Chapter Text
As far as prisons go, Glimmer has seen worse.
The cell is brightly-lit, with plenty of space for stretching and nervously pacing around, there’s even a chair, a table, and a bed she can throw herself onto in her fits of despair. Certainly better than the chamber she was held in back at Fright Zone. The lack of magical restraints that would send an electric current through every inch of her body whenever she attempted teleportation is definitely an improvement.
Not that it matters much, seeing as she can’t teleport out either way.
She tries to count her blessings and stay positive, she really does. But the helplessness is truly getting to her. One minute she stares at the wall mindlessly, the next she remembers the sight of Bow and Adora fighting Prime’s clones back on Etheria and she jolts upwards, heaving as if she’s just ran for miles. She feels like crying and screaming, but that is about the extent of what she can do right now. She hasn’t spoken to Prime since their “dinner” and that was… she’s not even sure how long it’s been since. Two days? A week? With no day and night outside it was difficult to tell. Perhaps it happened only a few hours ago and she’s been slipping in and out of naps ever since.
Maybe this is Prime’s insidious method of torturing her. This bright cell hurting her eyes, this deafening silence around her, the clones bringing her meals at random times to confuse her… The hours of sitting cross-legged on the floor, not knowing what became of her friends, thinking of all the ways they could be dying right now and realizing it is all her own fault and there is nothing she can do about it now, nothing at all…
Or maybe it’s not and she’s doing all this to herself.
The guilt alone is enough to wreck her. She had plenty of time to reminiscence the past year and how terribly she’s treated her friends. How she used Adora repeatedly. How she betrayed Bow’s trust. There was a rift between them she created all by herself, and for what? She wanted to defeat the Horde, bring peace to Etheria and instead she caused its greatest disaster. And worst of all, she wasn’t even sure if she’s done it out of her sense of responsibility as a queen, or out of desire to prove herself to be more capable of a leader than Adora.
Some queen she is. Her mother would be so disappointed in her.
The sound of footsteps pierces through silence, so Glimmer looks up at the green half-transparent door of her cell. Prime’s clone no. 527, or whichever one that is, stands there with a tray of food. As she walks up closer to the door, he gives her a perfunctory nod with a small unaware smile.
“Here’s your meal, your majesty,” he says in monotone, then puts his hand up to the door. They flicker and disappear, just long enough for him to place the tray over.
Glimmer says nothing. She’s thought about performing some sort of an act of defiance – refusing food or throwing it at her guard’s face – but first she needs to come up with something this would achieve. So far she couldn’t think of anything useful.
The clone stands back and the door reappears, giving his ghostly white face a tinge of a hideous lime green. For a moment, Glimmer thinks she sees the light changing in his eyes, like a flickering lightbulb, as his smile fades and he walks away.
She walks up to the tray and examines the contents. The food looks relatively normal. The crackers look fine and the soup appears thick enough to stand a spoon up in, but at least it doesn’t resemble the space jelly. She picks the tray up and turns around to neatly place it on the table.
Then immediately drops it, seeing the person sitting in her bed.
“MOTHERF--!” she exclaims, before instinctively slapping her own mouth shut. She takes a deep breath before speaking again “What the HELL are you doing here?!”
Catra eyes her with a mildly curious expression, completely unfazed by her outburst. She looks as villainous as ever, in her dark suit and hair slicked back, pupils of her mismatched eyes turned into thin slits by the bright lights. As usual, she has a small, vicious smirk plastered on her face – Glimmer can hardly remember ever seeing her face without it.
“Visiting,” Catra says, voice sligthly hoarse, baring her pointy fangs in a smile. “Didn’t you see me coming in?”
Her voice is mockingly concerned and suddenly Glimmer feels like punching her. She doesn’t care if this would have any long-term benefits or not.
“How… When did you…?” Glimmer stammers indignantly.
