The village didn't have a jail.

Instead they threw Catra and Adora into the basement of the elders' long stone meeting hall, where a pair of ancient cells stood, dusty and dingy from disuse. Catra wondered what the cells had been for, in the village's old days. Whether they had held actual criminals or just enemies of the elder council. She supposed it didn't matter much; here, they were one and the same.

There had been a dividing wall between the two cells once, but it was so crumbled that it provided no real barrier between them. Thus, even though the volunteers who'd thrown them in here placed them in separate cells, they didn't stay that way for long. As soon as they left, Catra climbed across the remains of the stone wall into Adora's cell and joined her where she lay dejectedly on the floor.

Although Adora's eyes were distant and her limbs were limp, she didn't protest when Catra curled up next to her and rested her head on her chest. In fact, she regained just enough spirit to wrap her arm around Catra's waist gratefully. Catra was marginally comforted that she wasn't totally despondent. She couldn't imagine what Adora was feeling right now. All she could do was provide her presence and her warmth and hope for Adora's sake that it was enough.

It was a long time before either of them said a word.

A bar of moonlight had worked its way across the floor and was currently shining across Adora's face when she finally spoke.

"You know," she mumbled into the dim silence, "when I said I wanted to show you the stars in my home village, this isn't what I meant."

Catra turned over so that she could follow Adora's gaze and realized that it was aimed out the barred window at the dark expanse above, which shimmered like a silver blanket just the way she'd heard in stories. She could only see a sliver of it through their narrow portal, but still. She placed a hand comfortingly on Adora's upper chest and whispered, "They're beautiful."

Adora's only response was a sigh so heavy that it shifted Catra on her chest. Catra didn't like this silence; this sorrow. She didn't like the way Adora's eyes looked dark as they stared, barely seeing, into the stars. She knew that this place was extremely hard on her partner, and she was desperate to get out of here; to free her from the prison of her past—literally. At the same time, she knew that was something only Adora could achieve for herself.

But, she figured, she was already on the way, if her actions from earlier had meant anything. Adora had refused to do what her village had been expecting of her her whole life. If she continued in that same vein; if she could remain strong for herself and for Catra, she would soon be able to put this behind her for good—and not in the way the elders were expecting.

That would prove slightly more difficult from prison, though.

"Do you think it's true?" Catra asked softly at length. When Adora gave a questioning hum, she elaborated, "That I'm her."

Adora's shoulder rose and fell beneath Catra's pillowed head. "As true as it is that I'm Shira," she replied darkly.

But you are Shira, Catra wanted to point out, but she figured that would not help lift the other girl's mood. Instead she stayed silent and nuzzled closer under her partner's chin, comforting with touch where she could not with words, as usual.

"With our luck, I wouldn't be surprised if you're the magic cat girl I'm supposed to kill," Adora grumbled into Catra's tangled hair, and Catra could not disagree with that. Since the start, it seemed powerful forces were intent on keeping them apart. First Catra's own vices, then Rong Stonefist, then Amon, and now the bloody spirits themselves.

Catra sighed and had no answer. Instead, a moment later, she switched tack, rasping, "You didn't have to do it, you know," into her partner's shirt, barely audible. She knew that Adora understood what she meant. You didn't have to choose me.

"Yeah, I did," Adora said softly back. Her first two fingers slipped beneath Catra's tunic and began tracing idly over the skin of her back. Her touch was deliciously grounding, and this moment would have been perfect if they hadn't been, you know, in jail. "I couldn't protect you before. So I had to do better this time."

Catra shivered under her touch and the weight of her words. "I told you, that wasn't your fault."

Adora hummed doubtfully, and Catra pushed up on her forearm to bring them eye to eye. "I'm serious, Adora." When the other girl looked away, Catra placed a finger under her chin and turned her back. "You're enough. Okay?"

Adora let out a shaky breath and her eyes shined moist with unshed tears. Catra wanted nothing more than to comfort her, but there was little else she could say. "Well I got us into this, so," Adora whispered back self-deprecatingly, only half joking.

