This was supposed to be your standard space mission: Glimmer and Bow go looking for fuel, Adora and Catra go looking for magic to rehabilitate from First Ones tech. It's a small planet, barely populated -- and while sure, the group of them are known to dawdle, taking in the new sights and foreign cultures wherever they go, it was supposed to be pretty straightforward. Pop in, free some magic, pop back out.
Adora wasn't prepared to come upon one of the last surviving First One colonies in all the galaxy.
Least of all was Adora prepared to find her own family.
As soon as she laid eyes on Adam, somehow, she just knew. The same way she had when she picked up the sword for the first time. But she didn't let herself charge forward on a hunch alone-- instead she cautiously poked and prodded, posing questions about his family life that were probably not as subtle as she'd intended, but, well--
Once he mentioned having a sister who got sucked into an interdimensional portal as a baby, that kind of cleared the last of her doubt.
It's all a whirlwind from there. She found out very quickly that Adam gives really powerful hugs. Then he was rushing them home, bellowing "Mom! Dad! You'll never guess who's here," and then there was a whole mess of crying and hugging and crying some more, because they never thought they'd see each other again, and Adora couldn't believe and has a mom and a dad.
"Oh-- oh, we've got to celebrate this," her mother declared, and though their village is small and their home humble, her family managed to whip up a whole feast in record time. They wouldn't even let Adora help chop the vegetables.
And here they are now-- the six of them, crammed around the dinner table. Catra, Adora, her brother, her parents -- plus Melog, curled up in the corner with a little bowl of its own. The sword of protection lies dormant around her arm in the form of a brace, as unintrusive as Adora knows how to make it. She doesn't know how much they know about She-ra, and besides, there's so many other things they can talk about first.
"Adora, sweetheart, please," her father beckons, the whole family's eyes locked on her. "Tell us everything. Where did you grow up? Who found you?"
"I-- I-- well," she stammers, already overwhelmed before opening her mouth. "I landed on the planet Etheria, where I got picked up by... the Horde, actually," she begins, earning her a chorus of terrified gasps-- "but it was fine! They raised me, and um, it was pretty much what you'd expect from the Horde, yeah, but I had Catra with me." She reaches for her hand under the table, then lifts it up, joining their fingers together. "So I was okay."
She doesn't let go of her hand, even as she keeps talking. "Then when I got older, um, I ended up leaving, and joining the Bright Moon rebellion against the Horde." She still doesn't want to mention the sword, the whole She-ra thing. That can wait, right? Even if she's not sure how to disentangle it from the last couple years of her life. It kind of was her life.
"And uh, a lot of stuff happened! I met Glimmer and Bow, who are two of my best friends, and-- they're actually here too, but they went the other way looking for crystals for fuel, and with all this I haven't had the chance to contact them-- oh man, I really should!" She grapples for the navigator on her belt for a moment, holds it up, hesitates, then puts it back down. "Wait, I don't wanna be rude, I'll just-- I'll do it in a bit."
She heaves out a sigh. "Where was I-- oh, so yeah, I made friends with Glimmer and Bow, and also a horse, his name is Swift Wind and he can fly, and also all the princesses of Etheria, and they reformed the Princess Alliance, which was a thing a whole bunch of years ago but fell apart, so they brought it back together, and-- Oh my god, I'm talking so much."
A realization that was brought on by the desperate need for breath. Adora sucks in a mouthful of air, then drains her glass of water completely of its contents. Her hand, despite steadily growing clammy, insistently squeezes Catra's over the table. "I'm sorry, I'm just so excited."
She hates Adam, in particular, with his stupid Adora-like grin and his stupid Adora-like eyes. She especially hates his stupid big mouth and his apparent tendency to just drop his backstory on any passing space travelers, like he's just been hoping that one of them would eventually turn out to be his missing sister.
The glow of Melog's red aura is hidden beneath the table, and Catra's ears both twitch as she picks up the quiet growl in Adam's direction. Quietly, she takes a deep breath and holds it - one, two, three - before letting go.
She's calm, for all appearances. She's been through more stressful situations than this; she's held it together before Shadow Weaver, Hordak, Horde Prime. She's not going to let one stupid little family dinner break her down.
(--Except, you know. She's supposed to be Adora's family.)
She'd tried to linger awkwardly outside when the parents (she can't think the word without a sneer; one that raises Melog's hackles) took Adora inside and wrapped their daughter up in hugs, and both she and Melog had wound up hissing at Adam when he'd tried to clap a welcoming hand on her shoulder, all of her hair and Melog's mane bristling in warning and threat. He'd backed off, hands raised, surprise on his face - and she'd stomped into their family home, trying to pull herself together enough to just get Melog to shrink back down and maybe turn a little less blatantly red.
It turns out getting him to become small is easy once she steps into the home, and suddenly wants to be anywhere else. It's cozy and it's warm and it's so, so the sort of place she can see Adora living happily in and -- and that hurts, a sudden sharp ache, and so Catra shoves it down. This is the type of place where someone as warm and kind and loving as Adora belongs.
Catra has no place here.
So Melog becomes small, and Catra silently (desperately) bids them to hide themselves before Adora sees and they ruin everything for her.
And that's how they're here, now. With an absurd amount of food for such a small village, piled onto the table in front of them. She doesn't really eat any of it; just breaks things up small enough to not have to taste them when they eventually, reluctantly, end up in her mouth. She's quiet, which is really the only way to make sure she doesn't snap anything at anyone, but she can't help the small humorless snort when Adora announces the Horde had been okay and raises their linked hands; and nor can she help the unimpressed tightening of her lips when Adora decides that Glimmer and Bow can wait.
Nice to know that if she hadn't been with Adora when she met Adam, that she'd be stuck out there wondering where she was, too.
She still squeezes Adora's hand back, because she hates these people but she loves Adora, and takes the excuse to abandon her utensil and food to instead turn around and grab Adora's navigator with her free hand. She has her own one, and it's attached to the belt on her hip, right where it should be. She doesn't want to use it.
"I'll tell them," she says blandly, like it's the easiest thing in the world. Her tail, draped over her seat, twitches with annoyance. For someone who preaches about friendship so much, Adora sure does love to ditch them all at the slightest opportunity.
Adam, at least, seems enraptured by Adora's rambling. He's leaning forward on the table with both arms, soaking up every word with a gleam of excitement in his eyes.
(Catra has to focus really hard on the navigator, otherwise Melog might make good on her rapidly increasing desire to do something violent.)
"Take your time," he says; kindly but not without eagerness. He wants to know more about Adora and her life story, and even though Catra has been there for most of it she's jealous anyway. He reaches for a bowl of mashed something, piling more onto his and Adora's and Catra's plates (ignoring the baring of her teeth, still directed intently down at the screen she's tapping a message on), and continues like what he's saying isn't a bad thing: "You sound like you've lived enough for three lifetimes already!"
And then: "Tell me more about Swift Wind." He's basically got stars in his eyes, imagination running wild. Catra didn't see much in the way of fauna in the brief time they'd had before they were accosted, so she supposes she understands that fascination. (And Swift Wind isn't Adora, so it's a marginally more acceptable thing to want to know more about.) "What's a horse like? Can you fly on him?"
He's clearly got some daydream going on, and Catra huffs a quiet and derisive breath at the screen. If she thought more kindly of him, she'd think he was giving Adora an opportunity to take a break and collect herself before delving into more of her history. But she does not think kindly of him. Instead, she just remains secure in her opinion that he is, without a doubt, a pure and total idiot.
"Oh-- thanks, Catra," Adora says, her train of thought cut off by the sudden closeness as Catra leans over and reaches for her hip. For a split-second, it makes her chest flutter.
But she catches it, then, the distant note to Catra's voice, that sharpness to her eyes, but she doesn't know how to acknowledge it and then Catra's pulled back and the conversation's rolled on before she got the chance to.
"Oh, do you guys not have horses? That's okay, I hadn't seen one until, like, two years ago."
Her eyes keep flicking back to Catra, now, but she's fiddling with the communicator and won't meet her gaze.
"They're, uh-- they're really majestic! Swift Wind especially, he's got those long flowing rainbow locks, and he can talk, and yes, I totally fly around on him."
But she's distracted now. She nudges Catra with her shoulder, softly: "Are they not answering?"
"Oh, no, they're answering." Not to worry Adora, there's a smirk on Catra's lips now; although it is a bit on the mean side. This is Adora's navigator after all, all of the messages on it sending with her name attached.
"A majestic horse," Adam breathes, as if he understands anything. He pushes back his chair from the table and stands up in one move, holding his hand above his head. "How tall? This tall?"
He must be imagining the size something would have to be to carry his immense overabundance of muscle around, Catra muses as she details her (Adora's) fascination with the local food to a confused and slightly concerned pair of their friends. There are a lot of text-based faces appearing from under the press of Catra's thumb. Nothing to worry about here.
"Oh, okay." If Catra says they're answering, it should be fine, right?
Her attention is quickly drawn back to Adam, and she studies his outstretched hand for a moment before deciding: "No, I think it's more like-- hold on--"
And then she gets up too, moves to stand beside him, Catra's hand slipping from her hold in the process. "Normally when I'm standing next to him," not in She-ra mode, because we're not mentioning She-ra mode, "he's about up to here?" She sticks up her arm above her own head, then draws a horizontal line from there to under Adam's outstretched arm. He's taller, so his arm goes higher. It'd make for a really big horse.
