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Had Catra known how long they were going to spend outside, she wouldn’t have come. We’ll be quick, Scorpia had said, it’s just lunch! And like an idiot, Catra had believed her. But here they are, two hours later, and—
“Let’s take a picture!” Scorpia says. She thrusts her phone at Entrapta before posing next to the bronze statue in the park. Catra heaves another sigh, not hiding her impatience as Entrapta dutifully takes pictures of Scorpia every time she changes her pose. By the time Scorpia “impales” herself on the statue’s sword, she’s had enough.
“Can we go already? We’ve been here forever—”
“But it’s Etheria’s savior!” Scorpia protests, “I wanted to get a picture before I had to leave for home again.”
“It’s just a stupid statue. It’ll be here.” Catra glares up at it, kicking a stray pebble at it as if that will pry Scorpia away. It doesn’t.
“It is built rather beautifully,” Entrapta comments, “the creator’s attention to detail makes it captivating.”
And Catra hates to admit it, but she’s right. The plaque in front of the statue says that it is of She-Ra, the savior of Etheria, balancer of all the lands, lord of all the princesses of long ago. Her hair, despite being made of bronze, flows out behind her as she raises her sword to parry a blow. Her face is twisted in cold anger, and when the sunlight hits her just right, her eyes spark and catch alight.
“It’s okay, I guess.”
“You should take a picture too, Catra! You know what they say about—”
“No,” Catra interrupts. She—no, everyone —knows about the myth of the statue: that it’ll come to life when touched by its soulmate. People flock to the statue every day to take pictures and touch the statue, half-hoping that at least one bit of magic still exists in the world.
“Oh, come on, wildcat! It’ll only be one picture!”
Catra rolls her eyes (not that Scorpia sees) and shakes her head again. “You’re not gonna shut up about this until I do it, are you?”
“You know me so well, wildcat! Just one picture, and we’ll head home. Promise.”
Catra groans to show her displeasure and stomps over to the statue, leaning against it and glaring as Scorpia raises her phone. And—it’s strange, because the statue is warm, but then, she reasons, it is midday, and bronze does heat up in the sun, right?
“Did you finish yet?”
“Yeah! We’re just making sure they’re good pictures.”
“They would be much better if you smiled,” Entrapta says, and Scorpia makes a noise of agreement.
Catra rolls her eyes again, then eyes the statue distastefully. And pauses, eyes narrowing. “Hey, idiots, is it just me or does this stupid thing…” and she can’t say it, can’t say that it somehow looks like the statue has gotten a little softer around the edges, because that’s. That’s crazy.
And then it moves.
Scorpia and Entrapta are still engrossed with the phone, so they don’t see it, but Catra freezes in place, ready to bolt if it happens again. It’d been the tiniest movement, almost enough to convince her that it’d been all in her head, but then with a great heave of breath, the statue collapses, and Catra only barely catches it—no, her— in her arms. They both crumple to the ground, and Catra realizes a few things all at once.
What has blanketed her body is not a bronze statue, but a girl. She can feel her breathing, and her skin is warm, and her hair is soft and smells a little bit like lavender. Scorpia and Entrapta have hurried over, and they pull the girl and Catra up, but Catra doesn’t pay attention to them, because the girl is looking around, panicked, and—she would be. She’d been frozen in the middle of a war, and now there is peace surrounding her.
“Hey,” Catra says, “are you okay?”
The girl looks at her, and—stares. Her eyes slowly comb Catra up and down and back up again, and she shrugs Entrapta away to grab her sword, discarded. “Is the battle over, then?” she has a bit of an accent, and her voice is hoarse, but Catra can tell that it’s still beautiful.
“You’re She-Ra, right?” Scorpia blurts out. The girl bites her lip, eyes still on Catra, and she nods. Then sort of shrinks down on herself, and. Gone is the flowing hair of spun starlight, gone are the clear blue eyes, gone is all of her perfection—and in its place is a girl only a few inches taller than Catra. She looks almost normal like this; her hair is shorter, in a messy ponytail, and her eyes are blue-gray, and Catra is annoyed to find that she’s still beautiful like this.