Catra furrowed her brow and opened her mouth, about to try to insist to Adora how little responsibility she carried for this miserable shitshow, when—

"And I can get you out!" a chipper, familiar voice cut through the darkness from outside their cell.

Catra sat up instantly, whipping her head around to face the source of the voice. She knew exactly who it belonged to, and it was impossible for her to be here. "What the hell?" she snapped, wondering what kind of trick the bitter village hags were playing on them now.

But as Adora levered herself onto her elbows to peer in the same direction, an unmistakable figure emerged from the shadows on the other side of the cell door. "Razz?" Adora wondered disbelievingly. Indeed, the old woman's stumpy silhouette was clear in the moonlight. "How did you get here?"

Razz chuckled and held up her hands. One held a twisted wooden staff. "Well, this is my home, of course, dearie!" she replied as if it were obvious.

"What? No it's not!" Adora argued, voice sharp with impatience. Catra understood: they didn't have time for Razz's games right now. They wanted an explanation. "You live in Republic City! I would know; you sleep right across from me."

"There is a difference between your home and the place you live, dearie. I think that if you look back on your time here, you will understand," Razz replied wisely, motioning Adora forward toward the door. When the girl shuffled suspiciously closer on her knees, the old woman reached out between the bars and touched between her brows with one finger.

Catra was confused, but it looked as if a fog suddenly lifted from Adora's sky eyes. "You…I knew you before!" she exclaimed in shock. She raised a hand to her forehead and sank back on her haunches. "I met you on the spirit mountain, when I had just arrived. How could I not remember?"

Catra, concerned, came to crouch protectively behind Adora's shoulder. If Razz was messing with her head, she wouldn't get away with it unscathed, whether she'd been friendly to them in the past or not.

Razz chuckled lightly. "The touch of a spirit can do strange things to your mind, Adora."

Catra's eyes widened.

Adora's head whipped up. "You're a spirit?"

"Hmm, did I say that?" Razz bumbled, tapping her chin absently though a humorous spark played in her dark eyes. It was obvious that she'd let that detail slip intentionally, and though it sounded crazy, if Catra was honest with herself it made a lot of sense.

"Oh my—" Adora began to swear, but apparently thought better of saying oh my spirits and quickly redirected, "I mean—holy shit," as if that were any better.

Catra met Razz's laughing eyes seriously. "I've got to say, I'm not really surprised."

Razz inclined her head in fond acknowledgement. "You have come a long way, Māo Meili. I am proud of you," she shared.

And—Catra hadn't really been expecting that sort of praise from a crazy old lady/maybe actual spirit, but it caused a genuine bloom of warmth in her chest. She had always liked Razz, though sometimes her air of mystery and roundabout answers were frustrating. She had helped them many times, if indirectly, by providing a place for them to stay and sharing valuable supplies. She had helped them most, though, by coaxing them into each other's orbits in the first place. Catra never would have known Adora like this without Razz. Razz had seemed to know that, even then, and now her inexplicable knowledge made much more sense. Catra was indebted to this old woman for every good thing in her life.

And now she was about to deepen her debt.

"Now, you must listen. I don't have much time to explain," Razz was saying lowly and urgently, gripping the bars of their cell door with her free hand. Short and stooped as she was, all the two girls had to do to be near her eye level was rise onto their knees.

That's exactly what they did, and Adora leaned up against the bars to affirm, "We're listening."

Razz's gaze had never looked more clear or intense. "You must still fulfill the prophecy, Adora, dearie."

"No," said the girl in question instantly. Not you, too, Catra could almost hear her add. She gripped the bars in one whitening fist. "They want me to kill Catra."

"Hmm, so they do," Razz reflected, as if that were no more daunting than baking a berry pie. She tapped her wrinkled chin again. "But that is not what the prophecy calls for."

Catra couldn't see Adora's face from her position, but practically felt her brows furrowing in confusion. "What do you mean?" the sun-haired girl asked, a desperate edge to her voice. Catra moved closer behind her and laid a steadying hand on her back. Adora didn't look over, but grasped Catra's other hand gratefully with her free one.

