Chapter Text
I want to meet you in every place I ever loved.
Listen to me. I am your echo. I would rather break the world than lose you.
- Amal El-Mohtar, from This Is How You Lose The Time War
(THE RIVER)
Catra has never known a life without Adora.
They’ve always been together, in one way or another. In childhood, they were inseparable; they braved everything together, the Fright Zone and the Horde and the Weeping Woods one day before a skiff and a sword split them apart. In war, they were inseparable in a different way; although they weren’t together physically, they circled each other like planets in orbit, their lives overlapping like eclipses. They’d been two halves of a war, two sides of a coin. Still inextricably intertwined, after everything.
Adora has always been Catra’s constant: her horizon, her north star, the point around which her world rotates. Sometimes - in the heat of battle, in the dead of night - Catra thinks that Adora has been the truest part of her. She can’t imagine a world without Adora, can’t imagine a life that isn’t built in her shape. To Catra, there is no possible reality where Adora is anything other than alive.
But now, sitting in the Heart of Etheria with green light spreading across the ceiling and the walls crumbling around them, Catra presses her head to Adora’s chest and hears only silence.
--
“No,” someone says. They say it again and again, until the words trip over themselves, run into an unintelligible mess: no, no, no, nononononono. It takes Catra a long time to realize that she’s the one saying it, and longer still to stop.
The walls are no longer crumbling; the green streaks of Prime’s virus are now slowly receding. Catra barely notices any of that. All she can see is Adora, lying stiller than Catra has ever seen her, unblinking, unbreathing. She could almost be sleeping, except Catra knows better than anyone that Adora has never slept so calmly in her life.
Catra shakes Adora’s shoulder, gently at first, then harder. Adora doesn’t react.
“Adora,” Catra says softly. “Adora, wake up. You have to wake up.” Then, desperately: “Please. Please.”
Catra forgets where she is, how she got there. She forgets everything but Adora. She gets down on her knees and pleads like she never has before in her life, unbending her pride and throwing it to the winds, begging Adora for something, anything: a word, a whisper, a sign of life. Catra would give the rest of her breaths for Adora to take one more.
Adora doesn’t respond. Adora doesn’t breathe. She lays where she is, a perfect stone carving of a person, and for the first time, Catra notices something: Adora is glowing softly, limned in golden light that shines outwards from her body. It’s as if she’s frozen in time and space, preserved in gold like flies trapped in amber. There’s something eerie and otherworldly about it; the light feels like something distant and alien, telling of a place where Catra cannot reach. When she touches Adora’s hand, it feels like touching anyone, and that’s how Catra knows.
Adora is dead.
Catra throws her head back and screams in agony. She’s been suffocated by shadows and broken every bone in her body and fallen through a hole in the fabric of reality, but nothing has ever hurt like this: it’s a wild, sharp-edged, gaping ache that seems to tear her chest apart, her heart an open wound, her ribs a cage of shattered sorrows.
She screams louder than she did on Prime’s ship, louder than she ever has, but Adora does not wake, and this, more than anything, is proof that she’s truly gone.
If she could hear me, Catra thinks dully, throat aching, quiet falling around her in the ringing echoes of her screams, she would come back. She wouldn’t leave me here to suffer alone.
Catra leans her head against Adora’s chest once more. Hot tears spring to her eyes, but she blinks them back. She reaches out, touches all the parts of Adora that she’d been afraid to before; she traces her fingers across Adora’s collarbones, her cheeks, the sharp line of her jaw. She can feel words piling up in her throat, confessions that were ready to be spoken but now might never see the light of day; she’d finally been ready to tell Adora, ready to say what she’d been holding back for fifteen years of her life -
“Adora,” Catra whispers once more, and it’s like speaking to the stars. There’s a cold and impossible distance between them, an unnavigable ocean that splits them apart like the continents.
Adora is gone. She’s truly gone.
Catra buries her face in Adora’s hair and lets herself cry.
--
Catra doesn’t know how long she stays there. It could be days, hours, minutes. Finally she hears the sound of footsteps in the corridor, and with an effort that feels Herculean, she lifts her head to see Bow and Glimmer standing there.
“Catra,” Bow says, and then his gaze slides beyond her, lands on Adora’s unmoving body. Catra watches his face fall, a slow and agonizing descent from confusion to realization to anguish, and it feels like a knife to the chest.
“Adora,” Glimmer says, her voice cracking. She rushes to Adora’s side, kneels down beside her. “Adora, get up. Adora, listen to me.”
“She can’t hear you,” Catra says, her voice flat and remote. It feels like she’s speaking from the bottom of the ocean. “She - she’s gone, Glimmer.”
Glimmer whirls to face her, tears cutting trails down her face. “What do you mean, she’s gone? What the fuck happened here? How can she be gone?” Her expression is a mask of rage, and for a brief moment, Catra feels like she’s looking in a mirror.
“The virus,” Catra mutters. “The failsafe...she couldn’t transform properly. I don’t know. And now she’s - ” The word dead falls to pieces in her mouth. “What happened out there?”
“All the chipped people are saved,” Bow says quietly. “Prime’s ship disappeared - it turned into a tree in the upper atmosphere. All of Etheria was saved, but - ”
But it cost Adora her life, Catra thinks, and she wants to think that the sacrifice was worth it; she knows that it’s what Adora would want, but she can’t agree. She can’t think of a single thing in the world that would be worth Adora’s death, and she can’t think of anything she wouldn’t sacrifice to get her back.
Bow is crying. Glimmer is staring blankly at Adora’s body, one hand resting listlessly against her arm. The Heart is silent, the air hazy and thick and heavy with grief. There’s nothing left to do but mourn.
“We should move her,” Glimmer says at last, her voice subdued. “We can’t leave her here.”
Catra feels a sudden resistance rising in her, a reluctance to move; she doesn’t want to walk away from the last place that Adora was alive. But Glimmer is right - they can’t leave Adora here. Catra can’t leave her at all.
Catra gently picks Adora up, carrying her body the way that Adora once carried her off a spaceship - days ago, centuries ago. Adora is heavy, but Catra bears her weight without a second thought. Each step feels like penance, atonement for allowing Adora to die.
If one of us had to die, Catra thinks, head bent low, Adora cradled to her chest, it should have been me.
Another tear falls from her face and drops onto Adora’s, sliding slowly down her cheek. Through the blur of salt that clouds Catra’s vision, it almost looks like Adora is the one crying.
--
Outside, Etheria is a riot of life, awash with color. New trees spring half-formed from the ground, green grass rising taller than Catra’s ever seen it before. The world seems frozen between winter and spring, halfway to rebirth. High above them, a tree hovers above the earth: Prime’s ship, transformed.
None of it holds any significance for Catra. The only magic in Etheria that’s ever mattered to her is lying dead in her arms.
When they return to Bright Moon, Glimmer calls the rest of the princesses into the war room. They gather around the table, weary and grief-stricken, glancing at Adora’s body with disbelieving eyes. Perfuma starts crying quietly; Scorpia cries too, much more loudly. Mermista gazes blankly into the distance, looking shell-shocked. Entrapta stares at Adora with unfocused eyes, as if confronting an equation that doesn’t compute.
Catra doesn’t sit at the table. She remains on the floor, arms wrapped around Adora. She’s starting to lose feeling in her hands, but she doesn’t care. She won’t let go of Adora, not yet.
The second she lets go, it becomes real.
“So Prime is gone,” Frosta says finally, “but so is She-Ra.”
“You mean Adora,” Catra snaps, rage simmering beneath her skin. “Stop talking about She-Ra. She isn’t the most important part of Adora. She never was.”
Frosta shrinks back, and Catra feels a stab of regret. Frosta’s just a kid, she reminds herself. She’s too young to see this, to deal with this. She’s too young for this war, just like they were.
“Sorry,” Frosta says frantically, tearfully.“It wasn’t - I didn’t mean that. I just meant - ”
“It’s okay,” Catra mumbles. “Whatever.”
“Are we having a funeral?” Scorpia asks. She’s practically drowning in sobs, claws pressed against her face as if to stem the flood. It’s a losing battle. “I know that everyone in Etheria would - would want to come and honor her. Adora saved us all. She’s a hero.”
Catra chokes at the thought, panic flooding her chest at the thought of burying Adora. She can’t handle the thought of leaving her to rot beneath the earth, can’t fathom the idea of never seeing her face again. Adora is so warm and bright, full of light and life; being entombed in the suffocating darkness of the ground would be the worst possible end for her.
“No,” Glimmer says quickly, and Catra knows that she’s thinking the same thing. “Not a burial, anyway. Not - not yet.” She clears her throat, blinking rapidly. Bow, standing next to her, wraps an arm around her waist, and the gesture makes Catra’s heart ache.
Micah speaks up from the head of the table. “We can lay her to rest in the throne room,” he suggests. “I’ll bring a table in, and blankets. She can stay there for however long.” He looks at Catra with an unbearable pity in his eyes. “She’ll be well taken care of, I promise.”
Catra nods to him, a sick kind of gratitude welling up in her. She thinks: I killed your wife. She thinks: you shouldn’t be showing me this kindness.
“Uh,” Mermista ventures, “does anyone know why she’s glowing?”
“She did that once before,” Glimmer murmurs. “On the ship, when she healed Catra.”
Catra winces at the memory. She didn’t see any of it, but she remembers feeling it: a warm glow that spread through her chest, spreading summertime along her bones, bringing her back to life. She’d opened her eyes and seen Adora smiling at her in relief, so tired but so beautiful -
“It went away once she was done healing,” Bow recalls. “But now it’s not going anywhere. It’s like it’s permanent.”
“I would theorize,” Entrapta says, her voice stripped of its usual enthusiastic lilt, “that it’s because she’s stuck in mid-transformation. She couldn’t become She-Ra, not fully, but she was on the way before the failsafe took effect. This golden light she’s emitting is proof of that, and it will most likely preserve her body as it is right now.”
Catra lets out a tiny breath, a faint lessening of the panic trapped in her throat. At least she won’t have to watch Adora slowly decay.
“I think that now she’s trapped in a sort of stasis period,” Entrapta continues. “Like being stuck between dimensions. She’s hovering somewhere between life and death; her body remains, but her soul does not. She’s no longer in this world, but she has not yet fully passed to the next.”
A wild hope sparks in Catra, clinging desperately to the ends of Entrapta’s words. If she’s saying what Catra thinks she’s saying…
“Wait,” Mermista says slowly, carefully. “Are you saying that - ”
“Yes,” Entrapta answers. “She’s not quite dead, or even if she is, there may be a way to get her back.”
Mermista narrows her eyes. “What’s the catch?”
Entrapta’s eyes are downcast. “Someone would have to descend into the underworld to find her soul.”