"So something like this." But it's easier to tell from an outside perspective, so-- "Am I right, Catra?"
A moment of panic grips Catra's heart when Adora's fingers slip from hers, and her eyes shoot up suddenly to track her, pupils contracted into slits.
There's the feel of magic under the table as Melog begins to grow in size. Catra's ears twitch rapidly at the increasing sound of her companion's growl, becoming audible enough for regular ears to hear, and she clenches her empty hand into a fist that's so tight she feels her own claws break into her skin.
Adam's hands follow with Adora's, adjusting his measurement with a boisterous laugh that bounces off the walls. Catra hates it.
Get over it, she tells herself harshly. But she can't tear her narrowed eyes away from the pair of them, so similar and so matched and so stupid, and she hates to admit it but she can hear the blood pounding loudly in her ears as they fold back, flat and jealous and spiteful (and -- scared), against her head.
Her thumb jabs too hard into the screen of the communicator, and cracks begin to form.
"I don't know, Adora." It comes out coldly, without her really meaning to. This is -- bad. This is bad, and she's learned just enough about herself to know that it's bad. Her heart is beating too hard in her chest, her blood is boiling, her vision is narrowing and her throat is closing. She's going to fly off the handle if she hangs around here any longer, and she's so close to snapping at Adora and ruining everything, and it's all Catra can do to grit her teeth and lay the damaged tech carefully on the table with a slow exhale of breath. She can't let Melog go after Adam. She has to control herself.
Her last message to Bow ('having tons of fun! (✌◠▽◠) don't wait up for me!') blinks on the screen.
"Excuse me," she says, and this time it comes out dangerously bland. Her smile is tight when she turns it on Adora's... parents, standing from the table with grace to offer them a slight bow. Her hand, the one that's not clenched in a blood-drawing fist, flutters up and over her heart. She can be polite. She can use manners. She's not the one who got kicked out of a princess ball. "I really have to be going. Thank you so much for your hospitality."
The respect simpering in her voice is fake. It is so, so fake and it makes her angrier. Melog growls, and an image of rushing through the foliage outside flashes before Catra's eyes.
Yes, she thinks desperately. Get me out of here.
And they do; vanishing in motes of magic without so much as a glance back Adora's way.
"Catra?" Adora immediately drops her goofy stance, the air in the room turning heavy and stifling as lead. Before she's even had a chance to protest, Catra's up and left.
Oh. Oh no. This isn't good at all. Catra's quiet, polite departure might fool a group of well-intentioned strangers, but Adora knows her. And this rings a thousand alarm bells, red flashing lights dancing between her temples.
She snatches her pad up off the table, chest tightening at the sight of the cracked screen, the smear of blood at the edge. She doesn't even bother looking at the messages.
"Um-- I'm so sorry," she stammers, looking between her family and the door. "I think she's not feeling well, I need to go check on her. I'll be right back, okay? Don't, uh, don't go anywhere." Of course they're not going anywhere. It's their house, stupid. Adora shakes her head to clear it, then goes from her mother to father to brother, quickly squeezing each of their hands in her own. "Thank you so much for dinner, it was so amazing to meet you-- I, I'll be right back, I swear."
And with that she rushes out, scanning her surroundings for any sign of Catra. She might be able to make herself disappear now, with Melog's help, but the same can't be said for the two sets of footprints on the ground. Adora sprints in the direction they lead, barely registering her family hovering at the door, the concerned looks on their faces.
"Catra!"
The footprints take her into the forest-- that part's easy. But the trail cuts off before long, ending at a tree. Adora scoffs, lifting her gaze to the canopy overhead. Catra's far lither and more agile than her; she could've jumped a dozen treetops in just the time it took Adora to get here.
"Catra, where are you? Come on, I need to talk to you!"
They go into the forest. Deep, deep into the forest. They run until the weirdly brown canopy of the trees becomes thick enough to black out the sky, and then they climb; Catra's claws slicing deep and careless into the trunks and branches as she throws herself from one to the other, moving up and sideways and up and around, until she breaches the overgrowth and sucks in a deep breath, surrounded on all sides by nothing but leaves and sky.
Her muscles tremble with the fading adrenaline but she refuses to let it go, curling her toes and fingers and gripping with excessive force to the tree. Bark presses into the cuts on her palm, and she'll have to clean it out later but for now she braces on the pain. It would've been better if she could have fought something (Adam), if she could have lashed out and expressed her feelings as rage.
Melog shimmers back into existence next to her, perched lightly above the trees, and trills. Their colour is purple, slowly fading back into a mottled blue.
"I don't know," she rasps quietly in response. Why did she get so mad? --Her heart hurts when she thinks about it.
Adora comes crashing through before long, her voice echoing from way below them. Catra's tail snakes, and she feels... well, ashamed. Guilty. She can't deal with that right now, so she leaves again; darting across branches to get away. Melog mewls reproachfully at her, staying put to stare down at Adora for a good long moment before finally following her.
Melog's right, and she should go back and talk to Adora, but it's still hard. It's hard to face the things she does wrong and it's hard to admit she feels bad about them. If she talks to Adora now, all she might end up doing is throwing everything they've worked for back in Adora's face. (And, she realizes as her stomach twists, she's worried that maybe that's what Adora's followed her to do. Now that she has a family, now that Catra's demonstrated just how unstable she is compared to them--)
She has to pull up short on a jump when Melog flashes in front of her with a growl, and she's not so graceful when her hands slip off the branch and she tumbles down a few with a loud and panicked yelp before catching herself halfway down to the forest floor, tail lashing and chest heaving. It's a moment before her leg rises up, the claws of her toes digging in to the branch, and she hoists herself up with a growl of annoyance that does not deter Melog's intent stare at all.
Their battle of wills is interrupted when the branch Catra's standing on shakes, and then moves - and then groans, and starts to rise. An unwilling shiver runs down her spine, her hair rising and ears flattening; and when Catra turns, there is one big, angry eye staring at her.
Well, she'd wanted a fight. And it looks like she's started one, by landing on and scratching up some creature's large tree-like nose.
---Not two seconds later and she's leaping back through the trees, desperately trying to outright the giant creature, heading straight back to Adora with its heavy footsteps shaking the ground with every step. There are a few more yelps and cries of surprise as the shaking jostles her landings, and a rather undignified screech when she falls down a few more feet after one collapses under her; but all in all, she's doing pretty well. You know. All things considered.
Adora's ears perk up at the sounds of rustling and crashing not far ahead, and immediately she's running towards them-- but then there's another set of noises, grass crunching and heavy breaths coming from behind her, and she whips around just as Adam grabs her wrist.
"Adora! Boy, you run fast-- Didn't you hear me? You gotta get away from here, this part of the woods can be dangerous!"
"What?" Her mouth slackens, eyes growing wide. She's been so focused on Catra, she didn't even notice she was followed. "But," she gestures deeper into the woods, "but Catra's--"
As if on cue, Catra comes charging in, leaping from branch to branch overhead. Adora's brief surge of relief is quickly swallowed by panic as a booming quake runs through the earth, and Catra loses her grip and nearly tumbles to the ground.
"There she is! You gotta grab her and let's go!"
"Why, what's out there?" She glances anxiously from him to Catra's rapidly approaching form, followed by Melog.
"Catra, what happened? What are you--"
The boom is followed by a second, then a third. And the creature emerges from among the trees, as tall as the canopy, huge and ancient and angry.
Oh.
She's running from that.
"We've really! Got! To get outta here!" Adam's voice is growing shrill. "And possibly evacuate the village! It looks mad!"
"No no, I can handle it! You and Catra get somewhere safe!"
"You-- you want to fight it? Adora, that's crazy, there's no way--"
But she's already summoned her sword from its perch over her arm, thrusting it skyward as she cries out the familiar words:
"For the honor of Grayskull!"
She-ra's magic washes over her, and she charges into battle, ready to set this whole mess right.
Of course that's what she's running from, Adora. When else have you ever known Catra to run away from something?!
(Other than feelings, that is.)
"Get down!" She snaps at Adam, flying past Adora as her sword is thrust into the air. She collides with the idiot blond (--the male one, not the one about to save her ass) and manages to tackle him despite her slight weight; digging claws into his stupid over-compensatory muscles indiscriminately as they tumble along the ground.
"Adora--!!" He tries to struggle, but his overt strength is not and never will be a match for Horde training. Catra's always played dirty, but she tries to find her fighting manners as she wrestles him; slipping and twisting out of his grips until she's successfully trapped him in a hammerlock hold, her claws digging dangerously into the back of his neck.
"Shut up and stay down," she hisses at him. The glowing embers of Melog's magic flare into life around them, and they disappear from sight. (What a way to make an impression on her girlfriend's family.)
She knows the moment he realizes what's going on by the way he stills and goes slack-jawed, staring at what the flash of gold light has left behind. She-Ra stands there, tall and radiating with power, and Catra tries to remember that she's upset about something.
(It's hard, okay, to focus on things like that when Adora is. Like That.)
The tree-creature slams a flat trunk of an arm on the ground, sending forest litter flying and shaking the trees. Catra feels the ground vibrate through Adam's body, and is just glad she's not the one being rocked by it. (She should feel bad, probably, that he's bearing both her weight and the rattling of his bones. She might care later. Maybe. Probably not.)