Razz smiled at them fondly. "The prophecy only says that the conflict between Shira and Māo Meili must be ended. Not how." She raised a bony finger and indicated their joined hands. "Don't you think that love is a much nicer ending?"

There was a stunned pause.

Then, "Are—are you serious?" Adora sounded like she was struggling to breathe, and her hand tightened on Catra's.

"The spirits are satisfied," Razz affirmed sagely. "Your elders and your Light Hope do not understand this." Then she gave a mirthful snort and shook her head. "How can they think Shira and Māo Meili have been fighting in the spirit world this whole time? That would be so tiring!"

Adora was still struggling to grasp this new revelation, and Catra couldn't blame her. She knew the feeling of having everything she knew turned on its head. "You mean…I don't have to fight Catra? I just have to love her?"

Catra's heart still skipped a beat at that word, but she admitted that it was vastly preferable to death.

Razz gave Catra a knowing look and then laid her leathery hand over Adora's on the bars, soothing. "You have made it so, dearie," she said gently. Then she pulled on Adora's hand and the cell bars with it, and the door swung easily open as if it had never been locked. Both girls' jaws dropped.

Damn, why haven't we gotten her help sooner? Catra wondered to herself, a little bitter.

"Because you didn't need it, dearie. You have had each other," Razz replied to her unspoken question, looking her right in the face with her piercing dark eyes, and Catra was so caught off guard she fell back onto her ass. Adora looked back at her with questioning eyes, and all the explanation Catra could give was to point shakily at Razz.

The old woman acted as if nothing strange had happened, even as she pulled their cell door wide open and stood aside to let them pass. "Go, Adora," she ordered, pointing into the darkness of the stairway to the surface. "Fulfill your destiny."

"But wait. What do I do with the sword?" Adora scrambled to her feet and stepped out of the cell, hesitantly, to face Razz, like the open door might be an illusion. It wasn't.

"You will know when the time comes," said Razz enigmatically. Then she turned away from them, facing down the hall that led deeper into the basement of the building. The silhouette of her bent back looked misty against the darkness. She spoke over her shoulder: "Goodbye, Shira. Māo Meili."

"Wait," pleaded Adora again, reaching a hand after her but stopping before it touched her wavering form. "Where are you going?"

Razz regarded her tenderly, and the depth of her expression made Catra wonder just how long this being had really known Adora. "I'm a guardian spirit, dearie. My purpose here was to guide you to your destiny, and I have fulfilled that purpose."

"So we're not going to see you again?" Catra cut in, that thought giving her an unexpected jolt of sorrow. She'd grown accustomed to having Razz around, having her looking out for them like the benevolent distant relative she'd never had. Without her…

"Did I say that?" Razz asked innocently, slipping back into her 'senile old woman' act like a second skin.

Catra was torn between the urge to laugh or to cry. She reached down to grasp Adora's hand again, squeezing to comfort her. She knew, deep down, that this wouldn't be the last time they saw their eccentric old guardian. And even if it was, she still had the sense that Razz would be watching over them, even if they couldn't see her.

"'Bye, Razz," she said, feeling her eyes well with tears at the same time a smirk pulled at her lips. She'd go with both laughing and crying, then. "Thank you for everything."

Adora tore her gaze away from Razz's retreating back to give Catra an achingly questioning look, and Catra met her eyes steadily, feeling oddly centered. It was clear Razz was at peace, and so would she be. Even if Adora didn't understand yet, she would.

"Goodbye, dearies," bode Razz's voice from the darkness, echoing as if across a much greater distance, and when the two girls looked after her, she was gone. Catra knew that if they were to follow her down the hall, they wouldn't find a trace.

"Razz? Wait!" called Adora, stepping forward to do so, still desperate for more guidance, but Catra tightened her grip and held her back. Adora rounded on her in something akin to panic. "We have to go after her. I still don't know what to do."

"Adora," soothed Catra, stepping close to take the taller girl's face in her hands. "Listen. She said you would know what to do when the time comes. She's watched over us this long; I think you can trust her."