“Adora,” she says, “my name is Adora.”
“Well, Adora—” Catra pauses, sighs. How to tell her that she’s a princess gone out of time, that hundreds of years have passed since that legendary battle, that everyone she knows is dead? “Are you hungry? We can go eat while Entrapta...holds your sword for you. It probably isn’t very convenient to carry all the time, is it?”
And here, Adora frowns. “You promise we will come right back for it?”
“Of course.”
And. Catra is a cynic: she doesn’t believe in soulmates, doesn’t believe in true love or love at first sight, doesn’t even believe in fate—but in that moment, as Adora trusts her word so easily, so blindly, Catra finds that she wants to.
Her favorite burger place is packed—Adora pauses at the door, eyes wide, and Catra reconsiders. As good as the food is, this probably isn’t the best way to reintroduce Adora to civilization. “It’ll take too long, let’s just go to my place. We can eat there.”
Adora is awfully quiet, and Catra glances at her out of the corner of her eyes every so often to make sure she’s still there. While they walk, she orders a pizza—plain cheese, nothing special—and lets Adora take everything in. Stores, people, cars...Catra is sure that Adora is bursting with questions, but she keeps quiet, her hand holding Catra’s tight the only thing that betrays her discomfort.
But that all disappears the second the door closes behind them: this time, when Catra glances back at Adora, she finds her face tight with some awful, awful emotion that makes Catra’s heart tug in her chest. “What is it?”
“Where am I?” Adora demands. For a moment, Catra contemplates lying, but she sees the resolution in those steel blue eyes and her resolve crumbles to dust.
“You’re on Etheria still—” Adora’s shoulders sag with palpable relief, “but...it’s been a long time.”
“How long?”
Catra hesitates again, and Adora reaches out, takes her hand. She doesn’t say anything, but the meaning in her gesture is clear: she trusts her, believes her. She can take knowing, even if she doesn’t want to. “The war you fought was almost 300 years ago.”
For a brief moment, Catra can see that awful emotion on Adora’s face, and then her whole expression shutters over into blankness. Catra knows too goddamn well what she’s doing, and maybe there’s some truth to the stupid soulmate thing, because she does the same thing: compresses whatever awful thing that’s happened, puts it into a little box and files it away deep in the back of her mind, forgets about it. If she doesn’t think about it, she won’t have to deal with it. “Hey,” she says, a little gruff, a lot awkward, “it’s okay, you won, and—”
“Everything I know is gone,” Adora interrupts. Her voice is blank too, devoid of any emotion but for the slight tremble on the last word. With her words, her hand drops to her side and hangs there, limp. “When I lived, we were always in battle, so I knew...I knew that everything could be taken away from me in an instant, but—”
But not like this. Catra has no idea what to say here, so she doesn’t; she just reaches out and takes one of Adora’s calloused hands in hers, leads her to the couch and tugs Adora down with her. It’s stupidly easy to relax into her side, into her warmth and after a moment, the stiffness of Adora’s side loosens, and she lets out a long sigh before leaning into Catra too. She doesn’t realize that Adora is sleeping until she lets out a quiet snore minutes later, and Catra carefully eases herself up so as to not wake her before the doorbell can ring and disturb her sleep.
She doesn’t really mind waiting outside, not with the weather so warm, and it gives her a chance to think, to really think. She has a myth , a goddess just on the other side of the door, a princess whose only possession is a magical sword. Adora is bound to have thousands of questions, and Catra knows that she’ll have to take her to the Rebellion’s museum so she can learn and grieve her friends, her family. Everything. She’ll have to help Adora find some place to work, a place to stay, take her shopping and watch over her until she’s ready to go, tell her about the stupid fucking myth—
The pizza comes then, and Catra shoves a $20 at the delivery boy before stalking back inside. Without thinking, she kicks the door shut, and immediately winces when Adora jerks awake, silent but ready, fists up.
“It’s just me, sorry. Our food is here, I—are you hungry?”
Adora nods, still wary, but she relaxes just a little, eyes trained on the pizza box. “Did I sleep long?”