“I have my ways, Sparkles,” Catra says, leaning against Glimmer’s pillows as if she’s never been more comfortable. Somehow her face is looking more punchable with every passing second.
“You don’t want to tell me,” Glimmer crosses her arms. “Fine. Would you at least let me know why you’re even here?”
“Who knows,” Catra says, dragging one of her claws lightly against the linen.
“You do, Horde scum,” Glimmer scowls. “Why are you here again?”
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” Catra points out, acting as if she didn’t hear her at all and looking poignantly at the soup now spilled all over the floor. She stands up and strolls around the room at a leisurely pace. “How do you like it here?”
“The accommodation is amazing. Five stars. Food could use some improvement, though. The soup is thicker than your skull.”
Catra chuckles at that, to Glimmer’s surprise.
“Looks better than the last cell I’ve stayed at,” she says. Glimmer raises her eyebrows.
“Alright, I’ll bite. When was the last time you’ve stayed in a cell?”
“A little over a year ago.”
“Did they finally lock you up for being too annoying?”
“No, but funnily enough I think that’s what you’re in here for, princess.”
“It’s ‘queen’ now.”
Under any other circumstance, Glimmer would probably resort to violence already, consequences be damned. She still hates Catra – so much. Thinking of everything she’s done to her, her friends, family, kingdom… There were so many times Glimmer wished this pointy-eared menace would just straight up go ahead and die and she’s only ever stopped herself from vocalizing her thoughts to spare Adora’s feelings.
But as things are right now, Glimmer would honestly rather spend time with Catra, of all people, than be left to stare at the walls alone again. The solitude is suffocating and having someone other than Prime’s mindless clones to interact with her feels like a breath of fresh air.
The most infuriating, evil, punchable fresh air ever.
Plus, there was another thing – that time she cornered Catra in the Fright Zone. Glimmer gives it a lot of thought – lately she has all the time in the world for thinking – and still can’t think of a reason why Catra didn’t fight her back. And then what was her stepping in to stop Prime all about? And why did she come here to make small talk with Glimmer earlier?
Something is definitely off with her. It’s intriguing, and, if nothing else, a nice distraction from Glimmer’s own plight. So she tries to refrain from doing or saying anything that will surely chase Catra away immediately. Just pretend they’re having a normal, casual conversation.
They both say nothing for what feels like several minutes, Catra still avoiding Glimmer’s gaze. Eventually, she clears her throat.
“So, sleepovers, huh?” she finally says.
Glimmer looks up to see Catra with blushing cheeks and an expression that is decisively too intense for a question she’s just asked. It’s almost endearing.
“What about them?” asks Glimmer, feigning ignorance to Catra’s intentions, although her smile betrays her. The Force Captain takes a moment to regain some composure, though her face still glows with bright red. Then she crosses her arms and grumbles under her breath, “I don’t know why I even fucking bothered.”
Glimmer doesn’t even attempt to mask her grin anymore. It’s quite fascinating to see Catra’s entire demeanour change like that. It almost feels like she’s tripped on a curtain to reveal something Glimmer clearly wasn’t supposed to see.
“We didn’t finish our last conversation, did we?” Catra huffs out.
“Clearly, one of crucial importance.”
“Are you honestly going to act like this?” She tenses her lips in a very childish pout. “Cause I can just leave.”
“Aaww, no, come on!” Glimmer laughs heartily. “I want to talk about sleepovers. I really do.”
“Wow, someone’s desperate,” Catra mutters, but pulls up a chair, turns it around and sits on it leaning forward on its back, glaring at Glimmer with her glowing eyes. “When was the last time you had one of those?”
Glimmer leans back on elbows, trying to remember.
“Probably… Maybe a few months ago? I’m not sure, really. Haven’t had much time for them over the past year.”
“What did you do? Besides cake theft, of course.”
“Played cards for a while, then turned in,” Glimmer takes a moment, considering something. “Oh, that’s right, you don’t know… I mean like these special cards, that you can use to play different games with-“
“I know what cards are, muffin-face.”
