Nobody really paid attention to Adora in the Mess Hall. She'd quickly grabbed her tray, avoiding eye contact as best she could, though admittedly it wasn't hard.
It passed in a haze. The din of conversation wrapped around her like foil, raucous and mild and tapering off in snippets. Her eyes roved the benches. Cadets, staff, officers. Many of them bore scars like her.
Forks clinked against table rims. No one so much as gave her more than a passing glance. Many of them seemed tired. Like her.
She hadn't had the energy to tie her hair up in the morning. Strands of it hung loose about her eyes, but she couldn't really see past the fog to her plate anyway.
Eating food was like chewing ash.
When Catra came by to her room in the afternoon to collect her, Adora couldn't muster a word. Simply nodded stiffly and made to follow.
"Okay."
Even standing next to the commander, Adora did not expect such a booming voice from such small stature, but it carried across the expanse, tickling blades of grass, silencing the rabble and chatter near instantly.
The congregation took place in the courtyard. Everyone gathered around the fountain had to crane their necks to see their new leader since she spoke to them from a balcony overhead.
Catra grimaced, scratching the back of her head.
"I really have to do this from up here? Prime really thought this much of himself, huh?"
It elicited a few chuckles, mostly from the massive scorpion lady on Catra's other side, but otherwise all eyes were – somewhat nervously, Adora noted – trained beadily on their commander.
"I know there are some issues to – okay, seriously, can I do this down there on like a…a podium or something? Never mind. Ugh. I know there are some issues to address."
She took a deep breath.
"I've sent missives to all the other Horde territories as well, but I wanted to take the time to talk with all of you here myself. I understand it's jarring, suddenly having me in charge. Prime being gone. And it won't get easier. But I'm hoping it can get better."
There were glares among them, Adora noticed. Most of them seemed placid, curious, perhaps even scared. But Adora saw the tightening of fists. The baring of shoulders in the crowd.
"I called this assembly first to tell you that effective immediately, we're withdrawing all our forces from Princess territories. All of Prime's clones are themselves already under internment for the interim."
Shouts and exclamations immediately swelled, and seemingly the heat with it. Adora could practically feel it blistering, and the fervid chorus nearly reached a fever pitch.
"Hey, hey!" the scorpion woman tried to roar over the cacophony. "Let your commander speak!"
" 'S fine, Scorpia," Catra shrugged. "Let 'em get it out first."
Amidst the bedlam, a voice rang out more clearly than the rest.
"So it's true, then?" A woman leaning on the fountain had her lips pressed in a line. "You've made peace with them? You really think that's gonna last, after everything that's happened?"
"Yes, Lonnie," Catra drew closer to the railing. "We're to leave the kingdoms alone."
"They've been killing our people for years," Lonnie replied.
Adora bristled. The Horde, daring to think that when they're the reason Etheria is a wasteland.
"And we've suffered for it. Prime made sure of that." Catra said calmly. "And we will suffer further if we don't take the time to take care of our own. Back home where we can."
"How are we gonna survive?" Lonnie asked sharply. "Food. Supplies. Under Prime we'd been sustaining ourselves from lands we've taken over."
"We do what should come normally, Lonnie," Catra sighed. "We trade. You're under the impression we're winning. Maybe we're close to taking them down, but this war has no winners. I killed Prime because I had to. You think he was taking care of the towns he'd left behind in his campaign? We have to rebuild. We need infrastructure. There are families ripped apart and left by the wayside not just by the princesses," At this Adora felt the fire stoked low in her belly, returned.
"But because we were nothing but Prime's vision for conquest. We can become more than that. We don't have to subsist on conquering and wonder how to pick up those who fall between the cracks."
Lonnie raised a brow.
"Trade."
She scoffed.
"You think the princesses," here Lonnie looked as if she'd tasted something sour. "will deign to trade with the likes of us?"
And Adora almost leapt up to the railing.
"What is that supposed to mean? As if we're the monsters, when none of you deserve-"
Catra quickly took grasp of her shoulder.
"Not now," she hissed.
Her annoyance was a given, but Adora could tell Catra wasn't happy.
"And who's that?" Lonnie had quirked her other brow.
"She's the other matter I wanted to discuss," Catra's hand still tightly gripped Adora's shoulder. Adora had half a mind to tear it off.
"You asked how the peace would last. How we have any guarantee the princesses won't just attack us if we lay off. This is Adora. You know her as She-ra. Between us both is a marriage of state, and-"
Clamor had resumed, some of outrage, as Catra raised her voice.
"And if we're to have any notion of security, this is the best way. The Alliance has, clearly, already agreed."
Voices bellowed.
"Why not just head over to that capital of theirs and tear it down!"