Micah shakes his head. “That would be a suicide mission.”
“I could probably triangulate an entrance point,” Entrapta says, “but whoever goes in there...well, it’s the underworld. There’s no way of knowing what’s down there, and it’s not a place for mortals. Anyone who makes that journey probably won’t come back.”
Catra’s on her feet now, facing the room. Bow and Glimmer shoot her concerned looks; Catra ignores them. It’s a shot in the dark, but Catra would take it blindfolded even in the light of day. She’s crossed dimensions, defied boundaries, torn a hole in the fabric of reality. She’s broken the world to destroy Adora; she can break it again to save her.
“Find the entrance,” she says to Entrapta, her voice brittle but steady. “I’ll go.”
--
They lay Adora in the throne room, atop a large bench covered in gold and white blankets. Catra sleeps on the floor beside her, unwilling to leave her side for even a minute. They’ve been apart too long; she can’t bear to waste any more time.
Entrapta works in the corner of the room, mumbling to herself, scrawling complex calculations on a large white board. Catra doesn’t bother her, even when impatience scratches at the back of her skull - she knows that Entrapta is working as fast as she can.
Bow and Glimmer join them, sitting side by side with Catra and searching futilely for something to say. Glimmer is called away sometimes to take care of queen duties, but she always returns to them at night. The three of them sit together and watch over Adora, occasionally talking, but mostly remaining quiet, each trapped in their own grief.
“What was she like?” Catra asks on the third night, breaking the silence that’s settled over them like a funeral shroud. “When she first joined the Rebellion, I mean. After - ” After she left me.
Glimmer snorts. “Oh, she was a disaster. But in the best way possible. She killed her featherbed the first night she was here because it was too soft.”
“She tried to trick the palace guards into thinking she was one of them,” Bow adds, a smile creasing the corner of his mouth. “All she had was a helmet and a blanket.”
“She made a list of notes as long as the carpet when she was preparing for Princess Prom,” Glimmer says. “She overthought it, like, so hard.”
Catra had expected that hearing Bow and Glimmer talk about Adora would sting, but it doesn’t hurt as much as she’d thought. Instead, it brings a small flame of warmth to her chest. Adora may be gone, but the memories of her live on.
“Yeah,” she says wistfully. “Sounds like Adora.”
“And,” Bow says, glancing at her, “she never let go of you.”
Catra stares at him, her heart aching desperately, reaching for belief. “Really?”
“Really,” Glimmer confirms. “She was always thinking about you. Always. It was really annoying at first.” She sighs, her eyes softening; she rests a hand carefully on top of Catra’s, a gentle touch that leaves space for Catra to pull away easily. Catra doesn’t.
“She never gave you up,” Glimmer says softly. “You know that, don’t you?”
Catra thinks of Adora in the Fright Zone, on Prime’s ship, on Darla. She thinks of Adora holding out her hand: a peace offering, a turning point. She thinks of what Adora said to her: I never wanted to leave you. I’m going to take you home, I promise. I never hated you.
Adora may have left her, but that wasn’t the same as letting go. Their lives have always been too closely woven to ever truly unravel.
“Yeah,” Catra says quietly, and for the first time in her life, she believes it. “I do.”
Bow leans into her, and Glimmer wraps an arm around her shoulders. Catra lets herself sink into the temporary comfort, and tries not to think about how the embrace is missing a fourth person.
“I’ve got it,” Entrapta calls from across the room. She looks exhausted; her eyes are dark with fatigue, and her hair is falling limp around her shoulders in a way that Catra’s never seen before her. “I found the entrance.”
Catra feels dread coiling in her stomach, working its way upwards into her chest. Entrapta looks shadowed, haunted by her own discovery.
“Where is it?” Catra asks hesitantly. Beside her, Bow and Glimmer hold their breaths.
Entrapta sighs heavily. “It’s on Beast Island.”
Bow and Glimmer gasp, but Catra feels an odd sense of calm descend on her. Beast Island was once a place of nightmares, but now the prospect of facing it barely registers as a threat. Adora’s death is a nightmare without parallel; anything else pales in comparison, vanishing into the background of childhood legend alongside grimdark horrors and monsters under beds and every other thing that Catra used to fear.
“Okay,” she says, and her voice is unwavering. “Can we take Darla there?”
“You can’t,” Glimmer says, horrified. “You can’t go to Beast Island.” There’s a note of fear in her voice; belatedly, Catra remembers that Micah spent half his life on that island, plagued by demons that he still won’t speak about.
“It would be really dangerous,” Bow says, frowning. “Beast Island is bad enough, but the Underworld...”
Catra stares at them defiantly. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t take this chance to save Adora?”
Bow lowers his head; Glimmer looks away. Neither of them answer, and that’s how Catra knows she’s won.
“At least let us come with you,” Glimmer says finally. “We would. You know we would.”
“No,” Catra answers. “You’re the queen of Bright Moon, Glimmer. They - we can’t risk losing you. And Bow...well, you’re going to be king someday, if you two ever suck it up and tell each other how you really feel.” Glimmer and Bow turn red, pointedly looking away from each other in embarrassment, and Catra smirks slightly.
“Besides,” she says, her amusement fading now. “This is something I have to do alone.” She thinks of a dusty storeroom, an enemy spaceship, a promise made again and again. “Adora promised to take me home once, and she made good on it.” She looks over at Adora now, motionless on the bench, and feels a fresh shred of pain curl around her heart. “It’s time for me to return the favor.”
--
The trip to Beast Island is silent. Entrapta hovers over the control panel; Bow and Glimmer sit with their backs against the wall. They place Adora in the captain’s chair, and Catra rests on the chair’s arm next to her. It’s so similar to the journey back from Prime’s ship that for a moment, Catra almost forgets that they’re not safely on the way home together.
“We’re here,” Entrapta announces. Catra looks up through the windshield to see the dreaded shape of Beast Island looming ahead, razor sharp points of purple stone sticking upwards into the sky as if to pierce the moon. Her stomach drops.
Entrapta fiddles with the controls, and Darla begins a slow descent, touching down lightly. Darla’s door opens, and Catra turns to Bow and Glimmer.
“You can’t come any further with me,” she says.
Bow nods. Glimmer glares at her, but then her expression shifts to concern, and Catra knows that she’s worried beyond words.
“You better come back,” Glimmer says, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug. “We can’t lose both of you.”
“Make sure you come home,” Bow says, wrapping his arms around both of them. “And bring Adora with you.”
Catra hugs them tightly, wondering if she’ll ever see them again; then she pulls away and looks to Entrapta.
“Thank you for getting me here,” she says, and Entrapta nods.
Micah steps forward, out of the shadow of the airlock door, and Catra looks to him, gratitude and guilt wrestling in her chest; she knows what it costs him to return to this island, even if he’s not setting foot outside the ship.
“There is a path in the center of the island, leading down into the ground,” he says. “I never had the courage to explore it, but now I know that it’s the right way for you. Take that, and you’ll find the river.” He reaches for Catra’s hand, presses something small and round into it. “This is the toll, for the ferryman. And Catra - don’t eat or drink anything while you’re down there.”
“I won’t,” Catra says. She closes her hand around the toll, shoves it deep into her pocket.
“When you exit, you could come out anywhere in Etheria,” Entrapta says. “I’m programming Darla to cruise around between the kingdoms while we wait. If - when you get Adora back, Darla will lock onto her signature and we’ll be able to find you two.”
“Okay,” Catra says. She takes one last look at Adora’s body, still radiant with light as she rests in the captain’s chair, and says a silent goodbye. “I’m ready.”
“Good luck,” Entrapta says. She opens Darla’s door, and Catra steps out onto the shore. The door closes and Darla lifts off again, and Catra is alone on Beast Island.
--
The air is eerily quiet as Catra walks to the center of the island. There’s none of the haunting shrieks or ghostly echoes that she would have expected. In a way, the silence is almost worse; it hints at a lingering violence that transcends sound. She wonders, briefly, whether there’s some unheard predator lurking in the shadows behind her, one of the monsters of Beast Island that the older cadets used to tell tales about in the darkened bunk room, but then brushes it off. Worry is a luxury that she can’t afford right now.
She crosses through ruins wrapped in black and purple vines, the splintered walls shifting in the mist like a living bruise. The walk to the center of the island seems to take no time at all; within minutes, she’s standing in a clearing ringed with tall black stones. A path leads downwards to a gaping hole between two slanted rocks - the path that Micah had told her about.
Catra takes a deep breath, then another. She thinks of Adora as she was before: Adora on the rooftop of the Fright Zone, smiling crookedly at her; Adora in a red dress, framed by the soft pink glow of the ballroom lights; Adora raising her sword, eyes gleaming bright with determination. She thinks of everything she’s lost, and everything she’d do to get it back.
Without a backwards look, she walks down into the depths of the earth.
It’s pitch black, the darkness pressing around her like nighttime has swallowed her whole. Catra moves slowly forwards, her eyes straining to discern any hint of light, but there’s none. The air is cold and damp, and the tunnel feels suffocatingly small. Catra grits her teeth and continues on, forcing through the panic that’s curling in her chest.
Just when she feels like she’s about to scream if she spends one more minute crushed here between the earth and the dark, the tunnel twists and widens. Catra finds herself on a wide path illuminated by rushlights flickering along the walls, shedding a sickly orange light down upon her. The air is different now, becoming drier and hotter, and the ground feels softer under her feet. Up ahead, there’s the sound of rushing water.
One more twist in the tunnel, and it ends, giving way to a sandy bank. Catra finds herself standing in a desert beneath a pale pink sky, stretching out towards an indistinct horizon. In front of her lies a wide river, spilling across the land in a trail of blood-red water. Catra stares in disbelief - the river is made of fire . Flames dance against the banks like waves, brushing the air with currents of heat.
On the shore closest to her, a long boat is tied up to a dock. There’s a figure standing at the helm, their face hidden by a dark cloth. The ferryman.
Catra walks slowly towards him, tensed in preparation for a fight. Her hands curl into fists automatically, her body twisting into a weapon; it’s a reflex, a remnant from the war that’s still not over.
The ferryman turns to her, his face still obscured by shadow. “A traveler,” he says, his voice deep and rich, the tone ringing with otherworldly notes. “You wish to cross.”
“Yes,” Catra says curtly.
The ferryman holds out a hand in a silent demand. Catra reaches into her pocket, takes out the token that Micah gave her; she places it on the ferryman’s palm, watching as his fingers curl around it. He nods slowly. “Come aboard, then.”
Catra steps onto the boat. The ferryman pushes off from the bank with a long punting pole, moving them across the river. Flames rise around the boat, licking at the sides, but the polished wooden planks don’t burn.