"But—"

"Shh." Catra ran her hands over Adora's cheeks as those blue-gray eyes shined with confused tears. "Razz has done her part. She'll be okay. And so will we."

"I just don't understand. She's leaving when I need her most!" Adora insisted.

"No, Adora," Catra argued gently. "She said it herself. We don't need her now, because we have each other."

"But—" Adora began to protest again, but Catra could see deep in her blue-gray pools that she understood, on some level. She just didn't want to accept it. She didn't want to step out from under Razz's supernatural protection just when things were nearing their fateful conclusion. And Catra knew the feeling, but at the same time she was perfectly content in knowing that even if Catra and Adora didn't have Razz, they had each other.

Adora's shoulders drained of their tension, and as she slumped forward into Catra's embrace, Catra supported her wholeheartedly.

"Now all of that stuff she did makes sense," Adora mumbled into Catra's shoulder as she leaned into her arms. "I just can't believe I forgot that I knew her. I met her on the spirit mountain where Shira first received the sword. I knew what she was the whole time, but I forgot." She drew back just enough to press a hand to her forehead, eyes distant and anxious, like she was wondering what else had slipped her mind.

But this wasn't a simple slip of the mind. "It wasn't your fault," said Catra, reaching up to gently pull her hand away. Adora still didn't meet her gaze. "She obviously messed with your memories so that things would work out the way they did. Spirit powers and all that."

"But what if I—" Adora looked distressed, a line forming between her brows. "What if she—what if she made me forget something important?"

"She's on our side, Adora. I don't think she would do something like that."

Adora still did not look wholly mollified. "Yeah. You're right," she murmured anyway, raising her worried eyes from the floor. Adora look around at their surroundings seemed to make her remember the pressing matter at hand: escape. "Anyway. I guess if Razz's purpose is fulfilled, then we've done what we were…meant to do. For the prophecy." Her eyes dropped to Catra's lips for a telling second, and Catra could see her throat jump in a dry swallow. Maybe that fateful little word was scaring her, too. Love. "Now it's just a matter of convincing the village."

Catra balked at that last part. "What's the point?" she demanded. The village had thrown them in jail, hadn't they? They obviously didn't want anything but a bloodbath. Catra took Adora by the biceps intently. "Let's just get out of here, Adora. You said yourself that your mentor won't help us now."

"No. I can't," Adora argued, turning her face away but not pulling free, like she still wasn't sure. "I feel like I have to…finish this, somehow. It's weighed on my shoulders for almost my whole life. I want to put it to rest."

Catra stepped into her line of sight again. "But you still don't know how to do that," she repeated Adora's words from just moments ago, hoping within herself that they were no longer true.

Adora met her eyes with steely blue-gray irises and then turned, peering out the narrow window in the top of the cell in the direction they knew the shrine stood. In this light, her eyes and hair looked the same blue and gold as the Sword.

"I think I do."

…

"Adora." Catra jogged to keep up with Adora's brisk, purposeful pace toward the sword shrine. When her companion didn't answer, simply kept her steely gaze fixed on that protruding golden hilt, Catra tried again: "Adora, care to share what you're doing?"

"I'm finishing this," Adora said without breaking her stride.

"Yeah, but how? What did you think of?"

"Catra." Abruptly, Adora stopped and faced her. She seemed taller, somehow; more intimidating. "Trust me."

Catra swallowed, momentarily caught off guard, and Adora prepared to turn away. But before she could start walking again, Catra caught her arm and captured her gaze with raw intensity. "I do."

Adora simply looked at her for a moment, eyes brimming with some unknown emotion in the moonlight, dead silent. Then her breath came out in a shaky sigh, and she bent to press her brow lovingly to Catra's for a second before straightening again and resuming her course.

As she marched toward the sword, back straight and ponytail catching the moonlight, Catra thought she had never looked more powerful. She had never carried this air of complete, transcendent purpose, even all those times she'd entered the fighting ring as a different form of Shira. Even when she fought off the chi blockers to try to save Catra. Even when she had saved Catra from Zhen's goons the day just past.

This was Shira, but not the one Zhen wanted.