"We're just gonna show our stomachs like dogs?"
"How do we know she won't just transform and kill us right here?"
Scorpia tried again, raising her hand and claw in a placating gesture, but the tumult only waxed greater.
"ENOUGH!"
At Catra's snarl, they quieted. Yet, it was palpable. The stirring in the air, made no simpler by the sweltering heat, beating down their necks. Like a swarm of angry hornets, cocooned into one, liable to erupt at any given disturbance.
"They're more scared of us than we are of them," Catra pointed out. "Adora won't do anything. She knows this is important. Can I say the same of all of you?"
The dissipating wash of grumbling over the crowd. Perhaps of acquiescence, Adora couldn't tell.
"Coward," there was a murmur.
It came from somewhere in the back, and Adora didn't much of it.
"Coward."
Catra's gaze turned towards the source. But not quickly enough.
"You're a coward!" it screamed. "Prime knew all!"
And faster than Adora could blink, a shot rang out.
"Wildcat!"
Adora saw Scorpia hunched over Catra protectively, saw Catra who was clutching her shoulder and gasping.
She might have heard, in her daze, Lonnie barking orders, the shuffling of pleated boots as officers scrambled towards the back.
Matted fur. Blood. Before she was ushered away.
It was hours before another knock came at her door.
"Hey."
Catra's shoulder was heavily bandaged. She was slouched a little, probably from the pain, but otherwise seemed no worse for wear.
The haze of her memories gave her faint recall of it, however. Catra, scrabbling at her wound until her skin was pale. Hitched breaths as she was cradled by Scorpia, pandemonium underfoot as walls closed in, as Adora felt every seam bursting with the heat of it.
"You're alive," Adora stated like the scrawl of a pen.
"Well don't sound so excited about it."
Adora's lips thinned.
"Shouldn't you be confined to bed or something?"
"Ah well," Catra leaned back against the door hinge. "Just a graze, y'know? And I've got too much to do. I just wanted to check on you."
"You…wanted to check…on me?" Adora said slowly.
"Yeah. I mean, you're alright? Sorry it was such a scene. Figures my first assembly would be a fucking disaster."
"Why?"
"Oh hell if I know why I can't hold it together-"
"No. I mean, why are you checking on me? Why does it matter to you?"
Catra frowned.
"Well, look, I know we're supposed to be used to this kind of thing, but you never really get used to it, you get me? Just trying to see you're not in shock or something."
And it was this, more than anything, that burst the dam.
That Catra had the…the presumption to be so effortlessly, unequivocally kind. That the way it fell on Adora, like wax dripping from a candle, like ash bleeding down her spine, that Catra so nonchalantly gave it to her like Adora deserved it as a matter of course.
What was Adora doing here? Why was even her sacrifice worth nothing?
The storm had built up and broke like heat. Like seeped poison, like the scattering of frost and bottled lightning that washed over her and spoke.
"What is this?" Adora seethed.
"Huh?"
"Do you expect me to believe any of this? Playing pretend. Playing at being so normal it's painful looking at you try. I know what the Horde is. I know who you are," it was scathing. Adora couldn't stop.
"You'll use me until the time's ripe for it. All you and your ilk know is to destroy. To raze Brightmoon to the ground and laugh while you do it. How did Prime really die? What, did you have it out with him when he didn't share the spoils?"
Adora's laugh was mirthless.
"The lot of you," she was trembling. "A bunch of power-hungry murderers who think they're an empire, who think they have the right to trample anyone in their way. I've seen it, it doesn't matter who. Children. Families. You're all just like him."
Catra had gone strangely silent. But Adora's eyes widened when she saw the lone tearstain marring the bronze of her cheek.
Despite it, Catra's tone was steady. She looked as unruffled as ever.
"No, we're just people, but you don't understand that, do you?"
She'd said it softly. But now her face was lined, creased as Catra seethed right back.
"Yeah, maybe we've done some fucked up shit, but if it meant not scrounging around in the streets like rats, if it meant finally getting you royal assholes to think of us as more than the filth on the plush of your bedsheets, then I'd do it all again! Prime may have been an oppressive, fucked up son of a bitch but whether he meant to or not, at least he gave us somewhere to go! Somewhere we could call our own!"
Adora sat, stunned.
"And now look what I'm saddled with," Catra's breaths were languid, lethal strands of intent. "A fractured people on the brink of collapse and worse than that, having to deal with a condescending piece of shit with wealth bleeding out her ears."
Still breathing heavily, Catra turned away.
"Whatever. I've got more important shit to worry about. You go fritter away somewhere where I don't have to see your face. Hell, go back to Brightmoon for all I care. Your signature's all I need anyway."