It’s a slow crossing. Catra’s eyes water from the heat, her lungs burning from the acrid smoke rising from the waves. She watches the ferryman out of the corner of her eye, not willing to turn her back on him.
After what feels like an hour, the boat’s prow touches the far shore, and the ferryman gestures towards the bank. “Go on, traveler,” he says. “Continue with your hopeless mission.” His eyes are still shadowed, but his teeth flash white in a grin, sharpened to cruel points. Catra thinks of the peaks of Beast Island.
“The land of the dead,” the helmsman continues. “How long do you think it will be until you join them?” He leers at her: a predator searching for prey, a blade searching for entry.
Catra wants to spring at him. She wants to take back her payment, to push him overboard, to tear him apart.
“Go fuck yourself,” she says, and steps onto the shore.
:::
(THE FIRST GATE)
The desert rises to meet her.
Rolling hills of sand sprawl out before her, dunes pushing against the skyline, all of it colored the rich, rusty crimson of fresh blood. It’s soft and yielding underfoot, pulling at Catra with every step. It reminds her of the Crimson Waste, but worse; at least the Waste was on familiar ground. This place is different, alien. There’s a sense of unearthly gravity to it, an oppressive force that wraps around Catra’s shoulders like a mantle. It’s as if the entire desert is trying to drag her beneath the surface of the sand.
Catra’s mouth is already dry, her head aching from the heat. There are no streams in sight, and even if she found one, she couldn’t drink from it; Micah’s warning rings loudly in her ears. She sighs and pushes onwards.
She crosses dune after dune, sinking deeper with every step. The dryness of the air pulls at her lungs, ripping breaths from her in measured gasps. She can’t help but think of the Waste - and then she can’t help but think of Adora.
The Crimson Waste had been hot and dry and harsh, but it had also been a haven, a refuge from the endless fear and obedience of the Horde. She’d been beyond Hordak’s reach, beyond Shadow Weaver’s grasp. She’d had the freedom she’d been dreaming of from years.
Scorpia’s voice echoes in her mind, the sound distorted: You seem happy here. Why not stay?
Adora, Catra had thought. She’d almost said it aloud. The answer had been Adora. The answer had always been Adora.
Catra shakes away the memory and trudges on.
She walks for what feels like miles, hours. Distance, space, time; all of it blends into a meaningless blur, shimmering on the horizon: an illusion, a mirage. She’s learning that the underworld is a liminal space, a line half drawn between river and sky - nothing here matters, at least not that she can see.
As she walks, she passes fragments of civilization, falling and breaking against themselves. Villages sit abandoned, their clay houses gutted and ghostly; collapsing pyramids crumble towards the sky, stray stones scattered around their bases. There isn’t a single sign of life among them, and Catra doesn’t go near them; they’re nothing but rot and ruin, whispering the echoes of a thousand lives lived before.
The land of the dead, the ferryman had called it. Even without corpses and cadavers, even without spirits or shadows, Catra thinks that the title is fitting. There’s an unmistakable emptiness to the desert, a void where life should be. Catra’s heart beats out a steady rhythm as she walks, and it feels too loud in her ears. She’s the only living thing around.
She wonders about the villages, the pyramids. She wonders if they ever had real inhabitants. Somehow, she doesn’t think they did. This land is too barren to have ever known the touch of the living.
Except me, she thinks.
More sand. More dunes. Catra feels heavy, heavier than she ever has before, like she’s carrying the burdens of the dead as payment for passing through their land. It’s the weight of the ocean, the world, the entire sorry sky. Her mood falls as she walks, bleeding slowly from determination to despair. As if in reflection of this, up ahead of her, a heavy mist starts to rise across the ground.
Catra halts, but the mist doesn’t stop; it rolls onward, wrapping her within a cloud of silver haze until she can barely see the way in front of her. She presses forward anyway, her senses deadened by the fog, and that’s when she hears it.
Somewhere in the distance, a dog starts barking. It’s only one bark at first, but then it becomes more: a repeated cry, a call waiting for a response. Another bark joins the chorus, and then another, and the sound fills Catra with a visceral, inexplicable fear that sends a paralyzing chill crawling down her spine. She stops dead in her tracks, staring into the mist in search of the source.
She doesn’t have to wait long.
A jet black jackal streaks out of the mist, fur bristling, teeth bared. Yellow foam spreads over its lips as it snarls at her. More jackals follow, spreading around in a circle around her; Catra turns, trying to keep the leader in sight. She feels cornered in a way that she hasn’t since Prime’s ship, surrounded and outnumbered by enemies too sinister to name.
“Get away from me,” she hisses, aiming a kick at one of the jackals. It falls back, yelping, and the rest of them start barking in protest. “Where did you come from, anyway?”
“Peace, traveler,” says a deep voice. “They are with me.”
A tall, lean man steps forward, the mist dissolving around him as if it has no hold on his movements. His eyes glow dark amber, and his skin is a rich, dark brown. By all appearances he looks to be about as old as Catra, but she senses an ageless quality to him, as if he dwells beyond the reach of time - and although he’s breathing and speaking, there’s something about him that doesn’t quite seem alive. A shiver runs through Catra.
She eyes him warily. “Who are you?”
The man waves his hand, and the jackals fall into line next to him. “Anubis,” he says. “Son of Set, right hand of Osiris, prince of death. I come bearing a warning.”
Catra stares at him, but his expression is a perfect blank slate: nothing revealed, everything denied. “What warning?”
Anubis spreads his arms out, the mist dispelling at the touch of his hand. “You are in the land of the dead,” he says. “Yet you still live. This is no place for you. You have no idea what dangers lie ahead. You should turn back while you still can; there is too much at stake here. You could lose everything.”
Catra can’t help it; she throws back her head and laughs. The prince of the dead watches her with sorrowful eyes, but Catra can’t see what he has to mourn. He speaks of a loss that she has already experienced, one that’s brought her to devastating ruin, one that she would live and die and beg on bended knee to undo.
“I’ve already lost her,” Catra says bitterly. “What more could I possibly lose?”
Anubis laughs pityingly, the sound harsh and grating against the deathly stillness of the air. “Oh, child,” he says. “If that is truly your way of thinking, then you know nothing of the world. There is always more to lose.”
One of the jackals at his feet barks, and Catra flinches, but Anubis doesn’t blink. He just studies her with those weary amber eyes, and Catra can swear that she sees whole empires rising and falling in the reflections of his irises.
“Do you know where Adora is?” she asks.
“Yes and no,” Anubis answers. “Her soul is in flux. Is it here - or there?” He tilts his head to one side. “She is not entirely beyond us, but she will be soon. But you should not be the one to reach her.”
“Listen,” Catra says impatiently. “I don’t have time to stand around talking to you. If you know where Adora is or how I can get her back, then tell me right now. Otherwise, get out of my fucking way.”
The jackals growl softly, eyes glaring a warning at Catra. This time, she doesn’t flinch.
“I will take you to the Hall of Judgement,” Anubis says finally. “I would deny you passage if I could, but it is not my place to decide.” He turns and walks away, and Catra follows without hesitation.
--
They travel quickly through the mist, Anubis leading without ever looking back. Catra trails in his wake, noticing that he leaves no footprints behind him; he glides over the sand as though he isn’t truly there. And maybe he’s not - Catra is no longer sure of what’s real and what’s only in her head. She remembers distantly, as if it happened years ago, Entrapta’s words about the underworld: there’s no way of knowing what’s down there, and it’s not a place for living beings. We’re not made to survive there.
Catra shrugs it off. She doesn’t need to survive this. She just needs to make sure that Adora does.
“Here,” Anubis announces. Catra looks up to see a towering pyramid rising above them, pale yellow sandstone blotting out the red of the sky. The point of the capstone is barely visible, hidden behind a vermillion cloud. The sheer immensity of it all is breathtaking; Catra searches for words, finds none.
Anubis steps forward, pressing his palm against the side of the pyramid. A hidden latch clicks, and a high triangular door swings open to reveal a darkened hallway. He gestures to Catra, allowing her to go first.
With an uncomfortable sense that she’s walking into her own tomb, Catra steps over the threshold of the pyramid.
Once she’s inside, the darkness falls away. The atrium spreads out before her like a kingdom, the starry ceiling thousands of feet above her head, the walls high slabs of obsidian that shine brightly in the light of a thousand burning braziers below. The other end of the hall is so far away that it’s barely visible; the center is supported by four massive sandstone pillars polished to a high shine.
It reminds her, Catra realizes with an unpleasant jolt, of the room on Mystacor where the failsafe for the Heart was once kept. The memory simmers uncomfortably at the edge of her mind; she half expects to see Adora stumbling out from between the pillars with First One’s writing glowing forth from her chest.
She grits her teeth, forces herself to focus. Adora isn’t here.
Between the pillars, a shallow set of steps leads upwards to a raised dais, where an ornately carved black and gold throne and a golden set of scales rest against the vermillion tiles. A dark, winged creature lies curled and sleeping at the base of the scales; sitting on the throne is a man with blue skin, a strangely shaped crown resting on his head.
“Lord Osiris,” Anubis whispers to Catra. “Show him respect.” Then, louder: “My lord, I bring you a petitioner from beyond the river.”
Osiris fixes Catra with a steady gaze. “I am Osiris, god of the dead,” he says. “Approach, seeker, and ask.” His tone is measured, devoid of any discernible emotion. Catra suppresses a surge of unease.
“I’m looking for Adora,” she says, staring up at him. “My - my friend.”
The word friend catches in her throat, sounding awkward and inadequate. It feels like too small a word to describe Adora, too superficial to define all that she is to Catra. Adora is a star, a planet, the center of the universe; she’s the tide that Catra’s moon follows, the gravity that Catra’s earth obeys. Adora is the only person that Catra’s ever trusted, and she’s the only person that Catra’s ever loved; her love for Adora is a thing of eternity, an aching, bone-deep devotion that lives in every chamber and corner of her heart.
Friend doesn’t really cover that.
“Your friend,” Osiris muses, thoughtful. “This Adora, she means something to you?”
It’s said lightly, genuinely - there’s no edge to his voice, but the question rings familiar anyway. It’s a callback, an echo of an earlier moment; Catra blinks and suddenly she’s back on Prime’s ship, digging her claws into the table as she desperately tries to conceal her emotions. The flashbacks start crowding behind her eyelids, and she blinks them away quickly.
“Yes,” she says, her voice swallowed by the vastness of the hall. “She does.”
Osiris holds out a hand, beckoning her closer. Catra walks forward slowly, climbing the steps of the dais until they’re standing barely two feet apart. Up close, Osiris’ skin is the clear blue of a summer sky.
“First I will judge you,” Osiris says. “Then I will decide whether or not you have earned the help of the Lord of the Dead.”