“No, just a few minutes. You can rest more if you’d like, I have a bed that’s probably a lot more comfortable—”
“No, we can eat. It smells...good.”
Catra grins and nods, coming closer and setting the pizza box down on the coffee table between them. “It’s pizza. I didn’t know what you’d like, so I just got plain cheese. We can another kind next time if you’d like.” Next time. The words come out without her permission, but it’s too late to take them back now, not with Adora’s soft, grateful smile trained on her.
“Anyway, it’s hot, so be careful. Actually—I’ll just get us drinks now. You…do you want to come with me? You can see what we have, what you’ll like.”
Adora shrugs and nods, standing only after Catra does and obediently following her to the kitchen. “You can ask whatever you want, whenever you want. I may not know everything, but I’ll try to answer what I can.”
Adora hums in response, and it is quiet for a few moments before she asks, “Where is my sword?”
Catra can’t help the startled laugh that barks out; she turns to face Adora and shakes her head. “Out of all things, and that’s what you ask first, huh? Entrapta is at home, we can go over there later, or she can come here. Whichever. But I swear it’s safe.”
That seems to satisfy her, and Catra gets to digging through the fridge, pulling out all the drinks she can for Adora to try and putting them on the counter. “Milk, apple juice, lemonade,” she points to each in turn, “you can just drink from the carton, it’s just us.”
Adora takes a sip of each—she makes a disgruntled face at the milk, but she likes both juices—and points to the cans of soda that Catra had taken out after a moment of thought. “What about those?”
“That’s soda, princess. It burns your throat, so don’t drink too much at once.” Catra opens the can for her and slides it over, watching carefully for Adora’s reaction. Her face scrunches up at the first sip, then smooths over as she takes another. And another.
“You like that, huh?”
Adora nods, seemingly pleased for how relieved Catra sounds. “Everything but the milk.”
“Milk is only good with other things, trust me. But we can try all of that another time—I’ll put this all away, you go try the pizza.”
Thankfully, Adora likes pizza too (Catra has to order another; Adora knocks back six slices easy, and at least has the nerve to look embarrassed when Catra grumbles about only getting two) and on a whim, Catra takes her out for ice cream. She’s never seen someone look so overjoyed over a simple strawberry ice cream cone, and she promises Adora that they can come back whenever she wants.
By the time they get home, Entrapta and Scorpia have already dropped Adora’s sword off; Adora finds it resting carefully on the coffee table and lifts it gratefully. She sighs, relieved, practicing a few swings and thrusts, something like peace settling over her face. Catra watches, backed up against the wall—just in case, because she does not want to get stabbed—and when Adora blinks her eyes open and finds Catra watching her, her cheeks flush pink.
“Sorry, I—it’s the only thing I have, and…”
“It’s fine, princess. You look…” Catra purses her lips, shrugs. “You look good with a sword.”
And she does. She had looked so natural, so at ease with her sword outstretched, and Catra again remembers who she is, that she’s She-ra. “Anyway. You can shower first, come on.”
Adora looks reluctant to put her sword down, but she nods and follows Catra to the bathroom, and watches carefully as Catra shows her how to work the controls. She looks absolutely delighted by the hot water, and Catra bites back a fond grin—that quickly turns to a look of embarrassment as Adora begins to strip right there. Catra quickly backpedals and slams the door shut behind her, and as she stands against the closed door, plagued by what she had been able to see in those brief seconds—smooth skin warmed by the sun’s glow and faint scars scattered about like constellations, gentle curves and hard muscles—she feels her cheeks begin to burn.
She knows herself well enough by now to know what this means. Because it isn’t just the thought of Adora stripping, it’s the way Adora’s face had brightened when she tried the ice cream, it’s the softness of her profile as they walked home, it’s the callouses on her hands from so many years of weilding a sword. It’s her soft accent, and the way she observes everything around her, and the way her nose scrunches up when she laughs. It’s how Catra wants to show her everything, keep her close, how throughout the day, Adora has started to automatically reach for her hand.
