Good morning friends,
Today's themes are redemption. "What is better: to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?" So saith Paarthunax.
A similar theme is healing. After my term in the Navy I fell hard into drug use, primarily opioids and opiates. It took a while for me to come out of that bog. Well, I didn't really come out of it, I was more like dragged out of it kicking and screaming, because I quite liked being in the bog. As is the nature of addiction I suppose. But I digress.
We will be focusing primarily on Catra in this one, as she is my personal favorite from the series and the one that I identify with the most.
However, I feel that ND Stevenson dropped the ball on Catra's redemption arc, primarily because I felt that while a redemption was narratively necessary, it was not earned or executed properly. This is, to me, a problem of what exactly Catra does in the series. Because Catra is not Zuko, Catra has more in common with Azula. And Azula was astoundingly messed up for a teenager. So is Catra, even to the end of the series.
But I will say that Catra has acknowledged her toxic behavior, and speaking from experience, that is the first step to true redemption.
So I figured we will put Catra into therapy. Literally.
I feel I am qualified to do this because before I was a manic drug abuser I was a Naval 8485, Psychiatric Technician Corpsman. That is right friendos, I was the one sitting in the chair before I wound up on the couch. So I think I can capture both sides of this story rather appropriately.
So stick with me, and let me see if I can craft this thing just right.
Enjoy.
There will be some intense moments; panic, trauma, and all the necessary steps to overcome it. So be warned about possibly triggering situations.
Oh, and please keep in mind, as Selena Gomez once sang, "Everything is not, what it seems."
It was almost eight months since the final battle that liberated Etheria from the Galactic Horde. Eight months of peace and healing. Queen Glimmer had convened the a meeting of the Princess Alliance and did what she thought was necessary to establish a lasting peace on Etheria across all the kingdoms. It only took about a week of intense deliberations and the princesses almost came to blows only about four times. All in all that was a very successful negotiation. Catra had been there for most of it, as a guest of the Princess of Power. Catra also suspected she was being used as evidence of argumentations.
They called it the General Amnesty.
A global proclamation signed by every ruling runestone princess, and several minor rulers of smaller kingdoms, the General Amnesty stated in clear and precise terms that all who had served the either the Etherian Horde, or the Galactic Horde, be they under control of Horde Prime, or as a collaborator, were forever pardoned of any sin or crime they had committed.
The reaction to the proclamation had been, mixed, at best. The Horde had killed and maimed a lot of people, and the families and friends of those who had been injured or had been driven from their homes were angered that their justice would not be served.
There had been some uprisings, some riots, and some less savory things perpetuated on those that were suspected of having collaborated with oppressors. The Princess Alliance popularity took another hit once it became public knowledge that not one, not two but three of the princesses involved in discussions were romantically linked to former Horde.
Adora had been hit the least, being the savior of the known universe allows a certain amount of leniency, Catra supposed.
Perfuma did not have such protections though, and her budding relationship with the newly crowned Princess Scorpia was derided greatly by the public. They were hit doubly hard when the Princess Alliance permitted Scorpia to have a vote on the finalization of the Amnesty. Catra… supposed that was fair, Scorpia was a princess after all. But the optics on it was not pretty, and it might have caused more headaches then it solved, at least in the short term. But no one listened to Catra. No ever listens to Catra.
And of course there was the worst, most evident case of bad optics: Entrapta and Hordak. Having the Supreme Leader of the Etherian Horde as a "lab partner" is a far cry from a couple of, supposedly, lowly Force Captains. Dryll had been in a utter state of discord for weeks after it was learned that Hordak had taken up residence in the castle with Entrapta. It did not help that Entrapta's own popularity in Dryll was tenuous. Entrapta was knowledgeable and competent executive apparently but politics was not her forte and announcing her new partnership with someone who was largely perceived as a imperialistic totalitarian maniac was perhaps not the wisest move.
Things had calmed in the recent months, but it was all still very tenuous. And then there had been The Incident.
Glimmer had a second topic that was broached at the Amnesty meetings. And that was on the subject of the All-Princess Ball. Princess Prom, as it was commonly known, was held every ten years. The key word is "was." Glimmer moved to have the event held every year, to help better facilitate relationships between the domains of the princesses. Compared to the Amnesty this was agreed to almost immediately and unanimously.
And so it was that four weeks ago the fist annual All-Princess Ball was held in the heart of the former Rebellion, Brightmoon.
It had been a glorious night. There had been jokes, and friends; drinks and fine food. Catra had danced with Adora for the first time. Well, the first time it meant anything not coated in hostilities. She had gazed into those blue eyes and her heart melted. She loved Adora, deeply and truly. Nothing could ruin the night.
Nothing except some lowly baron from a nowhere province who had a bit too much to drink. He started easy going enough, he had been some kind of frontline commander under Queen Angela and King Micah, in the early days of the Rebellion. He started telling some old war stories to Sea Hawk, who of course began to regale him with his own swashbuckling stories of adventure. Sorry, "ADVENTURE!"
It had all been in good fun. Until Sea Hawk, the numbskull, brought up his adventures with Adora, and the good baron had not taken to kindly with someone associating with someone who was entangled with a former Horde officer. It had escalated, despite Sea Hawk's brave attempts to calm him down, and Perfuma's insistence that maybe some breathing exercises would help.
Eventually Adora, the every empathic hero, felt the need to intervene.
"Is everything ok over here?" Adora asked as she approached the increasingly loud and belligerent baron.
"Everything is not 'ok'!" The baron said as he poked Sea Hawk in the chest, "This- this mercenary has admitted to cavorting with associates of the Horde!" He had a lot of venom in the word "mercenary" and even more in the word "Horde."