He stretches a hand towards Catra, curling his fingers in the air. Catra watches in detached fascination as a trail of smoke emerges from her chest, morphing into the shape of a heart; she can see it beating, blood passing through red and blue valves, contracting and expanding like the universe.
Osiris waves his hand, and the ghostly heart flies through the air to rest in the cup on one side of the golden scales. A pale white feather sits in the cup on the other side. Catra stares, her heartbeat loud in her throat, as the scales start to move; they shake back and forth for a minute, lifting and then dropping and lifting again, until they settle into perfect balance.
“Interesting,” Osiris says, more to himself than to Catra. The winged creature beneath the scales lifts its head and growls softly, and Osiris lifts a finger to quiet it.
“Well?” Catra snaps, wrapping an arm around her stomach as if to protect herself. She feels vulnerable, stripped down to the very marrow of her being; she thinks that if anyone were to look at her right now, they’d be able to see to the center of her soul, and she hates it.
Osiris looks at her, his eyes full of a bottomless melancholy. “You may pass,” he says, his voice the sonorous peal of a church bell at a funeral. “But there is a price.”
“I don’t care,” Catra says. “Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”
Osirirs shakes his head sadly, then waves a hand once more. The air shimmers in front of her, slowly fading into brightness, and Catra blinks in confusion, tries to look through the glare; the hall is vanishing around her, breaking into shards of stone and light -
The Hall of Judgement disappears. The world goes dark, spinning Catra out into the strands of time.
--
(Catra crouches on the floor of the ship, her back pressed against the edge of the captain’s chair. The quiet hum of the engine fills the room, a steady rhythm that flows like a mechanical lullaby. Outside the ship, space stretches out as far as the eye can see, lit by the pale silver shine of the stars that stretch endlessly into the vast darkness.
Bow and Glimmer and Entrapta and Adora have all gone to bed, but Catra can’t sleep. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Prime’s ship again: the flash of green lights, the harshness of the sheer white walls. The haunting refrains of Prime’s chants play over and over in her ears, the words trapped in her mind like birds in a net. Cast out the shadows. All beings must suffer to become pure.
She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to sleep again.
She goes to run a hand through her hair, but it’s almost gone; her fingers meet the coarse, bristling remains of it. She remembers Prime hacking it off, his eyes full of a demonic kind of pleasure as he tore her apart piece by piece.
Catra remembers and remembers and remembers . She wishes she didn’t.
She hugs her knees to her chest, whispering to herself, trying to anchor herself. “You’re on Adora’s ship,” she mumbles. “Adora came back for you. Adora saved you.”
Did she? Prime’s voice answers, his scornful laughter echoing in the back of her mind. Surely you must be dreaming, little sister. Adora would never come back for you. You are not worth the trouble.
“Stop,” Catra says, pressing her hands against her ears. “You’re not here, you’re gone, please just be gone - ”
“Catra?”
Catra’s head jerks up; she glances around the room, terrified and expecting the worst.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Adora says, holding her hands out slowly. “It’s just me.” She eases herself into a sitting position, leaving space between the two of them, and Catra allows herself to exhale.
“You should be resting,” Adora says.
Catra shifts one shoulder forward. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Oh,” Adora says, nodding. “Yeah, I understand. I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t be able to either, if I’d - well, you know.”
Catra sneaks a glance at Adora, taking her in. Adora’s hair is hanging loose around her shoulders, the same way it was earlier; her eyes are dark with exhaustion, and her mouth is creased in worry. A bruise blooms on her cheek, a memento from her battle with Prime’s clones. She looks tired and battered, but real.
Catra is suddenly gripped with fear, scared that her mind is playing tricks on her again, terrified that it’s all another illusion. She reaches out and touches Adora’s hand, wrapping her fingers around Adora’s until it starts to hurt.
Adora is flesh and blood and bone, solid beneath Catra’s touch. Catra lets out a broken sigh of relief.
“Sorry,” she mutters. Although it’s her second in as many days, the apology still feels unnatural in her mouth. “I just - I wasn’t sure if you were real or not.”
It sounds stupid the moment the words are out of her mouth, but Adora doesn’t laugh. She gently curls her fingers, moving them slowly until they’re interlaced with Catra’s.
“I’m real,” Adora says. “You’re here. This is real.”
Catra closes her eyes, letting Adora’s touch bind her to this moment. It’s the first time in years that they’ve held hands, and she’s imagined it a hundred times during the war, wished for it with a reckless kind of yearning that she’d never managed to fully suppress, but she never thought it would happen this way.
Prime’s voice again, rolling through her mind like thunder: Little sister, you are so naive. Is this really how it happens?
Yes, Catra thinks; yes, this is how it happens. I’m here. I’m safe. I’m -
“Are you okay?” Adora asks softly.
Catra opens her eyes slowly, and meets Adora’s gaze. They watch each other for a moment, blue and yellow against grey; Adora’s eyes are filled with concern, and something softer that Catra can’t parse.
“I’m fine,” Catra says, and they both know she’s lying, but the contradiction goes unspoken. With an effort, she turns her head back towards the stars. Something stirs in the back of her mind, rising through green flashes and cold steel.
“You told me about the stars once, didn’t you?” she asks.
Adora nods. “I didn’t know they were real,” she answers. “But they are. They’re right there.”
Catra stares up at the tiny pinpricks of light scattered across the sky until her eyes burn with the hot sting of tears. She swipes a hand roughly across her face, trying not to let Adora see.
“Do you want me to leave?” Adora asks quietly, and this is where Catra should say yes, leave me alone, but she doesn’t; she doesn’t want to be alone anymore. She never did.
“No,” she says, barely more than a whisper. “Please. Stay.”
“Okay,” Adora murmurs. “I’ll stay.” She moves forward slowly until their arms are touching, the barest hint of contact flashing between them, and Catra doesn’t flinch away. As they sit together in silence, watching the stars pass by, Catra feels something broken slowly starting to heal.)
--
The world rushes in again, and Catra shakes her head, disoriented. She’s in the Hall of Judgement once more, standing at the foot of the dais steps and staring at Osiris. She’s still thinking of a sleepless night, a spaceship, Adora -
Adora, touching her hand - or was she holding it? their fingers interlaced? - and telling her something, something about stars -
Catra’s thoughts scatter, slipping between the cracks as she tries to catch them. She can’t remember what she was thinking of. She reaches and reaches, but the memory isn’t there.
“What did you do,” Catra says, panic twisting in her stomach. “What did you do?”
“I told you there would be a price,” Osiris says. He locks eyes with her, his gaze unwavering, unyielding; Catra realizes, too late, the terrible mistake she has made. No matter how long she stares it in the face, death will never blink first.
Osiris reaches for a staff leaning against his throne, uses it to draw a rectangular shape in the air. A door of darkness appears in front of Catra, a hazy obsidian portal that hovers between them like the border between worlds.
“Go on, C’yra,” Osiris says, and Catra barely has time to register the unfamiliar name that he uses for her. “I wish I could help you more.”
“Can’t you?” Catra asks bitterly. “You’re a god.”
Osiris shakes his head, his eyes full of sadness. “Some things,” he says, “are beyond even the gods.”
He flicks his fingers towards the portal; it pulls Catra closer, and suddenly she’s falling through the doorway of the dead.
:::
(THE SECOND GATE)
Catra is standing in a field.
The sky is slate grey, low clouds hanging above the horizon. The field stretches out for miles in every direction, stalks of wheat and barley rising to knee height all around her. There’s no wind; not even the slightest breeze stirs the grasses.
Catra looks around, taking stock of her surroundings. To the south, past the field, is a barren stretch of ground marked sporadically by patches of fire that burn against the dirt. She can see the shapes of people outlined against the flames, and when she listens closely, the sound of faint screaming fills the air.
She flattens her ears, turns away.
To the east, the land dips downwards in a gentle slope: there’s a lake at the bottom, with three small islands in the center. The islands are bathed in golden light, and the waters around them are a perfect, glittering aquamarine; the entire lake is a fragment of paradise in the midst of perdition, misplaced and alone. Catra stares at it longingly, wishing she could go there, but something makes her certain that she can’t.
Adora could, she thinks with an unwavering conviction. The islands are a place for heroes, for saviors; if anyone belongs there, Adora does.
Catra looks to the north: a pair of iron gates stand tall, their locks securely bolted. Behind them, a river rushes past, the water a pitch black torrent that makes Catra shiver just from looking at it.
To the west, the fields rise until they become foothills, yielding to a mountain range. The mountains are dark purple peaks topped with white, and at the foot of range sits a palace made of a stone so purely black that it seems as if the entire building has been made from nighttime.
There’s a rustling noise, and Catra whips around, searching for a threat. A translucent grey figure pushes past her, the grasses parting in their wake.
“Hey,” Catra says cautiously, wondering if this shadowy being is a ghost, if ghosts can even exist. “Where are you going? Where are we?”
“Judgement…” the spirit says, its voice thin and fragile. “Judged unfairly...unfairly. I must return. I must find justice.” It glides away through the grass, and Catra huries to keep up.
“Stop running away,” she says irritably. “I need answers from you.”
“No answers here…” the ghost whispers. “No answers...none here.”
More ghosts start to appear around Catra: pushing through the field, standing around aimlessly, murmuring among themselves. They all seem lost, drifting through the endlessness as if in search of something that they’ll never find, and it unsettles Catra.
“I guess you’re all useless,” she says to them, the words sounding too loud in the quiet of the field. “Thanks for nothing.”
The ghosts don’t respond. Catra sighs, sets her sights on the palace in the west, and starts walking.
She passes through dozens of ghosts, their protests almost inaudible susurrations in her ears. Blades of grass become flattened and withered beneath her feet, their sharp edges slicing at her ankles - one long strand actually draws blood, parting her skin with the keen precision of a razor. Catra bends down to wipe it away, her fingers staining red as they touch the wound. She shakes the drops from her hand and keeps moving.
It doesn’t feel like she’s getting anywhere, but suddenly the field falls away and she’s standing at the foothills below the palace; distance folds itself in half, bending to her will like a tree in the wind. Catra climbs the foothills on weary legs, each step an exercise in futility - when she finally reaches the top, she feels like she’s made a deal with the devil.
A vast swath of courtyard gardens are laid out before her, miles of unearthly vines and blossoms spreading across black stone tiles. Catra finds a path through the park - a winding track inlaid with streaks of silver - and follows it towards the palace.
Within the gardens, all sound is swallowed by the foliage. Catra can barely see past all the vegetation: thick ropes of ivy cling to the path and the walls, delicate flowers spring up beside the fountains, knotted trees bow beneath the weight of branches laden with unfamiliar fruits. Even though she’s surrounded by the growth of a thousand flora, she can’t help but feel that none of it is actually alive; despite the abundance of leaves and blossoms, the garden feels like a desolate wasteland, a graveyard built for the living dead.