Its single eye shakes, rolling in the tight socket of bark and bracken, trying to find the small creature that had so rudely scratched into its face. Failing that, its eye slides to focus on She-Ra. Despite her faith in her partner, Catra still tenses as the creature raises its giant leg and swings it down to land where the radiant woman stands, mud and crushed detritus following in its wake. She will never get used to seeing Adora do this.
She-ra jumps to avoid the blow, and the ground shudders where it connects. The creature is massive, but it's slow -- dodging its attacks shouldn't be difficult. It's all a matter of how to subdue it.
She morphs her sword into a rope at first, then takes a series of running leaps around the creature, aiming for each limb as it's raised for an attack. But even with its supernatural properties, the rope can't contain the beast's sheer strength, and the monster breaks free of its binds every time. Maybe if Bow were here, with his sticky-goo arrows, or if Glimmer could temporarily blind it with her sparkles--
But they're not here, and She-ra has to do this on her own.
Forfeiting the rope approach, she shapes her weapon back into a sword. She needs a new tactic. The giant, single eye in the middle of its face is the obvious weak point, but she wouldn't feel right going for it. This isn't another Horde bot, it's something alive, something that belongs in this forest. And if she had to guess, it's only upset due to the fresh set of claw marks marring the bark of its face.
So, for her new plan, she goes for the trees. She chops them off at the base as the monster gives chase, and they come tumbling down all around it, big and heavy enough to hinder its movements. But of course, each successful blow only serves to make it more upset, and its instincts seem to sharpen with anger-- with a great, deep roar, it shakes off its wooden trappings, and charges at her with an unforeseen speed. She-ra, caught off-guard, doesn't move away in time-- and its tree-branch claws sink into the flesh of her arm, producing a choked, anguished scream.
Catra's ears jerk, straight up, as Adora's scream pierces the air. That is - that is her fault, and somehow this feels much worse than any of the marks her claws had ever left on Adora's skin.
"Go home!" She orders Adam, leaping off of him to scramble up the nearest tree. She doesn't look back to see if he listens; doesn't even glance over her shoulder to see if Melog's still cloaking him. Some trees are still in the process of falling, either made that way by She-ra's sword or the earthquakes shaking them loose, and she bounds across them; using them as the fastest path to cross the distance. It takes only seconds but feels like an age to make it to where the creature is bearing down on Adora, and Catra lands on its back, digging in deep with all fours and letting gravity drag her down what passes for the ridges of its spine as it rears back in pain.
Bark and sticky sap-like blood rise rapidly around the grooves her claws leave, and sliding turns to clinging for dear life as it slams its legs back down. Melog's magic disappears in a burst from the impact, leaving her flapping like a violent flag in the air for a moment before her body remembers gravity and she thunks back against the creature with a pained grunt.
That had better have been enough distraction for Adora to catch up, she hopes.
"Can't you see the eye?!" She complains, shouting it down to her from the incredible height. Said eye rolls, trying to locate her - before it decides again to take its pain and anger out on She-ra, who is a much more visible nuisance than the thing on its back. It swipes for her again, aiming to crush her against one of the fallen trees. It is much, much angrier now.
Adora reels from the pain for a moment-- a moment that could've cost her a lot more than cuts across her arms, had Catra not swooped in to save her. Her chest swells with adoration, instinctively, before the gravity of the situation comes crashing back around her and snuffs it out.
"I'm not attacking the eye!" Though she had to learn her lesson the hard way, she is, at least, much sharper and more alert in her movements now, careful not to let her guard down as she evades the next barrage of blows. Her sword, for now, has taken the form of a shield. "Get down from there, you're just making it angrier!"
"Are you kidding me?!" She snaps back, fingers knuckle-deep in viscous sap. Her feet scrabble for purchase against the slick bark, sending small flecks of what must be the creature's skin into the air. "Where else am I supposed to go?!"
It's when her right foot finally finds purchase that the creature decides to change its tactic. Namely, it decides to throw itself down, full-bodied, in Adora's direction. And then regardless of whether it makes contact with her, it lurches its body into the beginnings of a roll.
It takes Catra a hot minute to realize what's happening, distracted momentarily by the ache of her body crashing against the creature for a second time. And then as gravity begins to change on her, her ears flatten and eyes widen in disbelief. It's---it's going to squash her.
"Adora!" She yells, voice climbing many octaves and very much alarmed as she goes in the only direction she can: up, bounding in leaps and trying to out-pace the creature's movement. Melog fails to assist, and in a moment of gritted teeth she regrets that short moment in which she'd wanted them to sprint Adam back to town. It's still a good thing, she guesses, because they will at least evacuate the village before the creature steamrolls into it. So there's at least that.
Her claws dig and scrape against bark with every bound, becoming more difficult as the sap clings and dulls them. She sounds only a lot stressed when she slips the first time, and she'll deny it later but it's absolutely a shriek when she yells: "Now would be a good time!"
Adora's reflexes are quick enough to save her from being flattened like a pancake, but the thing is so huge that jumping over it proves impossible-- instead, she finds herself landing on its back beside Catra, and clinging frantically on to the bark.
"A good time for what, Catra?!" It's too big, too heavy, and already picking up too much momentum for her to have any hopes of succeeding as a human barricade. And that's assuming she could even get down from here. Big assumption.
Sucking in a breath and filtering it out through her teeth, she's able to work up the focus to shoot light beams through her sword. She uses them to slice through as many trees as she can, as far as she can aim, and by some stroke of miracle they all collapse in time, right in the middle of their path-- terrifyingly close to the village entrance, but safe.
The creature howls, wails, struggles against the barrier. Adora, able to catch her breath at last. places both hands flat against its back and leans in close.
"Shh, it's okay," she murmurs against the wounded, oozing bark, gently stroking the unscarred spots in attempt to soothe. "We're not going to hurt you, I promise. I'm going to make it all better."
Closing her eyes, Adora reaches for the magic swirling inside her chest, channels it towards her palms; a golden glow gathers beneath them, slowly spreading outwards, seeping into the cracks in the creature's wood-skin. She feels it grow calm and still beneath her, and with a sigh of relief, she pushes the magic out farther. It spills out into the woods, healing the marred ground, reviving the fallen trees.
They caused a lot of damage, Adora notes with a bitter pang of guilt. She urges more and more magic out of herself, until her fingertips are trembling, and then more, the quaking spreading up her arms. By the time the woods and the creature are healed, she feels dizzy and weightless, like a glass bottle emptied wholly of its contents. She-ra slips away, leaving behind plain old Adora, who sags limply against Catra, and clings onto her arm as the pacified beast lowers them to the ground.
And, given a moment to gather her bearings, Adora looks around... to see every single person in the village staring at her with eyes the size of dinner plates.
"... Um. Hi." She swallows. "Really sorry about that."
Catra doesn't really have time to feel bad about making no moves whatsoever to help Adora out during their struggle to remain atop the creature during its roll, survival instincts ramped all the way up the way they are. There is so much noise, everywhere, from the creature crushing everything in its path and the trees being logged and Catra's own ragged breaths as she desperately claws her way up, and up, and up; panicked by the thought of even for a second being too slow to stay up top.
She almost ends up on the other side of it, caught up in the need to keep moving; but she skids to a stop on its top, fur matted with the creature's sap and bits of bark and managing to be bristling despite it. The golden glow reaches her shortly after, and as ever she finds herself relaxing under the magic's power, breathing deep as the burning in her muscles and chest fades and the panic is washed away.
She expects Adora to stop once the creature is healed, which - in hindsight - was probably never going to happen. As soon as the magic reaches the ground, Catra creeps carefully across the creature's restored hide, her tail steadying her balance and gripping with the soft pads of her fingers and toes instead of bracing with her claws. She's there by the time Adora begins to tremble, and she hesitates at first (this is her fault, does Adora actually want her there?) before brushing her hand over Adora's shoulder in a silent bid for her to stop.
Adora does not stop, because she never does, and Catra feels nothing but guilty in the (literal) light of She-ra's restorative powers.
It's the least she can do to take Adora's weight when she sags, and she negotiates Adora's arm around her shoulders with eyes messy with apology, wrapping an arm around her waist to steady her and her other hand rising and pausing by the stray strands of blonde that have fallen from her poof.
Catra lowers that hand again and swallows, looking away without touching them.
Melog returns as soon as they're set on the ground, twining between Adora's feet with an echoing trill of concern before growing in size until they're large enough for her to either brace on or ride, as needed.
There isn't the usual excitement or applause that Catra's come to expect whenever Adora performs miracles like this, and she does not guide Adora forward a single step further than what's necessary to put a little distance between them and the now content forest creature. She eyes the people suspiciously instead, and her ears twitch as she tries to pick up some of the hurried whispers breaking out among them.
"She-ra..." "...supposed to be a legend..." "The Destroyer--" "--do you think she's come for us?"
"Adora," she mutters in warning, wishing they had some time for Adora to recover before needing to put her through what is apparently going to be a rather cold reception. "I don't think they're fans of yours."
No sooner have the words left her lips that Adam steps forward. Despite having grappled with the bulk of his shock while also grappling Catra, there's still a good amount of surprise in his eyes; though to his credit, he seems to be trying to overcome it as he comes to stand in front of them, before turning to the crowd.