"Ok, sir I-" Adora began but was rudely cut off.
"I am Baron Arturo Highheart of the Province of Yarnheim in Dryll," he stated authoritatively, "I lead the Heart Riders at the Battle of High Run! I saw King Micah struck down with my own eyes! I resisted the Horde when they took Dryll!"
"Baron, I apologize if my friend Sea Hawk offended you, but the General Amnesty has forgiven any wrong-" Catra cringed internally. Adora was phenomenal leader, and she was genuinely inspirational, but she had this annoying habit of just saying the wrong thing. Catra was the conniving one, the political one, the one who knew how to get people to do what she wanted, be it by force or persuasion. And she knew that appealing to the General Amnesty was not what the Baron had wanted to hear.
"General Amnesty?!" the Baron was nearly incredulous. "Years! Years! I fought the Horde! They massacred my soldiers! They killed my people! They… They even…" He was seeming to calm down, or break down rather. But then he saw her, he looked and he saw Catra. Catra had been on holoscreens, in papers, her image had been seen all over Etheria in one way or another. And now it was biting her in the ass.
The Baron's face contorted in pure seething rage. "You!" he nearly screeched. He pushed past Adora, who yelled in surprise but was too slow to catch the old man as he strode angrily and purposefully towards Catra. "How dare you show your face hear, Horde witch!"
Catra was never one to back down from a fight. But she had been working on trying to control her more confrontational nature. The toxic side of her that tried to dominate and control the things and people in her life. She swallowed and responded cooly, "I am not Horde. The Horde is dead."
"Don't you give me that. Once Horde, always Horde. I know what you are, who you are. I know what you've done." He looked around and gestured to the people in the room, who watching the confrontation. "Force Captain Catra," he spat at her.
"I am not a Force Captain. I fought the Horde," Catra was wrestling inside. The familiar anger was boiling up inside of her.
"You? Ha! You fought Horde Prime! You were a loyal member of the Horde until the day he and his damn machines began destroying the planet!" He looked at her and his expression changed from anger to confusion.
"Do you not regret anything? All the people you hurt?" Catra was beginning to respond, of course she did, she regretted not leaving with Adora that first night at Thaymor. She regretted every fight, every punch, every slash, every word and thought she had in the Horde. But then he said it, nearly a whisper, surely no one else in the chamber could hear it, "All the people you killed?"
And then it hit her. The guilt. The anger. At herself. At this old man for dredging it back to the surface.
She wasn't even aware she did it. The old man, the Baron, he was just on his back in front of her, and her knuckles hurt. She looked down at them, there was a cut on the middle knuckle.
"You Horde scum!" the Baron was clutching his nose, blood running freely from it to his suit. "I knew you Horde can't change. Warmongering savages, violent thugs all of you!"
Before Catra could respond her friends were there, surrounding her and ushering her away, out of the chamber. But she heard it, she heard what the old man was yelling.
"My son! He was at Seagate! He was manning a tower when your fleet blew it apart!"
The Taking of Seagate. The last major battle of the Horde Conquest before Prime arrived. The attack Hordak led. The attack that Catra had facilitated. Oh god, how many.
She had always felt guilt for Queen Angela. She hadn't killed her, but she had orchestrated the events that led to it. Even if she didn't mean it, Catra felt responsible.
Eventually they were in a garden, one of the many that Brightmoon's castle offered. Catra wasn't sure how she got here. Adora was here, where had the other's gone?
"Are you listening?" Adora said.
Catra muttered some unintelligible acknowledgment.
"What is wrong with you?" Adora asked her. There was anger in her voice. Disappointment, maybe.
"Hey, he started it, he knows what the Amnesty means, I am not… I am not responsible for what the Horde did." That was a lie and she knew it. She was trying to compartmentalize. To take what the old man had said and force it into some corner of her mind. She could exorcise it later, but dammit it wouldn't go.
"So you hit him? This is the first Princess Prom since the war ended Catra! You know how important it is! To Etheria, to Glimmer, to.. Me."
It was like some kind of dam burst inside of Catra. All that pain, anger, anguish, the hurt, the remorse, the fear, all of it. It just hit her all at once.
It was like some crushing weight, like she was at the bottom of the sea. Like all the weight of the universe was bearing down on her all at once. She felt like she needed to run, but her legs wouldn't work. Her vision it narrowed, she looked at Adora, eyes wide in sheer, utter panic.
Adora saw the instant change come over Catra.
"Catra?" Adora asked moving forward try to touch her.
And then Catra collapsed into a heap. No breaking the fall, it was like she had just suddenly turned off.
Catra awoke in an infirmary. Adora was there. It had been a couple of hours. No one knew what had happened to her. When she awoke she broke down. She was inconsolable. She confessed, everything. All the sins that Adora knew about. All the pain she didn't know about. All the sins that Catra felt she was guilty of, but didn't even know about. All the lives that Catra had taken, by order or by proxy. All the murder she was complicit in.
Through all of it Adora was silent, no condemnation, explanation, rationalization. Nothing. Catra talked for well over an hour. Well over an hour and half. Near the two hour mark she calmed enough to just lay there, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Adora, what do I do?" It was such a simple question. Adora had always been so sure. So confident. She was the one who knew what to do, even when they were kids.
Adora was silent for a bit. And then she spoke.
"I don't know."
She sat with Catra though, she held her hand as Catra sobbed and all the bodies spilled forth.
Ok guys, so here is the deal with this one.
This was long as hell. Normally I average about 1.5k per chapter and this one is nearly 2.5k and it was even longer before I chopped it up and reorganized it so the next chapter is nearly done and will probably be even longer.
And you all know how I am with schedules. So bear with me. All the other stories are still being worked on in their own time.
So thank you for reading.