The path leads Catra to a clearing with yet another fountain at its center. This one is a three-tiered structure shaped from some kind of silver metal, water flowing from tier to tier. It looks perfectly clear and cold, and the dry ache in the back of Catra’s throat longs to drink, but she holds herself back. She can’t risk even a single sip.
Across the clearing, a grove of gnarled trees spread their shallow roots through the grass. The leaves are so dark green that they’re almost black, and the trunks look half-rotted, but there are large round fruits hanging from the branches. They’re nothing that Catra’s ever seen before, but they’re so perfectly crimson that Catra’s mouth waters in anticipation.
She crosses the clearing to take one of the fruits, plucking it gently from the branch and digging her claws into it carefully; she’s not going to eat any of it, but she just wants to see -
“I wouldn’t,” someone says.
Catra drops the fruit; it falls to the ground, splitting open upon impact. Red seeds spill across the courtyard like rubies, shining brightly against the obsidian tiles.
“I wasn’t going to eat it,” she says defensively, more to herself than to whoever is speaking to her. She glances to the right, following the sound of the stranger’s voice, and her blood runs cold.
The woman standing by the fountain is tall: taller than Anubis, taller even than She-Ra. She’s lean and lithe, her skin a dark shade of mahogany, her hair falling in jet black waves around her delicate shoulders. Her eyes are grey, but they’re nothing like Adora’s eyes; rather than the warm grey of the sky after rainfall, they’re the cold silver of metal that’s never seen the light of day. There’s a ceremonial robe draped around her shoulders, the fabric a glossy black that glistens with her every move; an iridescent patina plays across the cloth, shifting across the landscape of her body.
Catra looks closer and stifles an exclamation of horror: the cloth seems to be alive. The coruscating shine of silver forms screaming faces that break and form and break again, as if the robe has been woven from the souls of the dead, and she can only think of one entity who holds that kind of power.
“Oh, great,” she mumbles to herself. “Just what I need. Another god of the dead.”
“Careful with your loose words, mortal,” the woman says, her tone low and controlled; there’s danger in her voice, the breathless beat of an army, the warning call of a siren. “But yes, you are correct. I am Hades, lord of the underworld. If you wish to pass through my domain unscathed, you would be wise to hold your impertinent tongue.”
Catra narrows her eyes; this is the god of the dead, the land of the dead, but she’s still living. Her hands clench into fists, her claws sliding free.
Perhaps sensing this, Hades looks down on her with a gaze that sweeps over Catra with the icy chill of midwinter frost.
“Come,” she says. “We will have tea, and if you are lucky, you will not join my collection of souls.”
--
They sit on the terrace by the palace doors, the floor beneath them a great expanse of black and silver tiles arranged in flawless diamond patterns. With a single hand gesture, Hades conjures up two chairs and a table made from a polished wood so ancient that it’s turned to stone. Catra sits on the edge of her seat, still wary.
“Will you relax?” Hades says, scowling at her. “You living beings are so very...well, living. It’s irritating.”
“Yeah,” Catra says dryly. “That’s kind of the whole point.”
Hades sighs, waving her hand over the table. A game board appears between them, a board of alternating black and white squares with four rows of strange looking pieces resting on the farthest sides of the boards.
“I thought that we could play a game of chance,” Hades says pensively. “Would you care to make a wager?”
“I don’t deal in chance,” Catra answers. “I make my own luck.”
“Oh, do you,” Hades says, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards in an arrogant smile. “And how’s that working out for you?”
She stares at Catra, and her eyes start to change; something flickers in them, resolving into a set of images flashing in the depths of her irises: Prime’s ship, Catra falling, her body lying broken on the floor, Adora cradling her limp form…
“Stop it,” Catra snarls, ripping her gaze away from Hades’ face. “Don’t show me that. You think you can tell me anything about how bad my luck is? You think you know my life better than me?” Her fingers dig into the surface of the table, carving deep trenches through the ancient wood. “I know that I’ve had a bad life. I’ve been cursed from the moment I was born. The only part of me worth anything is Adora, and that’s why I’m here - I didn’t come to play your stupid board games or talk about the past. I’m here for Adora, so give her back to me.”
Hades blinks, and her eyes return to normal. “I suppose it’s for the better that you didn’t want to play,” she says finally, picking up one of the game pieces and rolling it between her fingers. “I always win.”
“Not this time,” Catra says.
Hades places the piece back on the board, in a different square. “Your determination is nothing but delusion,” she says. “Another like you came here once; he asked me for his bride’s soul back, and I agreed, but he lost her anyway through his own shortcoming. Do you really think you can save her? There are some things that you have to let go of.”
“I’m not letting go of her!” Catra says, her voice rising in anger. “It’s easy for you to say I should let go - you don’t know what it’s like to lose anyone. You just sit down here in the underworld collecting soul after soul. You take their lives, and you take their afterlives too - you can’t possibly understand what it’s like to lose someone.”
Hades leans forward over the table, her face suddenly a mask of venom. “You are a child,” she hisses. “You know nothing of loss, if you think to cheat it so easily. Do you really think you can keep the ones you love? Everything is temporary.”
She gestures to the plants at the edge of the terrace, pale red blossoms wrapping around stone pillars. “Every six months, my lover leaves me for the world above. We have a half-life, a half-love, a blossom that flowers and withers on the vine over and over again. We find and lose each other with the turn of the seasons; that is the way of life, and death too. You are a fool to think that you can keep her forever. Loving someone just means you will lose them.”
Catra meets her gaze defiantly. “Maybe for you,” she says. “But not for me. Not anymore.”
Hades starts to say something else, but then stops dead, looking over Catra’s shoulder. Catra faces the same direction, watching as a trio of old women appear in the shadows at the edge of the palace wall. All three of them look ancient, and Catra feels a thrill of foreboding run through her; she’s facing something older than the earth, older than time.
“The Fates,” Hades murmurs.
“Go, child of death,” the middle Fate says, her voice like the creak of trees in the wind. “Leave us.”
Hades nods respectfully and dissolves into a column of black mist, leaving Catra alone on the terrace with Fate itself.
“What do you want from me?” Catra asks, her eyes flicking between the Fates. She’s sure that their physical forms would be easy to defeat in a fight, but she’s just as sure that any of them could destroy her with a single movement; destiny is the trap, and she’s already caught.
“Hmm, yes,” the first Fate says. “Familiar, but different. A lifetime in repeat.”
“First the poet, searching for his bride,” the second Fate says. “Now the lover, searching for her warrior.”
The third Fate says nothing. Instead, she pulls a richly woven tapestry from her basket. Catra finds that she can’t look directly at it - when she tries, her eyes start to burn.
“Here,” the second Fate says, pulling two threads from the center: one gold and one silver, entwined so closely that they seem more one strand than two separate cords. Catra focuses on the two threads, and suddenly a series of moments cascades through her mind.
She’s five years old and sleeping next to Adora in a narrow cadet bed; she’s eleven years old and sparring with Adora, staffs crossed in stalemate; she’s seventeen years old and sitting alone on the Fright Zone rooftop, staring into the distance and wondering if Adora will ever come home. Catra curls up at her feet; Adora smiles at her. Adora raises her sword; Catra springs at her. The images come faster now, moments of happiness and hatred spilling forth like water, Catra and Adora over and over again; at the beginning, at the end, at all the moments in between.
“Is that - ” Catra starts, choking on the words. Her throat stings, a beehive kicked into flight.
“Yes,” the third Fate says, turning milk-white eyes towards her. “You have always been intertwined. Always - until now.”
“You wish to save her, yes?” says the first Fate. “Ah, a fickle thing.” She cackles, twisting a stray thread around her finger.
“I’m going to save her,” Catra says. “Tell me what I have to do.”
The second Fate sets aside the gold and silver threads. She grasps the string next to them and pulls it.
As the darkness closes in, the last thing Catra sees is the color of the string - it’s a bold, unforgiving red.
--
(Catra sits on the rooftop, legs hanging over the edge. Below her, the buildings of the Fright Zone sprawl out beneath her in a jumbled mess of grey and green shapes. Above her, the moon is shining in a pale lavender sky.
She knows that she should be at third drill right now, but she can’t bring herself to join the rest of the cadets, not after what had happened that morning. They’d all been sitting in the mess hall during lunch when Adora came back from a meeting with Shadow Weaver and dropped into her usual seat beside Catra. Catra had glanced over at her, ready to make a joke about how they’d eaten all the grey rations without her, and then -
She had looked at Adora: smiling tiredly but brightly, one golden strand of hair falling loose over her forehead - she’d looked at Adora and her heart had skipped a beat.
She had wanted to reach over and tuck the stray lock of hair behind Adora’s ear, wanted it so badly that her chest had started to ache. Her hands - her useless, treacherous hands - had forgotten how to do anything other than reach for Adora. She’d actually been halfway to grabbing Adora’s hand before catching herself and fleeing from the table with a hastily muttered excuse.
And then she’d retreated to the rooftop for the rest of the day, because she didn’t know what else to do. She’s had feelings like this before, on mornings spent sparring and late nights spent whispering together in Adora’s bed, but it’s never been this strong.
Catra presses one hand to her face, trying to drown out her thoughts. She can fix this. She can forget that she feels anything. She can -
“Hey,” a voice says, and Catra’s heart stutters again. She turns around to see Adora standing behind her, wearing her red jacket over a standard white Horde uniform shirt, her hair pulled up in its usual messy ponytail. Her eyes are shining brightly, warm and full of life, and she’s smiling at Catra.
“I thought you’d be up here,” Adora says, sitting down. Their shoulders brush, and Catra leans into the touch before she can second-guess herself. Adora’s body is warm against hers, solid and steady, the way it’s always been.
Catra pushes her face into Adora’s hair and inhales - sweat, metal, a faint hint of sweetness that even the Horde’s regulation lye soap has never been able to scrub from Adora’s skin. The familiarity of it all makes Catra weak. She’d come up here to be alone, but despite her tangled mess of feelings towards her right now, Adora’s company is better than any solitude.
“You’re here,” she manages to say. “Shouldn’t you be off kicking everyone’s ass in combat training? It would be easy today, seeing as I wasn’t there to beat you.”
Adora rolls her eyes. “You beating me? Please. I totally pinned you yesterday. Besides, drills are over now.” She nudges Catra playfully. “Not that you’d know anything about those, seeing as you skipped again. Shadow Weaver was pissed .” She pulls something out of her pocket: a ration bar, wrapped in foil. “She said you’d have to miss dinner, but I brought you food anyway.”