"Everyone," he says genially, like they're not all waiting with fear for Adora to turn into a rampaging murderous monster. "This is my sister, Adora. I think we're going to be taking her home for some rest, now."
Adora feels a chill settle on the back of her neck. She knew, somehow, that the hoots and cheers she'd receive on Etheria wouldn't follow her here-- she didn't know what to expect in their place, but she had dreaded it just the same.
If she had her way, she'd never have mentioned She-ra at all. Not until she's fully earned her family's trust as Adora, at the very least. But when do those things ever go according to plan?
"Yes, please," Adora murmurs, leaning into Adam with stiff shoulders as he guides her away from the crowd. Her hand reaches for Catra's behind her, though, wanting her close.
"Mom, can you get the first aid kit? Adora's really hurt," Adam calls out as soon as they're back inside, corraling her and Catra into the bathroom. He gets the water running, preparing to wash the lacerations across Adora's arm, as her parents rush in to bring ointments and gauze. It suddenly feels stifling, not just all those people squeezing inside the small bathroom, but the brick-solid silence that hangs in the air. The atmosphere in her family's home now is lightyears away from the warm, comfortable chatter of dinner barely an hour before.
"Thank you-- thank you, um, actually," she struggles to get the words out, cut off by her dad bringing in a thicker brand of bandage he found in the back of some cabinet. "--Can you leave me alone with Catra, please? We can patch each other up. We're used to it, so we'll be okay."
"Oh." Adam's face falls, but Adora can't help but read the look on her parents' faces as one of quiet relief. "Sure, okay. We'll leave you two to it. Holler if you need anything, yeah?"
"Yeah. Thank you."
With her family gone and the door shut behind them, Adora can finally breathe again. She reaches for Catra right away, ignoring her own still-bleeding cuts-- "Where are you hurt? Let me see."
Catra does not protest when Adora leans into Adam, his burly body providing better support. Her arm slips away from Adora's waist, and does not make to move after the siblings when they step away.
It's Melog's reproachful bump against her thigh that moves her, the alien communicating a message along the lines of wallowing servicing no-one, and when Adora reaches for her hand she gives it; closing her fingers lightly around Adora's.
The least she can do is watch and listen to the people as they disperse, threads of uncertainty and distress in the air. Some of them are talking about leaving, some are worried for their children, at least one is convinced that the End Times have come. A couple of them wonder about her, though it takes until she overhears a hushed caution about She-ra transforming animals to do her bidding to realize it. (Her ears drop at that one, suddenly self-conscious and now hyper-aware that everyone in the village was just the same type of person as Adam and Adora. None of Etheria's motley assortment to be found.) They're not subtle when they look at Adora, fear written across every inch of their bodies, and Catra steps closer to her in response; very nearly walking on Adora's heels as if doing so might shield her from their stares. Melog almost cloaks them, and it's only Catra's concern for the riot that might cause that stops them.
(People who are scared can't be trusted, she knows that too well. They're prone to act irrationally; lash out; try to destroy the source of their fear. They can't let them do that to Adora.)
The house is still hateful but now in a way that makes Catra ashamed to think of it as such, and she tries to slip away at the door. Melog's unrelenting presence behind her and Adora's grip on her hand keep her in place, until she tries to do it again at the threshold of the bathroom; at which point Adam's bulk blocks the exit, and then Adora's parents come rushing in, and Catra tries not to feel cornered by any of this or by the sound of water pouring from a tap behind her.
She feels like she can't breathe, the press of people in the small space trapping her as effectively as any of Shadow Weaver's spells ever did, and her grip on Adora's hand increases in increments until finally they pile out at Adora's request.
The breath Catra wasn't aware she was holding releases in a rush, and her shoulders fall. Somehow -- it wasn't what she'd been expecting. (She'd braced for punishment. For red-lit shadows to crackle over and around her, squeezing her muscles and compressing her chest while Adora was lectured about always following her, always getting into trouble for her, always cleaning up after her messes.)
She's incredulous, when Adora reaches for her. It takes her a moment of honest incomprehension before she grabs Adora's wrists, stilling her attempts to find any evidence of injury on Catra.
"You're such an idiot," she tells her, frowning. She wants it to come out firm, brusque; instead it comes out soft, and she shakes her head at herself and Adora both. Melog, standing guard outside the door, mewls a quiet message of concern. "You already took care of that."
The creature, Catra, the forest and probably any other living thing within a good radius. There were still parts that ached, bruised beyond doubt (being caught up in the aura evidently was not as effective as being the target)... but nothing broken. She'd deal. She wasn't the one bleeding all over the place.
She gets to work quietly, unusually subdued as she guides Adora to the sink and begins to wash the cuts. The cuts caused by the creature Catra had woken up. The cuts caused by the creature that Catra had woken up because she'd felt jealous, and insecure, and unreasonably hurt. She's not particularly careful about it - they were trained for efficiency, not comfort - and though the items in the kit look different to what they're used to they still smell about the same, which is how she knows which one the antiseptic is without having to ask Adora to read it. (It's the one that makes her lips curl and eyes water the moment she touches the lid. At least she never has to guess on those ones.)
She tells herself it's just the sap stuck in her fur that's keeping her ears down, and her tail from so much as twitching. It's gross, is all, and it's hardening and uncomfortable and so of course those features of hers are going to be like that. Nothing to do with the careful measuring up of the lacerations, trying to decide if they're going to need stitches. And certainly nothing to do with the knowledge of Adora's concerned family outside the door, or the fearful people in the village.
"--Right. Heh. That's good." Adora's lips twitch into a self-conscious smile. At some point back there, all she was doing anymore was letting the magic flow from her unrestrained -- she wasn't even directing it at any specific target, just wanting to fix everything.
Or at least, as much of this as she could fix.
She winces and hisses as Catra tends to her wounds, but keeps as still as she can, biting on her lip to keep any yelps of pain trapped within. They're both worn out, and more than a little lost -- on foreign grounds and out of their depth, in that way neither one of them has ever been good at handling.
Still, Adora chatters away, hoping to lighten the mood. "That was some monster, huh? Biggest guy we've run into in ages. But I guess I'm kind of rusty, too. It's been a while since I've had to fight without Bow and Glimmer..."
A pause, and her brow furrows. "Man, where are those two? You texted them a while ago already, I figured they'd be here by now." She worries at her lower lip, already working herself up into a fuss. "You don't think they're lost, do you?"
Adora. Adora. Catra is trying so hard to be good and pliant right now, trying to quietly bring herself to give voice to the apology curdling in her stomach. She really does not need to hear about you'd rather have had your other two friends in that fight.
(That's not what Adora said, but that's what Catra takes from it.)
"I told them not to come," Catra mutters; trying not to think about how, if it had been Bow and Glimmer with Adora instead of her, no crazy forest beast would've woken up to begin with. She bends over Adora's arm, the perfect excuse to not look at her face, and checks with experienced eyes for any foreign matter. (At least she doesn't have to fill out any paperwork about this. That's a small blessing.) "Figured you'd stay here the night and I'd catch them up. That was before we went and knocked down half of a forest though, so who knows what they're thinking now."
They'd probably seen or felt She-ra's healing magic and shrugged, honestly. It was all par for the course for them by this point.
Adora's eyebrows hike towards her hairline. She told them not to come?
"What? No, I-- ow!" Adora flinches as Catra pulls on her arm just a little too hard-- "I wanted them to meet my family, too!"
She whips her communicator out, at first to see just what kind of messages Catra had sent, but her attention is quickly snagged by the cracked screen and the faint staining of blood. She'd gotten so caught up in the panic of adrenaline of battle that it's almost slipped her mind altogether, and the reminder has her heart sinking like a rock.
Of course she did. Of course she wanted Bow and Glimmer to meet her family at the same time Catra did.
--Catra does not know why this is insulting to her, but it is, and her teeth grit.
"You were there," she grinds out, and her tail finally moves; lashing as she makes to grab for Adora's arm again. She'll hold it more firmly this time, and press her fingers in enough to Adora's wrist make the threat of her claws an obvious enough deterrent to keep Adora from yanking it away again. "Nothing happened."
Adora's shoulders stiffen as Catra forces her arm back in place, and her features pinch into a scowl. She doesn't move away a second time, but she doesn't stop pressing for answers, either.
"Well, you cracked my communicator, bled on it, and ran off into the woods to start a fight with a giant tree monster. I'm pretty sure that counts as several somethings, actually."
She does not need any reminders, thank you, and Catra's fur bristles with annoyance at them.
"Clumsy me," she says sarcastically. And honestly, it's a testament to how much she's improved that neither of her hands 'slip' when she says it. (She still thinks about it, though, which makes it frustratingly clear that she hasn't improved enough. As if the rest of the evening hadn't made that obvious.)
Her tail continues to lash, and outside Melog warbles a question at her. She ignores them, snatching the gauze from the kit and beginning to pack it against the wounds with a proper professional amount of force. She is trying, she is trying so hard, and on nights like this -- on nights like this, she wonders what the point even is. She's never going to be a good person. She's never going to be someone Adora can be proud of. She's never going to be the sort of steady, reliable person that Adora can count on. She can't even get through one lousy dinner without pulling Adora into trouble.
A quiet voice in the back of her head murmurs Shadow Weaver was right, and Catra's ears twitch as if it were real.
