped. "Hey." Spinnerella's voice, close but from another plane of existence. "You're okay. Let's sit down." Adora's legs collapse, and she falls to the ground, kneeling. "You're okay," Spinnerella repeats, hand still on her arm. "Breathe with me, alright? Out for a count of three, then in for a count of three. Ready? One, two..."

Three. Adora's breathe leaves her in a rush and she slumps forward. Spinnerella steadies her gently. "And in again. One..."

Adora breathes in and out to the sound of Spinnerella's voice, as somewhere on that other plane of existence, time passes. Slowly, the air is easier to breathe, the ground becomes more solid against her knees, and reality realigns itself. "I'm fine," Adora gulps out eventually, shaking off Spinnerella's hand. "I – sorry."

"No need to apologise," Spinnerella says with a sincerity that Adora could only ever hope to replicate. "Are you ready to go inside, or do you need another minute?"

"Let's go in," Adora says, even though she's certainly not ready, and gets to her feet. It's dark, now. As she walks through the halls of Brightmoon with Spinnerella, she feels oddly clean and calm. She remembers when she was eleven and the cadets had all had the flu at the same time, and spent a week trying to hide it from Shadow Weaver. Adora had finally had to bolt to the bathroom to hork in the toilet while Catra kept watch outside the door. She'd felt better after that, too.

"We can't trust Catra," Adora says as she and Spinnerella arrive outside of Adora's room – it comes out more serene than she meant it to, like she's reading it from a piece of paper.

"You say that a lot," Spinnerella hums, like she's not really concerned. "Do you want me to stay with you for a while?"

"No, I'm –" Adora swallows. "Thank you. I think I need to be alone for a while."

Spinnerella nods, and leaves her. Adora goes straight to her bed and collapses onto it. Tries to sleep. She's watching the early dawn light illuminate her ceiling when Bow and Glimmer come in to see her.

"Hey," Bow says, sitting next to her on the bed.

"Hey," Adora says.

"Bow told me what you guys found," Glimmer says, sitting on her other side.

Adora sits up and looks at them. "We don't know if it will work."

Glimmer's mouth forms a thin line. "We don't know anything for sure, except that the Heart can never be allowed to activate."

"I shouldn't have let it come to this," Adora croaks out. "There should have been another way. Even without She-Ra –"

"We have She-Ra," Glimmer interrupts, reaching for Adora's hand and squeezing it. "And we're going to need her to teach us how to let our Runestones – our powers – go."

Tears form in Adora's eyes, and she takes her hand out of Glimmer's grip to wipe at them.

Bow wraps them both in a hug. "We're in this together," he says, and here, between her best friends, in the safest place on all of Etheria, Adora tries not to think about the first time she promised someone that.

I'm sorry.

And it had even been for the right thing this time.

0000000000000

A/N: PSA: Adora is NOT handling Catra's abuse appropriately. NEVER blame the victim of abuse for what happened to them. I tried to write this as The Adults handling things properly while Adora (who has her own abuse to deal with and shouldn't be expected to handle Catra's after everything) but if that's not how it's coming across, or it's just doing something harmful, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

You can also just let me know other things, like if you also wish Spinnetossa had 1000 % more screen-time.