Catra clears her throat against the sudden lump and calls out, loud enough for Adora to hear, “I’ll be in my room when you’re done. When you come out, it’s down the hall and to the right.”
Adora calls out that she remembers, and the fondness shot through her voice makes Catra’s knees buckle. Once in her room, Catra lets herself fall back in bed, staring up at the ceiling as she considers her options.
She could, of course, have Adora stay with Entrapta, say that she doesn’t have the room, or the time—but no, because Entrapta is not nearly as good with people as she is with technology. She could tell Adora about her budding crush, that when she falls, she falls devastatingly hard, that she needs space—but no, because she is the only person Adora knows now. She could create space between them, be mean—and no, god no.
She could let it happen. There is no rebuttal for that one.
She could let it happen.
The shower shuts off then, and moments later, Adora comes in; Catra sits up, the words ready on her tongue, and—”Jesus Christ, Adora!” and at her confusion, Catra quickly spits out, “Put some clothes on!”
Adora’s face goes blank for a moment, and then she registers Catra’s words; she lets out a snort of a laugh and shakes her head. “ That’s what you’re so upset over? Either way, I don’t have any other clothes.”
Catra grumbles her distaste under her breath as Adora laughs again, and pointedly does not look at her as she points to her dresser. “There’s clothes in there, you can wear whatever.” She also ignores the possessive part of her brain that says that Adora is going to be wearing her clothes.
“You can look now,” Adora still sounds amused, and when Catra looks again, she’s relieved to find Adora wearing an old band shirt and a pair of Catra’s running shorts. Her face is flushed from the heat of the shower and her hair is in a damp, messy bun, and Catra thinks she looks gorgeous.
“I’m gonna shower now,” she manages to rush out; Adora still looks amused, but she nods and throws herself down on the bed as Catra gets out of it, and as Catra all but flees from the room, she tries not to think about Adora, wearing her clothes, lying in her bed.
(It’s all she can think about.)
When she finishes her shower, Catra contemplates going back into her room in just a towel— just to see how Adora likes it—but even just the thought of it makes her cheeks flush again and she abandons the idea just as quickly as she’d gotten it. Catra dresses in the bathroom, ignores the sudden flash of self-consciousness (because if Adora can wander around a stranger’s house wearing only a towel, she can go back to her own room in her pajamas), and comes back. Adora is half-asleep, curled up in Catra’s spot, and that thrill of possessiveness comes back for a moment, grows as Adora wakes up just enough to call Catra to her side.
And Catra still doesn’t believe in soulmates, but the way she fits against Adora feels too right for them to be anything but. There isn’t even any hesitance, not in the way Catra would have expected: Adora presses right up against her, skating one hand across Catra’s stomach to trace slow circles there. It’s oddly soothing; even the quiet puffs of breath against her ear and the steady press of her chest as she breathes are.
“Catra?” Adora asks then. Her voice is quiet and her accent is thick, but Catra...really likes the way her name sounds coming from Adora’s lips.
“Yeah?”
Adora doesn’t say anything—she stays quiet for so long that Catra is sure that she’s fallen asleep. But then she shifts, hooking one of her legs between Catra’s to push them somehow closer, and then she whispers, “Why am I here? Why now?”
And Catra is sure then, that Adora can feel her heart stutter. “I...there was a dumb legend that’s been going around for as long as I can remember.” How to say it, how to say it without it sounding stupid? “There was a statue in the park. Of She-ra—of you. And everyone said that it would come to life when it was touched by its soulmate. And—”
The hand on her stomach stills as Adora interrupts. “And it was you.”
“And it was me.” Adora is quiet, and for the first time, the silence is suffocating, so much so that Catra finds herself rambling, “you don’t have to...believe me, or stay here, or—”
“I want to.”
And just like that, with just those three quiet words, Catra feels something in her heart melt. “You can stay as long as you want,” she says, and it sounds like a promise. She hopes Adora knows it’s a promise she intends to keep.
The soft circles start up again, and Adora brushes the softest whisper of a kiss to the back of Catra’s neck, an unspoken promise.
(Somehow, Catra knows that it’s a promise that Adora intends to keep as well.)