"Look, I'm sorry for ruining your evening." It's not the heartfelt apology she'd started out wanting to give. This one sounds bitter and sarcastic instead, because - and she did not ever need to have a session with Perfuma to know this - that's what she's forcing the churn of her emotions into. Something familiar, something she knows how to handle. The words feel acrid and wrong on her tongue, and she hates herself more for every single one of them. "I'll just finish up with this and then you can call Bow and Glimmer," (their names are sneers on her lips and it feels wrong, as wrong as it ever did to snarl Adora's name with that same vitriol, and she wants to stop herself but she can't stop once she's started, she's never been able to stop once she's started), "and get back to playing the perfect daughter with your family."
Adora shrinks into herself more and more as Catra speaks. Each syllable from her mouth drips with the sort of vitriol Adora hasn't heard in a long, long time.
It's not like Catra no longer gets angry -- she always has, she always will. Sometimes her walls slam up before she can help it, and sometimes she has to run out on her own to cool off. That's fine. Adora knows her, Adora knows she's been trying, and has sworn to stay by her side through it at all.
But now Catra's stabbing every word into her vulnerable flesh like a dagger, and there is a coldness in her eyes that lets Adora know this isn't some sudden, uncontrolled flare-up -- it's a slow, boiling rage that's been simmering a while.
And Adora can't find what she did to cause it.
There's a moment where her expression cracks, revealing nothing but raw confusion and hurt underneath, as Adora wracks her brain for anything she's done wrong. It's always her first reaction when someone she loves is hurting, and she always finds something.
But all she's done today is meet her family. Feel excitement and joy over it. Try to have a nice dinner with them and with Catra, so they could all get to know one another-- so she could maybe, just maybe, put together the family she's barely even allowed herself to dream of.
For once in her life, Adora is certain she's not the one to blame.
"No." In the blink of an eye, her features have gone stone-cold, eyes flat and jaw rigid. She pulls her bandaged arm away, rises to her feet. "That's not fair, Catra."
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morethanadistraction) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
boxitup2020-05-31 09:58 pm
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This was supposed to be your standard space mission: Glimmer and Bow go looking for fuel, Adora and Catra go looking for magic to rehabilitate from First Ones tech. It's a small planet, barely populated -- and while sure, the group of them are known to dawdle, taking in the new sights and foreign cultures wherever they go, it was supposed to be pretty straightforward. Pop in, free some magic, pop back out.
Adora wasn't prepared to come upon one of the last surviving First One colonies in all the galaxy.
Least of all was Adora prepared to find her own family.
As soon as she laid eyes on Adam, somehow, she just knew. The same way she had when she picked up the sword for the first time. But she didn't let herself charge forward on a hunch alone-- instead she cautiously poked and prodded, posing questions about his family life that were probably not as subtle as she'd intended, but, well--
Once he mentioned having a sister who got sucked into an interdimensional portal as a baby, that kind of cleared the last of her doubt.
It's all a whirlwind from there. She found out very quickly that Adam gives really powerful hugs. Then he was rushing them home, bellowing "Mom! Dad! You'll never guess who's here," and then there was a whole mess of crying and hugging and crying some more, because they never thought they'd see each other again, and Adora couldn't believe and has a mom and a dad.
"Oh-- oh, we've got to celebrate this," her mother declared, and though their village is small and their home humble, her family managed to whip up a whole feast in record time. They wouldn't even let Adora help chop the vegetables.
And here they are now-- the six of them, crammed around the dinner table. Catra, Adora, her brother, her parents -- plus Melog, curled up in the corner with a little bowl of its own. The sword of protection lies dormant around her arm in the form of a brace, as unintrusive as Adora knows how to make it. She doesn't know how much they know about She-ra, and besides, there's so many other things they can talk about first.
"Adora, sweetheart, please," her father beckons, the whole family's eyes locked on her. "Tell us everything. Where did you grow up? Who found you?"
"I-- I-- well," she stammers, already overwhelmed before opening her mouth. "I landed on the planet Etheria, where I got picked up by... the Horde, actually," she begins, earning her a chorus of terrified gasps-- "but it was fine! They raised me, and um, it was pretty much what you'd expect from the Horde, yeah, but I had Catra with me." She reaches for her hand under the table, then lifts it up, joining their fingers together. "So I was okay."
She doesn't let go of her hand, even as she keeps talking. "Then when I got older, um, I ended up leaving, and joining the Bright Moon rebellion against the Horde." She still doesn't want to mention the sword, the whole She-ra thing. That can wait, right? Even if she's not sure how to disentangle it from the last couple years of her life. It kind of was her life.
"And uh, a lot of stuff happened! I met Glimmer and Bow, who are two of my best friends, and-- they're actually here too, but they went the other way looking for crystals for fuel, and with all this I haven't had the chance to contact them-- oh man, I really should!" She grapples for the navigator on her belt for a moment, holds it up, hesitates, then puts it back down. "Wait, I don't wanna be rude, I'll just-- I'll do it in a bit."
She heaves out a sigh. "Where was I-- oh, so yeah, I made friends with Glimmer and Bow, and also a horse, his name is Swift Wind and he can fly, and also all the princesses of Etheria, and they reformed the Princess Alliance, which was a thing a whole bunch of years ago but fell apart, so they brought it back together, and-- Oh my god, I'm talking so much."
A realization that was brought on by the desperate need for breath. Adora sucks in a mouthful of air, then drains her glass of water completely of its contents. Her hand, despite steadily growing clammy, insistently squeezes Catra's over the table. "I'm sorry, I'm just so excited."
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She hates Adam, in particular, with his stupid Adora-like grin and his stupid Adora-like eyes. She especially hates his stupid big mouth and his apparent tendency to just drop his backstory on any passing space travelers, like he's just been hoping that one of them would eventually turn out to be his missing sister.
The glow of Melog's red aura is hidden beneath the table, and Catra's ears both twitch as she picks up the quiet growl in Adam's direction. Quietly, she takes a deep breath and holds it - one, two, three - before letting go.
She's calm, for all appearances. She's been through more stressful situations than this; she's held it together before Shadow Weaver, Hordak, Horde Prime. She's not going to let one stupid little family dinner break her down.
(--Except, you know. She's supposed to be Adora's family.)
She'd tried to linger awkwardly outside when the parents (she can't think the word without a sneer; one that raises Melog's hackles) took Adora inside and wrapped their daughter up in hugs, and both she and Melog had wound up hissing at Adam when he'd tried to clap a welcoming hand on her shoulder, all of her hair and Melog's mane bristling in warning and threat. He'd backed off, hands raised, surprise on his face - and she'd stomped into their family home, trying to pull herself together enough to just get Melog to shrink back down and maybe turn a little less blatantly red.
It turns out getting him to become small is easy once she steps into the home, and suddenly wants to be anywhere else. It's cozy and it's warm and it's so, so the sort of place she can see Adora living happily in and -- and that hurts, a sudden sharp ache, and so Catra shoves it down. This is the type of place where someone as warm and kind and loving as Adora belongs.
Catra has no place here.
So Melog becomes small, and Catra silently (desperately) bids them to hide themselves before Adora sees and they ruin everything for her.
And that's how they're here, now. With an absurd amount of food for such a small village, piled onto the table in front of them. She doesn't really eat any of it; just breaks things up small enough to not have to taste them when they eventually, reluctantly, end up in her mouth. She's quiet, which is really the only way to make sure she doesn't snap anything at anyone, but she can't help the small humorless snort when Adora announces the Horde had been okay and raises their linked hands; and nor can she help the unimpressed tightening of her lips when Adora decides that Glimmer and Bow can wait.
Nice to know that if she hadn't been with Adora when she met Adam, that she'd be stuck out there wondering where she was, too.
She still squeezes Adora's hand back, because she hates these people but she loves Adora, and takes the excuse to abandon her utensil and food to instead turn around and grab Adora's navigator with her free hand. She has her own one, and it's attached to the belt on her hip, right where it should be. She doesn't want to use it.
"I'll tell them," she says blandly, like it's the easiest thing in the world. Her tail, draped over her seat, twitches with annoyance. For someone who preaches about friendship so much, Adora sure does love to ditch them all at the slightest opportunity.
Adam, at least, seems enraptured by Adora's rambling. He's leaning forward on the table with both arms, soaking up every word with a gleam of excitement in his eyes.
(Catra has to focus really hard on the navigator, otherwise Melog might make good on her rapidly increasing desire to do something violent.)
"Take your time," he says; kindly but not without eagerness. He wants to know more about Adora and her life story, and even though Catra has been there for most of it she's jealous anyway. He reaches for a bowl of mashed something, piling more onto his and Adora's and Catra's plates (ignoring the baring of her teeth, still directed intently down at the screen she's tapping a message on), and continues like what he's saying isn't a bad thing: "You sound like you've lived enough for three lifetimes already!"
And then: "Tell me more about Swift Wind." He's basically got stars in his eyes, imagination running wild. Catra didn't see much in the way of fauna in the brief time they'd had before they were accosted, so she supposes she understands that fascination. (And Swift Wind isn't Adora, so it's a marginally more acceptable thing to want to know more about.) "What's a horse like? Can you fly on him?"
He's clearly got some daydream going on, and Catra huffs a quiet and derisive breath at the screen. If she thought more kindly of him, she'd think he was giving Adora an opportunity to take a break and collect herself before delving into more of her history. But she does not think kindly of him. Instead, she just remains secure in her opinion that he is, without a doubt, a pure and total idiot.