Catra takes the bar from her. “Thanks,” she says, unwrapping it. It’s grey, her favorite kind.
“Of course,” Adora answers. She unwraps her own ration bar, and they eat in silence for a moment.
Once they’re done with their dinner, Adora leans back on her hands, tips her head up towards the sky. The moon is full, casting a gentle silver glow over the rooftop; the light clings to Adora’s profile, caresses the line of her jaw. Catra can’t look away.
“Hey,” Adora says affectionately, slinging an arm around Catra’s waist and resting her head against her shoulder. “What are you thinking about? You seemed kind of off today.”
Catra shrugs. “I’m fine. I just don’t want to go back to the bunk room tonight.”
Adora glances at her, a smile curling at the edge of her mouth. “Okay, so then we won’t.” She takes off her jacket and folds it up, then lies on her back and places it under her head. “We can sleep up here tonight. It’s super warm out, we’ll be fine.”
They won’t be fine in the morning if Shadow Weaver catches them, but neither of them mention that.
Catra lies down next to Adora, the jacket soft beneath them. Adora reaches for her hand and squeezes quickly, roughly, one of those touches that walks the line between playful aggression and genuine affection. Violence is the common method of interaction in the Horde, but Catra and Adora have managed to make it their own; they deal in closeness disguised as conflict, love lingering beneath the surface of every punch and scuffle. Only when they’re alone can they let the truth breathe freely.
“You know,” Adora says thoughtfully, “one of the older cadets was talking about stars today.”
Catra raises an eyebrow. “Stars? What are those?”
“Bright lights in the sky, she said,” Adora answers. “Like the moon, but tiny, and there’s hundreds of them. Other worlds must have them. They made shapes - constellations, I think, and they all had stories behind them.”
“‘Bright lights in the sky,’” Catra scoffs, punching Adora lightly on the arm. “You sound insane.”
Adora sighs restlessly, shifting around. “There was just something about the story - it almost feels like I’ve seen them before. Stars, I mean.”
“No way,” Catra says. “You’re out of your head.”
Adora just shrugs; she stares wistfully up at the sky, like she’s searching for something that never existed. Her lost expression pulls at something deep in Catra’s chest, and she searches for something to say, anything that will bring Adora’s smile back.
“Hey,” she says. “There might not be any stars, but we still have the moon.” She pushes her face into the crook of Adora’s neck. “Tell me the story behind that.”
“Okay,” Adora says, smiling again. “The moon may look like it’s all alone, but it’s not. It has a friend - the sun. The moon and the sun have always been best friends, and their story goes like this. Once upon a time - ”
“Adora, what the fuck is a sun? ”
“A kind of planet-star thing, I think,” Adora says, giving Catra a fond glance. “Now shut up and listen. Don’t you want the story?”
“Okay, fine,” Catra says. She curls up against Adora, inhales deeply. “Go ahead.”
Adora points up at the moon; Catra looks at her hand. She clings to Adora’s side and wishes that this moment could last forever.)
--
Catra comes back to herself in bits and pieces, fragments of awareness. She’s standing in front of the Fates once more, and she was just thinking about something - the stars, the moon; a warm feeling of happiness in her chest; a rooftop and a story about the sun -
No, that’s not right. She’s never heard of the sun.
“Such determination,” the first Fate says, a look of rapture spreading across her wizened face. “Even Orpheus was not so persistent.”
The third Fate runs a crooked finger along the edge of a small sewing knife. “We are agreed, then?”
“We are.”
The second Fate picks up the gold and silver strings, raising them to the light. The third Fate brings the knife to the place where they join the tapestry: blade pressed to thread, destiny splitting beneath the touch of metal.
It’s as if the knife is piercing Catra, too; with an agonized cry, she lunges forward, desperate to stop them, desperate to save herself, desperate to save Adora.
She hits the tapestry face first, and it yields beneath her, fabric turning to the fluid currents of time -
The night spreads out before her. Catra drowns in its embrace.
:::
(THE THIRD GATE)
A hall materializes around Catra, surrounding her with the glow of lacquered oak and polished bronze.
It’s the largest building that she’s ever set foot in; the Hall of Judgement pales in comparison. The ceiling is nearly a mile high, the rafters built from an interweaving lattice of spears, and the walls are covered in round shields made from bronze burnished to a dull shine.
Catra looks around slowly, her brain struggling to make sense of the immensity of it all. Nothing in the hall feels quite normal: there’s an element of impossibility that clings to the edges, blurring the lines.
In one corner of the room, an immense tree grows straight from the floor, its massive branches spreading up through the ceiling. Terraced rows of seats descend all around the hall, long oak dining tables stretching out before each one. At the far end of the hall, an elevated table sits before a massive throne, empty except for two ravens perched on its arms. Light streams down through the ceiling’s latticework of spears, dappling the floor in the pale yellow glare of midwinter sun.
As Catra stands in the center of the room, still processing the sheer magnitude of its splendor, the air starts to shimmer like heat waves in the desert. Figures appear in the rows of seats, on the floor; they’re nothing but shadowy silhouettes at first, but they slowly become solid, colors bleeding into their shapes until the hall is full of sound. Most of them slide into the seats, while a small group of fierce looking women fly around the hall, calling to each other, joking with the sitting ones.
They’re not just people, Catra realizes, her gaze catching on signs of war: blades tucked beneath belts, knuckles bruised from fighting, scars tracing skin like moonlight on water. They’re soldiers. They’re warriors.
No two of them look alike, but they’re unmistakably bound by a common strand; they share a camaraderie built from the bones of battle, kindred spirits forged in flame. It’s subtle, but Catra can see it clear as day; it’s the kind of bond she used to share with the cadets in the Horde.
It’s the kind of bond that she used to share with Adora.
Catra watches with an ache in her chest, feeling like she’s standing in someone else’s memory. Even though she can hear shouts and laughs, even though she can see the bright eyes and confident smiles of the warriors, they don’t seem to be quite there. It’s as if there are two realities stacked on top of each other, ghosts in a garden in spring, humans in a graveyard in winter. None of them seem to see Catra; their eyes shift past her as if she’s not there. She thinks, with a stomach-tightening pang of dread, that maybe she’s the ghost.
A man appears on the throne, tall and white-haired, a dark patch covering his left eye. In his hand is a long golden spear, which he bangs against the floor to get the attention of the hall.
“People of Valhalla,” he announces in a baritone voice that reaches to the rafters. “Our battles today were glorious. Many of our warriors gained much honor for themselves. As Odin, the Allfather, the All-Knower, I give you my word: we grow ever stronger in preparation for Ragnarok.”
The warriors cheer in response, a deafening rush of sound that pours forth with the triumphant crash of waves against cliffs; it’s the center of the ocean, and a storm is coming. Catra wonders if she’ll be swept along with it.
“And,” Odin continues, once quiet falls again, “we have another cause to celebrate tonight. A new warrior comes to join our cause.”
The hall goes still, the air a bated breath caught between the lungs of the world; the crowd turns in a ripple of movement, looking to where Odin points. Catra follows their gaze to the person approaching the table in front of the throne, and she stops breathing.
Adora stands before the throne, her hair loose and flowing around her shoulders, her sword strapped to her back. The sight of her burns like a star in Catra’s chest, her heartbeat racing past the sound barrier, every cell in her body hovering on the verge of explosion. She feels like a supernova.
She tries to speak, but the words won’t come; she stands frozen in time, frozen in silence, frozen on the edge of the universe as Adora steps into the light.
“Adora,” Odin says, turning his one-eyed gaze upon her. “You died valiantly, with a weapon in your hand. In return, I offer you a place in Valhalla, the hall of fallen heroes.”
Don’t do it, Catra wants to scream, but her voice still won’t work.
Adora looks up at him, eyes wide. “I’m honored,” she says, “but - ”
“You will never want for anything,” Odin says. “You will never die again, as long as you live with us. You will be invincible, all-powerful. You will be honored beyond belief. Is there anyone in the nine worlds who could offer you better?”
I could, Catra wants to say, but she can’t; she has nothing to offer Adora except shared trauma and a lifetime of worthless devotion. She has no right or reason to expect Adora to stay. After all, she never has before.
Catra thinks of Adora leaving over and over, abandoning her time and time again. She thinks of Adora turning away from her, turning her back: You made your choice, now live with it. She thinks -
She thinks of Adora, bent over her, one hand pressed to her cheek: You matter to me.
Just like that, Catra’s voice breaks free, ripping from her throat in a desperate cry. It’s a single word, but it’s the only one that matters.
“Adora!”
She half expects Adora not to hear, half expects that Adora will look straight through her, but she doesn’t; Adora turns, searching for her, the rest of the world falling away as they lock eyes.
“Catra?” Adora stares at her. “You’re here?”
“Adora,” Catra says again, like it’s the only name she’s ever learned, and maybe it is. “Adora, wait.” She can’t move. She can’t breathe. She can’t look at anything besides Adora. The hall is silent, the crowd of warriors slowly fading, the colors bleaching away. Odin remains, one hand wrapped around his spear, contemplation written across his face.
“You may stay, too, if you want,” he says, nodding to Catra as if seeing her for the first time. “I would not dream of separating you.”
Catra’s heart jumps into her throat, hope carving a hollow space beneath her ribs. She wants - she wants . They may never return home if they stay here, but she can think of nothing better than a lifetime with Adora; wherever she is will become home to Catra.
Adora smiles at her, holding out a hand. “Coming?”
Catra reaches forward, their fingers inches from touching; the room begins to shift, the edges rounding, sliding into curves, space rushing into the distance between her and Adora as a silver vapor fills the air.
“Adora!” Catra cries again, and the room disappears.
--
The first thing that Catra notices is the cold.
It’s a bitter, biting cold, a cold that climbs inside her bones and settles within the marrow. It’s a cold that crawls in her veins, blood turning to ice; her chest a snowglobe, her mouth a frozen wound. It’s a cold that tears her apart from the inside out.
She’s standing in a cave of ice. The ceiling is a forest of razor sharp icicles; the walls are rimed with hoarfrost, glittering like diamonds. Outside the cave, the sky is a dark grey expanse of clouds heavy with snow.
Hovering near the cave wall is a shimmering sphere of something pale and clear, and inside it, Catra can see the hall of Valhalla; it’s painted in a hazy wash of pastel colors, waning into obscurity. She sees Adora framed by a shaft of golden light, her face open and unsure, her forehead lined with concern and a stray strand of hair falling over her left eye; Catra reaches for the sphere, hands trembling, fear and hope rising in her like a tidal wave.
Just as her fingers are about to make contact, the sphere flies away from her, drifting towards the back of the cave.