This was Catra's Shira.

This was Adora's Shira.

They were almost to the shrine when the porch doors of Light Hope's house banged open, and a voice shattered the midnight quiet.

"Adora, wait!"

It was so desperate it was hardly recognizable as her mentor's voice. Catra doubted she had ever shown that much emotion before.

It was ineffective. Adora did not stop. She didn't even look back.

"This is not what you have trained for," Light Hope pleaded. Catra turned and noticed her silhouette framed in the moonlight, tall and thin as one of the runed pillars of her house. Lonely.

Her own heart was beginning to pick up and her ears to ring as Adora neared the sword and destiny rushed toward them full-speed.

A foil to its inevitability, Light Hope took off from her porch, racing to intercept them at a dead sprint, though there was no way she would make it in time.

"Adora!" she shouted again. Her voice echoed around the courtyard and reached the surrounding houses, and a few lights came on in windows. A few doors cracked open to reveal curious faces. One such door was the entrance of the elders' council hall, and Zhen's voice joined in to split the air as she realized what was happening,

"No!"

Adora was at the pedestal.

She reached out for the sword, and though Catra knew she did not exaggerate the motion, it seemed to take place in slow motion. The staticky buzz that had assaulted her ears before was now deafening.

A look backward showed that Light Hope was halfway across the courtyard. She would not make it in time. Her voice was drowned out by the buzz.

Adora's hand closed round the Sword of Protection's golden hilt.

A flash lit up the night, blinding everyone who watched.

While Catra threw her arms over her face and screwed her eyes shut against the sudden golden glow, she heard that incessant static go suddenly quiet, and in the crushing silence that followed, the hiss of the sword leaving its stone moorings was perfectly clear.

The glow faded but did not die, and as Catra's eyes recovered from the shock, she got her first look at the true Shira.

Adora stood more than a foot taller than her regular height. Her skin was so radiant that it appeared the golden glow was coming from within her, and the sword reflected its light, scattering it in a brilliant rainbow beam. Her hair was free of its ponytail and shining like the sun, and her eyes were a shade to match the sky—not the stormy overcast of her regular gaze, but bright, midday blue. She looked around the clearing, and everyone who landed beneath that gaze cowered away. Even Light Hope stopped in her tracks.

Then Shira's eyes fell on Catra, and something strange happened—Catra began to glow, too.

She felt it as a warmth beneath her skin, beginning in her chest and flooding outward until she could feel the light pouring from her every pore, powerful but not uncomfortable. She looked up to meet Shira's otherworldly gaze, but her attention was drawn up to the atmosphere above Adora's towering head.

There, the shade of a woman stood, translucent and rippling against the backdrop of the sky. Her face was unfamiliar, but her hair was the same sunny hue as Adora's, and in her hand was a perfect copy of the glinting Sword of Protection. The first Shira, Catra realized, feeling her jaw drop with awe. She never in a million years would have ever expected to see something like this.

She tried to catch a glimpse of the spirit projection's eyes, but the real Shira's gaze was not fixed on Catra, but on something above her own head.

Catra craned her neck back and her heart missed a beat.

There, in the air above her, was the figure of a second ethereal woman. This one was brown-skinned, crowned with a pair of feline ears and a graceful tail, and the luminosity around her was not gold but warm blue. The hue matched her right eye, which was the same cerulean as Catra's own, while the other reflected the same color as Shira's hair. Her eyes, which glow like sky and sun.

This was Māo Meili, the cat spirit of the ancient prophecy. This was Catra.

As she watched, the two woman faced each other silently. She feared they would fight, and Razz would be proved wrong, and her life would end on the point of a sword wielded by the girl she loved, but Shira and Māo Meili did not launch into battle.

Instead, they reached across the distance between them and joined hands, and where the edges of their radiance met, a rainbow sheen rippled against the night sky.

Then they turned, and their impossibly wise eyes landed on the two girls who carried their legacy into the next life. In unison, they nodded.