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But she catches it, then, the distant note to Catra's voice, that sharpness to her eyes, but she doesn't know how to acknowledge it and then Catra's pulled back and the conversation's rolled on before she got the chance to.
"Oh, do you guys not have horses? That's okay, I hadn't seen one until, like, two years ago."
Her eyes keep flicking back to Catra, now, but she's fiddling with the communicator and won't meet her gaze.
"They're, uh-- they're really majestic! Swift Wind especially, he's got those long flowing rainbow locks, and he can talk, and yes, I totally fly around on him."
But she's distracted now. She nudges Catra with her shoulder, softly: "Are they not answering?"
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"A majestic horse," Adam breathes, as if he understands anything. He pushes back his chair from the table and stands up in one move, holding his hand above his head. "How tall? This tall?"
He must be imagining the size something would have to be to carry his immense overabundance of muscle around, Catra muses as she details her (Adora's) fascination with the local food to a confused and slightly concerned pair of their friends. There are a lot of text-based faces appearing from under the press of Catra's thumb. Nothing to worry about here.
no subject
Her attention is quickly drawn back to Adam, and she studies his outstretched hand for a moment before deciding: "No, I think it's more like-- hold on--"
And then she gets up too, moves to stand beside him, Catra's hand slipping from her hold in the process. "Normally when I'm standing next to him," not in She-ra mode, because we're not mentioning She-ra mode, "he's about up to here?" She sticks up her arm above her own head, then draws a horizontal line from there to under Adam's outstretched arm. He's taller, so his arm goes higher. It'd make for a really big horse.
"So something like this." But it's easier to tell from an outside perspective, so-- "Am I right, Catra?"
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There's the feel of magic under the table as Melog begins to grow in size. Catra's ears twitch rapidly at the increasing sound of her companion's growl, becoming audible enough for regular ears to hear, and she clenches her empty hand into a fist that's so tight she feels her own claws break into her skin.
Adam's hands follow with Adora's, adjusting his measurement with a boisterous laugh that bounces off the walls. Catra hates it.
Get over it, she tells herself harshly. But she can't tear her narrowed eyes away from the pair of them, so similar and so matched and so stupid, and she hates to admit it but she can hear the blood pounding loudly in her ears as they fold back, flat and jealous and spiteful (and -- scared), against her head.
Her thumb jabs too hard into the screen of the communicator, and cracks begin to form.
"I don't know, Adora." It comes out coldly, without her really meaning to. This is -- bad. This is bad, and she's learned just enough about herself to know that it's bad. Her heart is beating too hard in her chest, her blood is boiling, her vision is narrowing and her throat is closing. She's going to fly off the handle if she hangs around here any longer, and she's so close to snapping at Adora and ruining everything, and it's all Catra can do to grit her teeth and lay the damaged tech carefully on the table with a slow exhale of breath. She can't let Melog go after Adam. She has to control herself.
Her last message to Bow ('having tons of fun! (✌◠▽◠) don't wait up for me!') blinks on the screen.
"Excuse me," she says, and this time it comes out dangerously bland. Her smile is tight when she turns it on Adora's... parents, standing from the table with grace to offer them a slight bow. Her hand, the one that's not clenched in a blood-drawing fist, flutters up and over her heart. She can be polite. She can use manners. She's not the one who got kicked out of a princess ball. "I really have to be going. Thank you so much for your hospitality."
The respect simpering in her voice is fake. It is so, so fake and it makes her angrier. Melog growls, and an image of rushing through the foliage outside flashes before Catra's eyes.
Yes, she thinks desperately. Get me out of here.
And they do; vanishing in motes of magic without so much as a glance back Adora's way.
no subject
Oh. Oh no. This isn't good at all. Catra's quiet, polite departure might fool a group of well-intentioned strangers, but Adora knows her. And this rings a thousand alarm bells, red flashing lights dancing between her temples.
She snatches her pad up off the table, chest tightening at the sight of the cracked screen, the smear of blood at the edge. She doesn't even bother looking at the messages.
"Um-- I'm so sorry," she stammers, looking between her family and the door. "I think she's not feeling well, I need to go check on her. I'll be right back, okay? Don't, uh, don't go anywhere." Of course they're not going anywhere. It's their house, stupid. Adora shakes her head to clear it, then goes from her mother to father to brother, quickly squeezing each of their hands in her own. "Thank you so much for dinner, it was so amazing to meet you-- I, I'll be right back, I swear."
And with that she rushes out, scanning her surroundings for any sign of Catra. She might be able to make herself disappear now, with Melog's help, but the same can't be said for the two sets of footprints on the ground. Adora sprints in the direction they lead, barely registering her family hovering at the door, the concerned looks on their faces.
"Catra!"
The footprints take her into the forest-- that part's easy. But the trail cuts off before long, ending at a tree. Adora scoffs, lifting her gaze to the canopy overhead. Catra's far lither and more agile than her; she could've jumped a dozen treetops in just the time it took Adora to get here.
"Catra, where are you? Come on, I need to talk to you!"
no subject
Her muscles tremble with the fading adrenaline but she refuses to let it go, curling her toes and fingers and gripping with excessive force to the tree. Bark presses into the cuts on her palm, and she'll have to clean it out later but for now she braces on the pain. It would've been better if she could have fought something (Adam), if she could have lashed out and expressed her feelings as rage.
Melog shimmers back into existence next to her, perched lightly above the trees, and trills. Their colour is purple, slowly fading back into a mottled blue.
"I don't know," she rasps quietly in response. Why did she get so mad? --Her heart hurts when she thinks about it.
Adora comes crashing through before long, her voice echoing from way below them. Catra's tail snakes, and she feels... well, ashamed. Guilty. She can't deal with that right now, so she leaves again; darting across branches to get away. Melog mewls reproachfully at her, staying put to stare down at Adora for a good long moment before finally following her.
Melog's right, and she should go back and talk to Adora, but it's still hard. It's hard to face the things she does wrong and it's hard to admit she feels bad about them. If she talks to Adora now, all she might end up doing is throwing everything they've worked for back in Adora's face. (And, she realizes as her stomach twists, she's worried that maybe that's what Adora's followed her to do. Now that she has a family, now that Catra's demonstrated just how unstable she is compared to them--)
She has to pull up short on a jump when Melog flashes in front of her with a growl, and she's not so graceful when her hands slip off the branch and she tumbles down a few with a loud and panicked yelp before catching herself halfway down to the forest floor, tail lashing and chest heaving. It's a moment before her leg rises up, the claws of her toes digging in to the branch, and she hoists herself up with a growl of annoyance that does not deter Melog's intent stare at all.
Their battle of wills is interrupted when the branch Catra's standing on shakes, and then moves - and then groans, and starts to rise. An unwilling shiver runs down her spine, her hair rising and ears flattening; and when Catra turns, there is one big, angry eye staring at her.
Well, she'd wanted a fight. And it looks like she's started one, by landing on and scratching up some creature's large tree-like nose.
---Not two seconds later and she's leaping back through the trees, desperately trying to outright the giant creature, heading straight back to Adora with its heavy footsteps shaking the ground with every step. There are a few more yelps and cries of surprise as the shaking jostles her landings, and a rather undignified screech when she falls down a few more feet after one collapses under her; but all in all, she's doing pretty well. You know. All things considered.
no subject
"Adora! Boy, you run fast-- Didn't you hear me? You gotta get away from here, this part of the woods can be dangerous!"
"What?" Her mouth slackens, eyes growing wide. She's been so focused on Catra, she didn't even notice she was followed. "But," she gestures deeper into the woods, "but Catra's--"
As if on cue, Catra comes charging in, leaping from branch to branch overhead. Adora's brief surge of relief is quickly swallowed by panic as a booming quake runs through the earth, and Catra loses her grip and nearly tumbles to the ground.
"There she is! You gotta grab her and let's go!"
"Why, what's out there?" She glances anxiously from him to Catra's rapidly approaching form, followed by Melog.
"Catra, what happened? What are you--"
The boom is followed by a second, then a third. And the creature emerges from among the trees, as tall as the canopy, huge and ancient and angry.
Oh.
She's running from that.
"We've really! Got! To get outta here!" Adam's voice is growing shrill. "And possibly evacuate the village! It looks mad!"
"No no, I can handle it! You and Catra get somewhere safe!"
"You-- you want to fight it? Adora, that's crazy, there's no way--"
But she's already summoned her sword from its perch over her arm, thrusting it skyward as she cries out the familiar words:
"For the honor of Grayskull!"
She-ra's magic washes over her, and she charges into battle, ready to set this whole mess right.
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(Other than feelings, that is.)
"Get down!" She snaps at Adam, flying past Adora as her sword is thrust into the air. She collides with the idiot blond (--the male one, not the one about to save her ass) and manages to tackle him despite her slight weight; digging claws into his stupid over-compensatory muscles indiscriminately as they tumble along the ground.
"Adora--!!" He tries to struggle, but his overt strength is not and never will be a match for Horde training. Catra's always played dirty, but she tries to find her fighting manners as she wrestles him; slipping and twisting out of his grips until she's successfully trapped him in a hammerlock hold, her claws digging dangerously into the back of his neck.