“Well, well,” says a voice, and it’s even colder than the weather; it’s a voice that breaks like ice shattering against barren ground. Catra can feel her chest freezing, frost gripping her heart, a sense of foreboding descending around her shoulders like snowfall.
When she sees the woman who’s talking, the rest of Catra’s body turns to ice as well.
“Yes,” the woman says, extending her hand. The sphere sails towards her, a tiny world resting in the palm of her hand, and she holds it up to the watery blue light with a pensive expression. “What a beautiful dream.”
“There, there,” the woman says, smiling coldly. “You didn’t think you were really there , did you? Oh, little cat, you so amuse me. As if you would ever be accepted in the halls of Valhalla. No, you belong down here with us; the lost, the hated, the destroyers of light.” She spreads out her arms expressively, a great theatrical gesture that follows the sweep of a glacier. “After all, don’t you think we are something alike? Look at me.”
Catra looks, and in her horror, she cannot look away.
The woman is tall and thin, so thin that Catra can see her ribs arching forward underneath her robe. Her skin is a pale ivory, the color of bones bleached bare in the sun; her hair falls in waves of pale gold, so fine that it almost vanishes under the light. Half of her is covered completely in frost, the division running right down the center of her being: her left arm formed from masterfully wrought ice, the left side of her face a mask of rime, the entire left side of her body a blinding mess of white and silver cold. It sends chills down Catra’s spine, and not just because of the sub-zero temperature; it reminds her of when she was in the portal, a reflection of herself that she hates to see.
“Stop that,” Catra says, her claws sliding out instinctively. “Stop mocking me.”
“Dear cat,” the woman says, her tone sliding into sickly sweet condescension, “I'm not mocking you. Haven’t you heard that old adage? Imitation, flattery, something about sincerity - we’ve all said it a thousand times.” She shrugs, the movement sending flakes of snow cascading down around her.
“Besides,” she continues. “We have other things to discuss. Don’t you want to know who I am?”
“I already know who you are,” Catra snarls. “You’re a giant bitch made of ice who’s going to get smacked down in about two seconds if you don’t give me Adora back.” Her hands clench into fists, so hard that her claws draw blood from her own skin; it drips down her fingers, its copper sting a quickly stifled flame of heat in this land of cold. Scarlet drops fall to the cave floor, painting red across white.
“Well, you could call me that,” the woman muses. “I’ve heard worse. But to give me my full title…” She spins the sphere that still sits at her fingertips, so fast that its image is blurred beyond discernment. “I am Hela, the goddess of death, ruler of Helheim. I would warn you though: do not confuse me with those other paltry death gods you met before. Osiris is such a bore, and Hades - well, she tries, but she’s awfully morbid, don’t you think? Moping around doing nothing but missing her wife... honestly . Endless grief is so passé.”
Hela’s pale blue eyes shining with a fanatical gleam. Catra looks into their depths, thinks of falling through a frozen river; there’s a life to be lost here, drowned beneath the brutal weight of the currents.
“I am not just the goddess of death,” Hela continues, the words ringing through the cave now. “I am the infinite embrace of night. I swallow life, kill flame with frost; I gather the souls of mortals and seal them away, entombed in ice forever. My touch brings eternal sleep, or some other utterly saccharine thing of that nature. I am death itself , and you are a brokenhearted lover with blood on your hands. So I ask you: who are you to challenge me?”
More blood drips down Catra’s hand. This is a fight that Catra should walk away from, but she’s never been one to pick her battles.
“I’m Catra,” she says, and for just a moment, her voice is as loud as Hela’s; it carries the same gravity, echoing of devotion instead of death, a funeral dirge turned battle hymn. “I’m a screwup and a disaster and I’ve never done one good thing in my life before this week, and I want Adora back.”
“Ah, yes,” Hela says, a sly smile creeping over her face. “Adora. Your companion, your best friend. The person closest to your heart. To paraphrase one of the modern prophets, it’s always been just her and you together, hasn’t it? And when she walks in...”
Another dream sphere appears at her fingertips, spinning slowly this time; Catra catches a glimpse of grey metal walls, dusty floors, a dimly lit storeroom that feels all too familiar -
“Show me,” Hela says, and she sends the sphere flying towards Catra. The second it touches her skin, she’s gone.
--
(Catra curls beneath a blanket in the storeroom, pressed against the cold metal floor, her eyes tightly closed. Her body aches, and her head aches too. She feels like every bone in her body is bruised.
She rests her bruised forehead against the scratchy fabric of the blanket, forcing herself to replay the events that brought her here.
Fifty minutes earlier, she had been eating dinner with the other cadets and everything had been normal; Lonnie had been throwing pieces of ration bar at Kyle, and Rogelio and Adora had been laughing. Adora’s arm had been pressed against Catra’s as they rested on the table, and Catra had felt content and happy.
Forty minutes earlier, that moment of peaceful normality had been shattered as Shadow Weaver entered the room and grabbed Catra, dragging her away from the table to interrogate her about something that had been stolen from her rooms. Catra didn’t know anything about it, but Shadow Weaver hadn’t accepted that; Adora had tried to defend her, but Shadow Weaver had brushed her off like a troublesome fly.
Thirty-five minutes earlier, Shadow Weaver had led Catra into one of the training rooms and demanded that Catra return the things that had gone missing, and when Catra had said that she didn’t know what was going on - “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t go near your dumb room” - Shadow Weaver hadn’t accepted it. Instead, she had pulled the shadows from the corners of the room and wrapped them around Catra, choking her, blocking out the light as she slowly pressed the air from Catra’s lungs. Catra had fallen to the ground, dizzy; she had been vaguely aware of Shadow Weaver kicking her in the ribs.
Thirty minutes earlier, Adora had shown up in the doorway, begging for Shadow Weaver to stop, distracting her long enough for Catra to get to her feet and run.
That’s how she found herself in this storeroom in the back of the Fright Zone, hiding beneath a blanket and nursing her wounds. She’s too stunned and hurt to do anything except slowly breathe, but even existing feels like an act of defiance against Shadow Weaver.
The door opens with a squeak of rusty hinges, and Catra shrinks back, hoping that whoever’s out there won’t see her. She closes her eyes tightly, tensing in preparation to run again.
The blanket is pulled gently off her head, and Catra bares her teeth, hissing in protest; her eyes remain shut tight, narrowed to slits.
“Catra, it’s okay,” Adora says, and Catra relaxes into the familiar sound of her voice. “It’s just me.”
Tears sting at the corner of Catra’s eye, running over before she can hide them. Adora reaches for her, resting one hand on top of Catra’s own, the touch comforting and gentle.
“It doesn’t matter what they do to us, you know?” Adora says. “You look out for me, and I look out for you. Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other.”
“You promise?” Catra asks, and it’s like handing Adora her heart; she’s laid bare, all her cards on the table, everything she’s ever been too scared to hope for suddenly spilling out in a rush. Later, when she looks back on this moment, she’ll think that maybe the whole of her being was built from the foundation of this promise.
“I promise,” Adora answers. She slips her hand into Catra’s, lacing their fingers together, and Catra allows herself to breathe. For this one moment, she’s found peace.)
--
“No,” Catra says, her breaths coming raggedly. She’s on the floor of the cave, curled up and shivering, tears freezing on her face. She presses her hands to the ground, forces herself to stand. “No, you can’t have that one, you can’t - ”
It’s too late; the memory’s gone. There’s nothing left of it in Catra’s mind but the vague shape of a promise she can’t remember making.
“Such agony,” Hela says, her face shadowed by a dark kind of pleasure. “Simply delicious.”
“You’re sick,” Catra says, rage boiling like lava beneath her skin.
“Maybe so,” Hela replies, looking positively delighted at this assessment of her character. “But I have something you want.” She raises a hand, and the cave fills with dream spheres, fragments of a thousand lives hovering in the wintry air. Catra’s gaze sweeps over them, gathering different glimpses: Bow and Glimmer, sitting in the Bright Moon war room; Mermista and Perfuma, standing in the castle garden together; Scorpia alone in her room, crying as she stares at a picture of herself and Catra.
Catra stares hungrily at the images, drinking them in. It’s as if she’s seeing a past life, ghosts from a place she used to live.
Hela holds out her hand, and one more dream sphere appears: Adora, trapped in a sea of golden light and static, her expression lost and frightened. It’s a knife to Catra’s chest.
“I could give you what you want most,” Hela says, her tone silky smooth, poison mixed with wine. “I could return Adora to life. But I would need something good in return.”
Catra crosses her arms, more to keep herself warm than to seem defiant. “Fine. What do you want?”
Hela’s eyes bore into Catra, cold and ancient, the icy blue of a lifeless winter. Catra swears she can feel death hovering over her head like a naked sword blade.
“I won’t ask for much,” Hela says, her mouth curled into a mirthless smirk. “I’m thinking that your soul would be a fair trade.”
Catra’s mouth goes dry.
“What’s wrong?” Hela croons. “Won’t you take this bargain? Or would you not sacrifice yourself for her salvation, if you knew that you would never reap the reward?”
Catra would make that sacrifice - she’s made it once before, onboard Prime’s ship. Adora had still come to save her then, but she won’t be able to again. This time, when Catra puts her own head in the noose, there will be no one to cut the rope.
But Adora will be saved, and that’s all that matters.
“I will,” Catra says. There’s fear drowning her chest, lungs filling with water, but she pushes it down; she thinks once more of Adora, limned in gold, smile brighter than the full moon. “I’ll make the sacrifice. You can have my stupid soul.”
Hela smiles widely, her mouth a slant of cruelty; she steps forward, extending her ice arm. Catra braces herself for an eternity of cold.
“Stop,” says a voice from the mouth of the cave, and it holds so much authority that Hela freezes like the ice she’s made of.
For a moment, Catra can’t breathe.
The woman in the doorway is as tall as Hela, shining with the same aureate glow that Adora does in Catra’s memory, her clothing the familiar white and gold of She-Ra’s armor. The sword in her hand is a blade that Catra knows better than the back of her hand. For one weightless second, Catra is convinced that Adora’s back, that she’s here somehow -
“Oh, good,” Hela says disdainfully. “A washed up has-been of a hero. Just what this party needs.”
The woman steps forward into the cave, and the magic fades; her skin is dark where Adora’s is light, her hair paler than Adora’s, her eyes warm blue instead of stormy grey. But she wields the Sword of Protection with the same deadly grace, and as she points it at Hela, her grip on the hilt is as strong as Adora’s ever was.
A name springs to Catra’s mind: Mara. Adora’s predecessor.
“So I’m not She-Ra anymore,” Mara says, clear and strong. “I accept that. I yielded that title many years ago, but I will take it up once again to defend the one it belongs to now.”
Hela draws herself up with murderous rage in her eyes. “You are not permitted to intervene. The girl has given her soul freely.”