Adora and Catra faced one another and their eyes locked, and understanding flowed through them like a physical force. They reached for each other at the same time and clasped hands to echo the motion of the women of the prophecy. If possible, the place where their skin met flared even warmer than the molten light already surrounding them, and it felt like the whole world shifted into sudden focus.

I love you, thought all four of them at once: Adora, Shira, Catra, and Māo Meili, and the echo of those words bounced between Catra's ears louder and louder until it was all she knew. And yet, still, it felt like perfection.

At the peak of the crescendo, the echo suddenly broke, and its pieces realigned into a new declaration, louder than all the rest:

It is done.

Adora's hand left Catra's, and she gripped the sword in both hands and turned toward the pedestal. The apparition of Shira copied her motion, raising her own Sword of Protection into the air over her head. The buzz and the words and the cacophony of the fight of two lifetimes rushing toward its end drowned out all other awareness. As one, they brought the sword down.

It struck the stone pedestal with the strength of a spirit and a warrior goddess, and it shattered.

A final, blinding rainbow flash accompanied the explosion.

When it faded, with it went the shapes of Shira and Māo Meili in the sky above the two girls.

The rest of the pedestal crumbled in its wake. Adora, back in her regular form, fell to her knees beside it in exhaustion, and Catra ran to her side. The naked hilt of the sword dropped from Adora's hand to the rubble, now dull.

In the silence and darkness that followed, the village reeled. Not even the wind dared make a noise.

But it couldn't last.

Light Hope was the first to recover. She paced shakily toward where the two girls knelt by the ruined shrine and stopped a safe distance away. "You have failed," she declared, voice wavering just as badly as her stance. "You were trained for the singular purpose of destroying Māo Meili and saving our village from danger, but without the sword, that's impossible."

"For the last time, Catra is not a danger to you!" Adora cried, spinning to her feet among the remains of the sword. "She and I; we're—" She broke off, the realization still almost too powerful to touch. "We're…" Then she turned to face Catra, who stood slowly to meet her, and everything seemed to fade into the background as what just happened fully dawned on her for the first time. "We're in love," she said with absolute certainty. "That's the end to the prophecy. That's the end of their conflict. That's it."

"This is not supposed to happen," Light Hope tried to protest, but her composure was failing. She knew she had lost. "I am not prepared for this outcome. What about all of your training?"

Adora looked at her with something that was almost sympathy. "It taught me a lot, Light Hope, but…it was for the wrong reason."

Zhen, the only other person to brave the scene after Light Hope, had hobbled across to join the useless tirade and now put it, "You cannot simply turn against your destiny like this! You must fulfill your purpose."

Adora turned on her. "Don't you get it? I have. This was my purpose! It's fulfilled! It's over now. There's no more spiritual feud. There's no more danger."

"It's not that simple!"

"But it is! Look at the sword." Adora gestured, and both women cringed at the sight of the shattered weapon. "Do you still expect me to kill someone with that?"

"I expect you to honor the time and effort that I poured into your training as a child, Adora. I was the one who raised you in place of your mother," Light Hope held out weakly.

"Don't bring my mother into this!" Adora shouted sharply, making everyone jump, including Catra. Then she composed herself and reasoned more calmly, "I know you loved her, and I did too. And she would understand my choice."

Light Hope appeared struck by that; so much so that she turned her back on the girl she'd been responsible for for so long. "Maybe you are right," she conceded, and for a moment Catra thought that she may see the light, but then she continued: "but I cannot."

"Hope," Adora addressed her.

Light Hope flinched at the appeal to her real name; her connection to a brighter past. She kept her face turned away and shook her head. "I cannot help you on your way to the South Pole." She didn't even turn back to deliver the most heartfelt thing she'd ever said to her pupil: "I'm sorry, Adora."

Adora was silent at first. She stood tall and looked around at the village, at the people who had raised her—the people who had ultimately failed to be the family that she'd always needed. Then she looked down at Catra, the family she had found, and reached out to wrap her arm around her. When she looked back at Light Hope and gave her reply, her voice was sad, but sure. Regretful, not because of what she'd done to her village, but what her village hadn't done for her.

"Yeah. Me too."

…