"Shut up and stay down," she hisses at him. The glowing embers of Melog's magic flare into life around them, and they disappear from sight. (What a way to make an impression on her girlfriend's family.)
She knows the moment he realizes what's going on by the way he stills and goes slack-jawed, staring at what the flash of gold light has left behind. She-Ra stands there, tall and radiating with power, and Catra tries to remember that she's upset about something.
(It's hard, okay, to focus on things like that when Adora is. Like That.)
The tree-creature slams a flat trunk of an arm on the ground, sending forest litter flying and shaking the trees. Catra feels the ground vibrate through Adam's body, and is just glad she's not the one being rocked by it. (She should feel bad, probably, that he's bearing both her weight and the rattling of his bones. She might care later. Maybe. Probably not.)
Its single eye shakes, rolling in the tight socket of bark and bracken, trying to find the small creature that had so rudely scratched into its face. Failing that, its eye slides to focus on She-Ra. Despite her faith in her partner, Catra still tenses as the creature raises its giant leg and swings it down to land where the radiant woman stands, mud and crushed detritus following in its wake. She will never get used to seeing Adora do this.
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She morphs her sword into a rope at first, then takes a series of running leaps around the creature, aiming for each limb as it's raised for an attack. But even with its supernatural properties, the rope can't contain the beast's sheer strength, and the monster breaks free of its binds every time. Maybe if Bow were here, with his sticky-goo arrows, or if Glimmer could temporarily blind it with her sparkles--
But they're not here, and She-ra has to do this on her own.
Forfeiting the rope approach, she shapes her weapon back into a sword. She needs a new tactic. The giant, single eye in the middle of its face is the obvious weak point, but she wouldn't feel right going for it. This isn't another Horde bot, it's something alive, something that belongs in this forest. And if she had to guess, it's only upset due to the fresh set of claw marks marring the bark of its face.
So, for her new plan, she goes for the trees. She chops them off at the base as the monster gives chase, and they come tumbling down all around it, big and heavy enough to hinder its movements. But of course, each successful blow only serves to make it more upset, and its instincts seem to sharpen with anger-- with a great, deep roar, it shakes off its wooden trappings, and charges at her with an unforeseen speed. She-ra, caught off-guard, doesn't move away in time-- and its tree-branch claws sink into the flesh of her arm, producing a choked, anguished scream.
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"Go home!" She orders Adam, leaping off of him to scramble up the nearest tree. She doesn't look back to see if he listens; doesn't even glance over her shoulder to see if Melog's still cloaking him. Some trees are still in the process of falling, either made that way by She-ra's sword or the earthquakes shaking them loose, and she bounds across them; using them as the fastest path to cross the distance. It takes only seconds but feels like an age to make it to where the creature is bearing down on Adora, and Catra lands on its back, digging in deep with all fours and letting gravity drag her down what passes for the ridges of its spine as it rears back in pain.
Bark and sticky sap-like blood rise rapidly around the grooves her claws leave, and sliding turns to clinging for dear life as it slams its legs back down. Melog's magic disappears in a burst from the impact, leaving her flapping like a violent flag in the air for a moment before her body remembers gravity and she thunks back against the creature with a pained grunt.
That had better have been enough distraction for Adora to catch up, she hopes.
"Can't you see the eye?!" She complains, shouting it down to her from the incredible height. Said eye rolls, trying to locate her - before it decides again to take its pain and anger out on She-ra, who is a much more visible nuisance than the thing on its back. It swipes for her again, aiming to crush her against one of the fallen trees. It is much, much angrier now.
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"I'm not attacking the eye!" Though she had to learn her lesson the hard way, she is, at least, much sharper and more alert in her movements now, careful not to let her guard down as she evades the next barrage of blows. Her sword, for now, has taken the form of a shield. "Get down from there, you're just making it angrier!"
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It's when her right foot finally finds purchase that the creature decides to change its tactic. Namely, it decides to throw itself down, full-bodied, in Adora's direction. And then regardless of whether it makes contact with her, it lurches its body into the beginnings of a roll.
It takes Catra a hot minute to realize what's happening, distracted momentarily by the ache of her body crashing against the creature for a second time. And then as gravity begins to change on her, her ears flatten and eyes widen in disbelief. It's---it's going to squash her.
"Adora!" She yells, voice climbing many octaves and very much alarmed as she goes in the only direction she can: up, bounding in leaps and trying to out-pace the creature's movement. Melog fails to assist, and in a moment of gritted teeth she regrets that short moment in which she'd wanted them to sprint Adam back to town. It's still a good thing, she guesses, because they will at least evacuate the village before the creature steamrolls into it. So there's at least that.
Her claws dig and scrape against bark with every bound, becoming more difficult as the sap clings and dulls them. She sounds only a lot stressed when she slips the first time, and she'll deny it later but it's absolutely a shriek when she yells: "Now would be a good time!"
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"A good time for what, Catra?!" It's too big, too heavy, and already picking up too much momentum for her to have any hopes of succeeding as a human barricade. And that's assuming she could even get down from here. Big assumption.
Sucking in a breath and filtering it out through her teeth, she's able to work up the focus to shoot light beams through her sword. She uses them to slice through as many trees as she can, as far as she can aim, and by some stroke of miracle they all collapse in time, right in the middle of their path-- terrifyingly close to the village entrance, but safe.
The creature howls, wails, struggles against the barrier. Adora, able to catch her breath at last. places both hands flat against its back and leans in close.
"Shh, it's okay," she murmurs against the wounded, oozing bark, gently stroking the unscarred spots in attempt to soothe. "We're not going to hurt you, I promise. I'm going to make it all better."
Closing her eyes, Adora reaches for the magic swirling inside her chest, channels it towards her palms; a golden glow gathers beneath them, slowly spreading outwards, seeping into the cracks in the creature's wood-skin. She feels it grow calm and still beneath her, and with a sigh of relief, she pushes the magic out farther. It spills out into the woods, healing the marred ground, reviving the fallen trees.
They caused a lot of damage, Adora notes with a bitter pang of guilt. She urges more and more magic out of herself, until her fingertips are trembling, and then more, the quaking spreading up her arms. By the time the woods and the creature are healed, she feels dizzy and weightless, like a glass bottle emptied wholly of its contents. She-ra slips away, leaving behind plain old Adora, who sags limply against Catra, and clings onto her arm as the pacified beast lowers them to the ground.
And, given a moment to gather her bearings, Adora looks around... to see every single person in the village staring at her with eyes the size of dinner plates.
"... Um. Hi." She swallows. "Really sorry about that."
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She almost ends up on the other side of it, caught up in the need to keep moving; but she skids to a stop on its top, fur matted with the creature's sap and bits of bark and managing to be bristling despite it. The golden glow reaches her shortly after, and as ever she finds herself relaxing under the magic's power, breathing deep as the burning in her muscles and chest fades and the panic is washed away.
She expects Adora to stop once the creature is healed, which - in hindsight - was probably never going to happen. As soon as the magic reaches the ground, Catra creeps carefully across the creature's restored hide, her tail steadying her balance and gripping with the soft pads of her fingers and toes instead of bracing with her claws. She's there by the time Adora begins to tremble, and she hesitates at first (this is her fault, does Adora actually want her there?) before brushing her hand over Adora's shoulder in a silent bid for her to stop.
Adora does not stop, because she never does, and Catra feels nothing but guilty in the (literal) light of She-ra's restorative powers.
It's the least she can do to take Adora's weight when she sags, and she negotiates Adora's arm around her shoulders with eyes messy with apology, wrapping an arm around her waist to steady her and her other hand rising and pausing by the stray strands of blonde that have fallen from her poof.
Catra lowers that hand again and swallows, looking away without touching them.
Melog returns as soon as they're set on the ground, twining between Adora's feet with an echoing trill of concern before growing in size until they're large enough for her to either brace on or ride, as needed.
There isn't the usual excitement or applause that Catra's come to expect whenever Adora performs miracles like this, and she does not guide Adora forward a single step further than what's necessary to put a little distance between them and the now content forest creature. She eyes the people suspiciously instead, and her ears twitch as she tries to pick up some of the hurried whispers breaking out among them.
"She-ra..."
"...supposed to be a legend..."
"The Destroyer--"
"--do you think she's come for us?"
"Adora," she mutters in warning, wishing they had some time for Adora to recover before needing to put her through what is apparently going to be a rather cold reception. "I don't think they're fans of yours."
No sooner have the words left her lips that Adam steps forward. Despite having grappled with the bulk of his shock while also grappling Catra, there's still a good amount of surprise in his eyes; though to his credit, he seems to be trying to overcome it as he comes to stand in front of them, before turning to the crowd.
"Everyone," he says genially, like they're not all waiting with fear for Adora to turn into a rampaging murderous monster. "This is my sister, Adora. I think we're going to be taking her home for some rest, now."
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If she had her way, she'd never have mentioned She-ra at all. Not until she's fully earned her family's trust as Adora, at the very least. But when do those things ever go according to plan?
"Yes, please," Adora murmurs, leaning into Adam with stiff shoulders as he guides her away from the crowd. Her hand reaches for Catra's behind her, though, wanting her close.