Catra knew that wasn't true, that for this to work at all it needed to be known they were together. But damn it, her shoulder throbbed – she could feel it, angry and red under the bandages - her day sucked, and she was too far gone to care.
The door slammed shut.
Catra stewed in her fury for a good while. Let it guide her as she stormed through the paperwork at her desk.
She tried to think of nothing else but numbers grated down the page. Tried to think of supply chains and logged squadrons and the smattering of aid requests that dotted her landscape.
It was well into midnight when at her door came a timid knock.
"Come in," she mumbled through a page held in her teeth.
At the sight of who it was, she angrily spit it out and stood so abruptly pain sprouted at her shoulder.
"Out," she jutted one finger towards the hallway.
"Wait!" Adora held her hands up placatingly. "Please. Give me two minutes and you can tell me to fuck off."
Catra did not have the stamina for this. She was tired. Her shoulder hurt.
"Fine," she sat back down. "Whatever."
"I'm sorry," Adora looked down at her feet. "I really am. I…you're right, I was being shitty. Not just then. The whole time I've been here I've treated you like-"
She twiddled her fingers.
"You didn't deserve any of it," Adora finally spoke firmly. "You or anyone here. I never meant to imply what you…what you might've thought. That you were beneath us or anything."
Adora let her arms fall to her side, her face miserable.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled again.
When Catra didn't say anything, Adora tried to press on.
"The truth is, I lashed out because I'm dealing with some…some of my own stuff. It's not an excuse, I just-"
She bit her lip.
"I know it's not like the Alliance was the only one to have suffered. I know that."
She stared at Catra, whose expression had not changed.
"Anyway," Adora tried not to cry. "That's…that's all. Um, I'll leave you to your…I'll leave you to it."
Catra sighed.
"It's not like you were completely wrong."
Adora turned back, surprised.
"It wasn't too long ago that I was how you thought of me. Honestly, just a steaming pile of garbage who hurt the only people who gave two flying fucks about her."
Catra gestured for Adora to come closer. Weakly, she did so.
"For so long, I was so angry. I thought if I proved myself, showed everyone in Etheria who I was, I'd feel something. I mean, I'm still angry, but at least I'm trying to do something other than toppling whatever city Prime told me to topple. My friends were the only reason I got out of that funk."
Catra seemed to consider her. Adora squirmed nervously from where she sat.
"Look, Adora. I realize I've put you in a difficult position. Uprooting you from your home so suddenly probably isn't the best way to get a date."
Despite herself, Adora laughed. She hadn't done so in ages, but there you have it.
"This doesn't mean I abide what the Horde's done under Prime," Adora said as her laughter died down, gazing at Catra resolutely.
Catra twirled her pen.
"You and me both," she said finally. "Don't get me wrong. I'll spill princess blood if that's what it takes."
Catra shuffled her papers back into their piles. She stretched, wincing as she felt bones pop into place.
"But it's not. What the Horde needs can't come from the barrel of a gun."
"What can it come from?" Adora asked.
Catra shrugged.
"I'm trying to figure that out myself. I think maybe the first step we've already taken."
She pointed to Adora, then herself.
"This. You don't have to be friends with me. I'm not asking you to change your tune and be the Horde's biggest fan or anything."
Adora pursed her lips. Her fingers tapped patterns of woodgrains on the underside of the table.
Suddenly, blinding light spanned the room.
Catra's eyes widened as She-ra sat, hunched before her.
"Let me heal your shoulder."
"What?"
"Here, just let me see it."
Wordlessly, Catra craned her torso and offered her bandages for inspection.
Adora placed her hand on it, closing her eyes. Still brimming with golden song.
As Catra incredulously felt her wound closing, the pain dissipating into wisps - serrated by power but dashed away by something impossibly soft - she heard Adora's voice, given ethereal quality by the stature of She-ra.
"I'll stay."
"Huh?"
"I won't go back to Brightmoon. I'll stay here. We need this to work, right? For the fighting to stop."
And Adora's first unbidden thought, broaching the confines of her corridors, telltale claws rasping along rusted walls, eyes like plunging into an ocean, into scalding, melted gold-
"Glad to hear it, princess."
-was that Catra's slow, listless smile was more beautiful than it had any right to be.
Author's note: i am on literal fire, from me in all my waking moments there has never been more updates in such a short span of time. take this power away from me lest i grow drunk on it and fall.
On that note, the updates will probably slow for a bit, this chapter had pretty much the last of what I had already written out. But expect more to come! finally we can get to the good stuff. Once I think of it that is, haha.
I know the tag says low drama but if they apologize in the same chapter it doesn't count as drama ok! don't ask me I don't make the rules!