“Sorry,” Glimmer raises her eyebrows. “It’s just that when Adora first joined us, there were so many things she’s never even heard of…”
“That’s because she’s a square, who wouldn’t dare to break the rules, no matter how dumb they were. We didn’t all live under a rock.”
“Are you sure that’s right?” Glimmer squinted her eyes at her. “Didn’t she… oh, I don’t know… stole a skiff with you the night we found her in the woods?”
“Oh, yeah. I used to bring out her wild side, you know. Sometimes… and don’t you dare tell anyone about this…” she leans in conspiratorially. “…she’d stay up past her bedtime with me.”
Glimmer snorts and tosses a pillow at Catra, only for her to catch it mid-air.
“Now you’ve got rid of your arsenal, Sparkles. Big mistake,” says the Horde commander with a shit-eating grin plastered on her face, lifting up to sit on the pillow.
“Oh, joy. Now my only pillow’s going to smell like your butt.”
“Bold of you to assume I’ll be returning that anytime soon.”
“Just when I think my life can’t possibly suck any more, the enemy has me sleeping pillow-less.”
Catra flashes her sharp teeth in a grin again, but this time a whole lot less malicious. “Okay, so… Is that what you’d normally do at your sleepovers? Play cards?”
“We also had board games… We’d play charades… Truth or dare a few times…”
“Wow. Dirty.”
“Not THAT kind of truth or dare. It was mostly questions like ‘do you still sleep with a stuffed animal’ and dares like ‘go get me a soda’.”
“I always knew princesses were absolute fucking maniacs. You guys seriously need to calm down.”
“Oh, shut up!” Glimmer laughs, kicking the air in Catra’s vague direction, now that she’s lost her only projectile weapon. “How did your sleepovers look like then?”
“Well, let’s see…” Catra fixes herself on the chair. “Depends how old we were, I guess. When we were little, we’d mostly play The Brave Force Captain and the Ugly Bloodthirsty Princess.”
“Really? How did that look like?”
“What do you mean, you and I play it constantly.”
Glimmer casually gives her the finger.
Catra beams with pride of her own joke. “Okay, okay… we’d usually fight over who gets to be the Force Captain. Then Adora would usually let me win, because otherwise I’d pout and refuse to play. We made this shitty crown and a sword out of cardboard and we would tie our blankets around like capes…”
She says all this in a warm voice, that Glimmer’s never heard from her before. “That is… seriously adorable.”
“Tell that to Lonnie. She was always so pissed at us for not letting her sleep.”
“Why didn’t you just invite her to play with you?”
Catra shrugs, looking at the floor. “I don’t know. The two of us were enough, I guess.”
She takes a moment to pull the pillow out and poke it with her claws a little.
“Anyway,” she adds. “If we were ever to play charades together, Adora and I would absolutely destroy you. We had this…”
“Special secret language,” Glimmer finishes for her. Then, seeing her bewildered expression, adds “Adora’s mentioned it only like a million times. It’s so sweet, it makes me want to puke.”
Catra goes quiet again for a long while. She stands up, eventually, and takes another stroll around the cell, hugging the pillow to her chest.
“There’s really nothing to do here, is there,” she says when she finally speaks again. “I should bring something next time.”
“Next time?” Glimmer carefully inquires.
“Unless you don’t any Horde scum coming here. I don’t have to.”
“No,” Glimmer interjects quickly. “It’s… fine.”
She smiles to herself a little. “Can I make a list of things for you to bring me?”
“Absolutely not,” Catra says, finishing her walk by hopping up to sit on the tabletop, as if the chair isn’t right there.
“Cool. So, I want a bar of lavender soap… a couple of magazines… actually, make that a gift basket…”
“The only thing you can have is this,” Catra throws the pillow back at her, but not before licking it first.
“Eeeww…” Glimmer picks it up by a corner, trying not to touch the drooled spot. “You’re disgusting.”