"Mom, can you get the first aid kit? Adora's really hurt," Adam calls out as soon as they're back inside, corraling her and Catra into the bathroom. He gets the water running, preparing to wash the lacerations across Adora's arm, as her parents rush in to bring ointments and gauze. It suddenly feels stifling, not just all those people squeezing inside the small bathroom, but the brick-solid silence that hangs in the air. The atmosphere in her family's home now is lightyears away from the warm, comfortable chatter of dinner barely an hour before.
"Thank you-- thank you, um, actually," she struggles to get the words out, cut off by her dad bringing in a thicker brand of bandage he found in the back of some cabinet. "--Can you leave me alone with Catra, please? We can patch each other up. We're used to it, so we'll be okay."
"Oh." Adam's face falls, but Adora can't help but read the look on her parents' faces as one of quiet relief. "Sure, okay. We'll leave you two to it. Holler if you need anything, yeah?"
"Yeah. Thank you."
With her family gone and the door shut behind them, Adora can finally breathe again. She reaches for Catra right away, ignoring her own still-bleeding cuts-- "Where are you hurt? Let me see."
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It's Melog's reproachful bump against her thigh that moves her, the alien communicating a message along the lines of wallowing servicing no-one, and when Adora reaches for her hand she gives it; closing her fingers lightly around Adora's.
The least she can do is watch and listen to the people as they disperse, threads of uncertainty and distress in the air. Some of them are talking about leaving, some are worried for their children, at least one is convinced that the End Times have come. A couple of them wonder about her, though it takes until she overhears a hushed caution about She-ra transforming animals to do her bidding to realize it. (Her ears drop at that one, suddenly self-conscious and now hyper-aware that everyone in the village was just the same type of person as Adam and Adora. None of Etheria's motley assortment to be found.) They're not subtle when they look at Adora, fear written across every inch of their bodies, and Catra steps closer to her in response; very nearly walking on Adora's heels as if doing so might shield her from their stares. Melog almost cloaks them, and it's only Catra's concern for the riot that might cause that stops them.
(People who are scared can't be trusted, she knows that too well. They're prone to act irrationally; lash out; try to destroy the source of their fear. They can't let them do that to Adora.)
The house is still hateful but now in a way that makes Catra ashamed to think of it as such, and she tries to slip away at the door. Melog's unrelenting presence behind her and Adora's grip on her hand keep her in place, until she tries to do it again at the threshold of the bathroom; at which point Adam's bulk blocks the exit, and then Adora's parents come rushing in, and Catra tries not to feel cornered by any of this or by the sound of water pouring from a tap behind her.
She feels like she can't breathe, the press of people in the small space trapping her as effectively as any of Shadow Weaver's spells ever did, and her grip on Adora's hand increases in increments until finally they pile out at Adora's request.
The breath Catra wasn't aware she was holding releases in a rush, and her shoulders fall. Somehow -- it wasn't what she'd been expecting. (She'd braced for punishment. For red-lit shadows to crackle over and around her, squeezing her muscles and compressing her chest while Adora was lectured about always following her, always getting into trouble for her, always cleaning up after her messes.)
She's incredulous, when Adora reaches for her. It takes her a moment of honest incomprehension before she grabs Adora's wrists, stilling her attempts to find any evidence of injury on Catra.
"You're such an idiot," she tells her, frowning. She wants it to come out firm, brusque; instead it comes out soft, and she shakes her head at herself and Adora both. Melog, standing guard outside the door, mewls a quiet message of concern. "You already took care of that."
The creature, Catra, the forest and probably any other living thing within a good radius. There were still parts that ached, bruised beyond doubt (being caught up in the aura evidently was not as effective as being the target)... but nothing broken. She'd deal. She wasn't the one bleeding all over the place.
She gets to work quietly, unusually subdued as she guides Adora to the sink and begins to wash the cuts. The cuts caused by the creature Catra had woken up. The cuts caused by the creature that Catra had woken up because she'd felt jealous, and insecure, and unreasonably hurt. She's not particularly careful about it - they were trained for efficiency, not comfort - and though the items in the kit look different to what they're used to they still smell about the same, which is how she knows which one the antiseptic is without having to ask Adora to read it. (It's the one that makes her lips curl and eyes water the moment she touches the lid. At least she never has to guess on those ones.)
She tells herself it's just the sap stuck in her fur that's keeping her ears down, and her tail from so much as twitching. It's gross, is all, and it's hardening and uncomfortable and so of course those features of hers are going to be like that. Nothing to do with the careful measuring up of the lacerations, trying to decide if they're going to need stitches. And certainly nothing to do with the knowledge of Adora's concerned family outside the door, or the fearful people in the village.
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Or at least, as much of this as she could fix.
She winces and hisses as Catra tends to her wounds, but keeps as still as she can, biting on her lip to keep any yelps of pain trapped within. They're both worn out, and more than a little lost -- on foreign grounds and out of their depth, in that way neither one of them has ever been good at handling.
Still, Adora chatters away, hoping to lighten the mood. "That was some monster, huh? Biggest guy we've run into in ages. But I guess I'm kind of rusty, too. It's been a while since I've had to fight without Bow and Glimmer..."
A pause, and her brow furrows. "Man, where are those two? You texted them a while ago already, I figured they'd be here by now." She worries at her lower lip, already working herself up into a fuss. "You don't think they're lost, do you?"
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(That's not what Adora said, but that's what Catra takes from it.)
"I told them not to come," Catra mutters; trying not to think about how, if it had been Bow and Glimmer with Adora instead of her, no crazy forest beast would've woken up to begin with. She bends over Adora's arm, the perfect excuse to not look at her face, and checks with experienced eyes for any foreign matter. (At least she doesn't have to fill out any paperwork about this. That's a small blessing.) "Figured you'd stay here the night and I'd catch them up. That was before we went and knocked down half of a forest though, so who knows what they're thinking now."
They'd probably seen or felt She-ra's healing magic and shrugged, honestly. It was all par for the course for them by this point.
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"What? No, I-- ow!" Adora flinches as Catra pulls on her arm just a little too hard-- "I wanted them to meet my family, too!"
She whips her communicator out, at first to see just what kind of messages Catra had sent, but her attention is quickly snagged by the cracked screen and the faint staining of blood. She'd gotten so caught up in the panic of adrenaline of battle that it's almost slipped her mind altogether, and the reminder has her heart sinking like a rock.
"... What happened at dinner, Catra?"
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--Catra does not know why this is insulting to her, but it is, and her teeth grit.
"You were there," she grinds out, and her tail finally moves; lashing as she makes to grab for Adora's arm again. She'll hold it more firmly this time, and press her fingers in enough to Adora's wrist make the threat of her claws an obvious enough deterrent to keep Adora from yanking it away again. "Nothing happened."
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"Well, you cracked my communicator, bled on it, and ran off into the woods to start a fight with a giant tree monster. I'm pretty sure that counts as several somethings, actually."
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"Clumsy me," she says sarcastically. And honestly, it's a testament to how much she's improved that neither of her hands 'slip' when she says it. (She still thinks about it, though, which makes it frustratingly clear that she hasn't improved enough. As if the rest of the evening hadn't made that obvious.)
Her tail continues to lash, and outside Melog warbles a question at her. She ignores them, snatching the gauze from the kit and beginning to pack it against the wounds with a proper professional amount of force. She is trying, she is trying so hard, and on nights like this -- on nights like this, she wonders what the point even is. She's never going to be a good person. She's never going to be someone Adora can be proud of. She's never going to be the sort of steady, reliable person that Adora can count on. She can't even get through one lousy dinner without pulling Adora into trouble.
A quiet voice in the back of her head murmurs Shadow Weaver was right, and Catra's ears twitch as if it were real.
"Look, I'm sorry for ruining your evening." It's not the heartfelt apology she'd started out wanting to give. This one sounds bitter and sarcastic instead, because - and she did not ever need to have a session with Perfuma to know this - that's what she's forcing the churn of her emotions into. Something familiar, something she knows how to handle. The words feel acrid and wrong on her tongue, and she hates herself more for every single one of them. "I'll just finish up with this and then you can call Bow and Glimmer," (their names are sneers on her lips and it feels wrong, as wrong as it ever did to snarl Adora's name with that same vitriol, and she wants to stop herself but she can't stop once she's started, she's never been able to stop once she's started), "and get back to playing the perfect daughter with your family."
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It's not like Catra no longer gets angry -- she always has, she always will. Sometimes her walls slam up before she can help it, and sometimes she has to run out on her own to cool off. That's fine. Adora knows her, Adora knows she's been trying, and has sworn to stay by her side through it at all.
But now Catra's stabbing every word into her vulnerable flesh like a dagger, and there is a coldness in her eyes that lets Adora know this isn't some sudden, uncontrolled flare-up -- it's a slow, boiling rage that's been simmering a while.
And Adora can't find what she did to cause it.
There's a moment where her expression cracks, revealing nothing but raw confusion and hurt underneath, as Adora wracks her brain for anything she's done wrong. It's always her first reaction when someone she loves is hurting, and she always finds something.
But all she's done today is meet her family. Feel excitement and joy over it. Try to have a nice dinner with them and with Catra, so they could all get to know one another-- so she could maybe, just maybe, put together the family she's barely even allowed herself to dream of.
For once in her life, Adora is certain she's not the one to blame.
"No." In the blink of an eye, her features have gone stone-cold, eyes flat and jaw rigid. She pulls her bandaged arm away, rises to her feet. "That's not fair, Catra."
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