“Thanks, Sparkles.”
“Do you mean it about coming here again, though?”
“Oh, who knows. You certainly don’t exactly have a great track record for being able to tell when I’m bluffing.”
Glimmer thinks back to the day she’s managed to – accidentally – take Catra prisoner. Apparently her response to being kidnapped was to bluff relentlessly and annoy her captors into letting her go. It was actually a fairly effective strategy.
“That was years ago. I got better.”
“Is that so? Want to put your skills to a test and ask me something?”
“I would ask you about what’s going on on Etheria, but I assumed you don’t know anymore than I do.” She means that in a casual way, but realizes all too late how accusatory it sounds.
Catra’s ears twitch ever so slightly, but there’s really no hiding it in those terrible bright lights.
“Either that, or I’m not stupid enough to tell my enemy.”
Glimmer nods, deciding to let her have this one. She probably overstepped a boundary in their weird, fragile dynamic, so fair enough.
Although, it makes her wonder – for Catra to be this touchy about it, it must mean she’s really been side-lined by Horde Prime quite profoundly. Why else would she be wasting her time sneaking in here to talk about sleepovers of all things?
The last thing Glimmer wants, though, is to chase Catra away for good. She frantically tries to think of something that would quickly steer the conversation into more neutral areas.
“So…” she attempts. “Have you ever had a crush on Adora?”
She can instantly tell this had the desired effect of diverting Catra’s attention from the previous subject, as she stares at her with a blankly shocked expression. Glimmer hasn’t seen anyone blush so hard since Adora found the stache of magazines she kept under the mattress.
“What,” says Catra hoarsely. She fixes her eyes on Glimmer, her tail swinging violently behind her.
“Well, I’m just saying…”
“You know, I’ve heard that solitary confinement can drive you insane, but honestly, I did not expect it to happen this fast.”
“Come on! You always talk about her, you can’t possibly blame me for thinking… And look! That time at the Princess Prom!”
“What about it? Everyone was dancing with everybody then. I even danced with you of all people, I recall.”
“Right before you kidnapped me, I remember. But only a certain feline Horde scum decided to spend the night all over the big muscle lady only when Adora was paying attention.”
“You think that was to make her jealous?”
“I mean, it was about as subtle as Entrapta’s droids.”
“And what, are you worried that I’m going to swoop in and steal your girl away?”
“My-,” Glimmer stops abruptly, then turns to stare at Catra. “Oh. Oooooh.”
“Wh-what?”
“Nothing. I see what you’re doing there, that’s all,” Glimmer isn’t sure if she finds this conversation or Catra’s changing expressions more amusing. “We’ve never been dating. She’s like a sister to me.”
“Pff, this isn’t even-,” Catra’s ears twitch as she freezes in a spot.
She stands up without making a sound and approaches the green door.
“What…” Glimmer attempts, only to get shushed by her.
Then she starts hearing the steps nearing too.
“He’s here to pick up your tray,” Catra whispers. “I need to go.”
“What? No, wait, you can’t just…”
“I’ll be back tomorrow. Now act natural, don’t look at me.”
As a clone appears at the end of the corridor, Glimmer sees Catra’s shape settling herself by the side of the door. It’s impressive how she manages to make herself barely visible while bathed in those lights.
The guard finally walks up and uses his hand to deactivate the door, his eyes fixed on Glimmer. With the corner of her eye, she sees Catra dashing out soundlessly, leaving the clone none the wiser.
“Your highness… Oh,” the clone says, noticing the wreckage that was left of her meal. “That is unfortunate. Allow me to get something to clean this up. We wouldn’t want our cherished guest to be uncomfortable in her room.”
He steps out, a faint smile that doesn’t reach his eyes now fading, and closes the green door. Glimmer finally lets her eyes dash to the spot where she’s last seen Catra.
She wonders if she’s truly planning on coming back.
Or whether this whole conversation was some sort of a fever dream.