“I disagree,” Mara says. “Your reign has gone on too long, goddess of death. I’m here to take you down a few pegs.”
Hela flicks a finger; a knife-sharp icicle shoots forward towards Catra, but Mara slashes it out of the air faster than Catra can feel any fear. Mara stands between her and Hela, defending her without fear, and Catra squints, disoriented; it’s as if she sees Adora standing in Mara’s place, the two of them occupying the same space of protection.
“Enough,” Mara says. “ Enough .” She strikes her sword against the ground, and the cave walls start to crumble, melting and falling to pieces around them.
Hela screams in rage, raising her arms; dream spheres push forward, multiplying, filling the cave even as the walls collapse. Catra scrambles backwards, narrowly avoiding them, as the light starts to die.
Someone grabs her arm: Mara, fingers tight around her skin.
“I’ll hold her off,” Mara says, lit by the glow of the sword’s runestone. “You go save Adora.”
An icicle crashes down next to them, ice chips shattering like shrapnel. The wind picks up, howling around the cave in an eerie song of death; the temperature drops sharply, turning Catra numb.
“I was going to,” Catra says, the words clumsy in her freezing mouth. “Hela offered me…”
“No,” Mara says. “That wasn’t the way to save her. This isn’t how it happens.” She reaches for a dream sphere, pulls it towards them; a starburst of rainbow light fills it, half-blinding Catra. “Cross the bridge. Find her.”
“But you - ”
“I won’t die,” Mara says. “I’m already dead.”
The ceiling gives way, crashing down around them, a thousand tons of frozen death descending; Mara pushes the dream sphere into Catra’s hands and the world shifts around her, exploding into a kaleidoscope of colors that turn into a blinding wash of white light. Catra feels herself being pulled towards the sky, gravity acting in reverse, flying free from the damage as the cave explodes beneath her.
:::
(THE FOURTH GATE)
Catra lands on a hard surface, the impact sending bolts of pain searing through her legs. She straightens up slowly and carefully, brushing remnants of ice from her arms, and then she sees where she is and the bottom of her stomach is in freefall, because she’s standing -
She’s standing in the center of the sky.
A bridge stretches out before her, seven brightly colored arcs of pure light bent into a rainbow pathway through the heavens. A sheen of iridescence plays across its surface like moonlight on water, giving the unsettling illusion that it’s not quite solid. Catra bends down and presses her hand against its firm surface, just to make sure.
Behind her, the gold-tiered towers of Valhalla rise into the blue expanse. Catra longs, for a moment, to run back across the bridge and burst into the hall in search of Adora, but she knows it won’t succeed. The vision of Adora in the hall was just that - a vision.
Before her, the bridge stretches out to the horizon before dipping low and disappearing in a dull grey bank of soft-edged clouds. There’s a smear of golden light painted across the skyline, far ahead of her, and Catra fixes her eyes upon it. She knows, somehow, that it marks the place she needs to reach.
She starts walking.
Time passes the same way it has since she entered the underworld: it moves in starts and stops, twisting and turning, doubling back on itself, forming braided strands and loops without end or beginning. Hours melt into years, centuries becoming minutes; nothing is linear, nothing has meaning. Catra can’t recall when she started this journey; it could have been yesterday, it could have been a lifetime ago. It unnerves her.
She tries to ignore it, focusing instead on the bridge instead. It’s so beautiful it almost hurts to look at, and it’s smooth and solid beneath her feet, but there’s a certain otherworldly quality to it besides just its dazzling color. If Catra concentrates hard, it’s as if she can feel the touch of other worlds pressing up all around her, like she could fall into another universe if she leaned too far over the side. She’s almost tempted to try; she’s sure that if she did, she’d find Adora somehow. Catra would cross every universe in existence if there was even a chance that Adora was waiting on the other side.
She walks on, her eyes beginning to blur from the brightness of the bridge. There are images flickering in the air at the edges of the bridge, dancing in the peripherals of Catra’s vision, but they always disappear when Catra tries to look at them directly. Maybe, she thinks, they’re glimpses of those other worlds.
She moves towards the left side of the bridge, determined to get a better look at one image that flashes gold and silver against a black background, and she’s so busy staring that she doesn’t notice the bridge is ending.
The rainbow light disappears from beneath her, yielding to a crooked mess of wooden slats latticed between two rickety rope handrails. Catra falls forward onto the planks, splinters pushing into her hands as she tries to break her fall.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mumbles, pulling a splinter from her palm as she slowly gets to her feet again. “Can’t you change back to the rainbow part?”
The bridge remains as it is: splintery and annoying. Catra sighs and pushes onwards.
--
The wooden bridge is a thousand times worse than the rainbow bridge.
Catra hates walking on it. She’s used to smooth surfaces beneath her feet, whether the metal floors of the Fright Zone or the worn dirt of Etheria’s various roads and paths, but the splintery boards of this bridge are nothing like either of those; they’re all broken slivers and sharp angles, calculated to leave their mark on anyone crossing them. Catra can’t step on them without paying the price in pain, which seems like some kind of fucked up metaphor to her.
Her feet begin to ache, covered in dozens of tiny wounds from the rough surfaces of the planks, which she’s beginning to think that some asshole designed to be intentionally uneven. Her hands start to blister from holding the ropes to steady herself. Every step becomes an ordeal, a battle against the bridge itself.
The rickety planks of the bridge begin to rattle ominously, and Catra swallows hard as she looks down and realizes that they’re starting to become fewer and further between. She’s never been afraid of heights before, but after the fall on Prime’s ship, she’s been scared of them in a bone-deep way that she buries beneath a veil of shame. She’s not supposed to be scared of heights; she’s supposed to always land on her feet, no matter how far she falls.
Looking down now, though, Catra can’t see even a hint of the land; it’s nothing but sky all the way down. She gets the uncomfortable feeling that if she fell, she’d be falling for the rest of her life.
Far in the distance, the golden light beckons her for a moment before disappearing behind a soft white cloud. Catra grits her teeth and continues onwards, spurred on by the reminder of what she’s heading for.
As she stretches out precariously to reach the next plank, feeling the gaping yawn of the sky beneath her opening up like a giant mouth ready to pull her in, she feels a cold breeze blow across the back of her neck: a breath, a caress. She looks over her shoulder in the direction it comes from - the north - and suddenly makes a desperate grab for the railings as she realizes what’s heading towards her.
The gale hits her like a boulder, a blast of pure air pressing her to the jagged planks as the bridge tosses back and forth, a sapling in a hurricane. A thousand fingers of wind tear at her clothes, ripping at her skin with the keen edges of knives as a screeching howl fills the air around her, a hair-raising rush of high-pitched sound that comes from the wind itself and speaks of an anger that transcends word or meaning.
Catra’s heart beats irregularly, stuttering in panic. She clings to the ropes as best she can, the bridge pitching like a ship on stormy seas. When she squints, trying to see through the opaque spiral of the gale, she catches a glimpse of something up ahead; it’s only a brief glance, but she thinks it’s the end of the bridge, the end of the wooden planks and flimsy ropes.
She gathers her courage and forces herself upright again, making a mad dash forward even as the wind bends her double and pulls her backwards. The ropes burn against her hands, cutting shallow trenches into the skin as she runs; the winds pick up speed, whirling around her so fast that the air is pulled from her lungs.
With her last breath, Catra stumbles one step further and falls to her knees, unable to continue. She’s exhausted down to her very bones, in a way that she’s only felt once before: on Prime’s ship, hovering between life and death.
If you’re going to kill me, she thinks, then take me already. At least maybe then I’ll see Adora again.
The wind dies down, fading to a soft breeze that wraps around her once before departing. The surface beneath her wounded hands is cool and smooth.
--
Catra raises her head wearily to see that she’s still on the bridge.
The wooden planks are gone, giving way to a wide stretch of grey stone that slides like the curve of a raindrop. When she starts walking again, the stone is cool and forgiving against her feet, soothing the angry wounds from the bridge before.
The air is heavier here; it weighs around her shoulders like a yoke, holding and gathering against her back. Catra walks like she’s carrying a burden, slightly bent beneath its mass. She can’t find any reasonable explanation for why the air should feel so heavy, and yet it lingers upon her like sadness in a cemetery: an intangible yet unbearable weight.
The bridge curves suddenly downwards, descending into a cloudbank; as Catra follows the slope, the clouds surround her until her vision is not a field but a snowstorm. She slows until she’s barely moving, reaching out into the insubstantial wisps of cloud as if it will somehow help her navigate.
She’s about halfway through the clouds - by her estimation, at least, a loose guess made more from hope than expectation - when she hears the voices.
A chorus of melancholy echoes through the clouds, wailing whispers rising and falling like a funeral dirge. As Catra walks, the cries start getting louder; they’re eerily unsettling, not because they’re inhuman, but because they’re the exact opposite. Every voice that wails into the mist could be a parent who lost a child, a friend who lost their companion, a lover who lost their other half. The clouds fill with pure grief, spilling over like rainwater.
Catra finds herself mourning by osmosis: she becomes choked up, her throat tight with sadness. Tears spring unbidden to her eyes, but she manages to keep them from falling. She refuses to give anything else to this brutal and unforgiving land. It doesn’t deserve her grief, and it doesn’t deserve her tears.
As if in response, the air grows colder, pulling water from her eyes. Catra swipes them away roughly, continues walking.
Thoughts of Adora begin to run through Catra’s mind, soft and peaceful moments slipping between one another: Adora covering them both with a blanket; Adora lying with her feet tucked under Catra’s stomach; Adora sneaking an extra ration bar for Catra; Adora carefully bandaging a scratch on Catra’s arm after training. The memories shift like reflections in water, and Catra tries to think of more; a spaceship, a rooftop -
Her mind becomes hazy, a staticked blur of color pressing against the insides of her eyelids. The record scratches, goes silent, and she can’t remember. She can’t remember.
Catra’s tears fall, sinking through the air like dropped diamonds. The instant they hit the bridge, salt water splashed against stone, it changes.
--
The bridge shifts beneath Catra’s feet, the texture different but the color still the same; instead of the smooth veneer of weatherbeaten stone, it’s now a pitted surface rife with dirt and pebbles.
Catra takes a tentative step forward, finds that it’s solid to the touch and decent enough to walk on. She moves slowly as the aftermath of the harsh winds and her crying jag take their toll on her tired lungs, and her breaths come shortly.
She tries to remind herself that she’s fine, that she’s been through much worse than this before, but it’s getting harder and harder to convince herself of that fact. She’s weathered worse storms, true - she’s crossed the Crimson Waste virtually alone, she’s been swallowed by a portal that nearly destroyed reality, she’s been kidnapped by an intergalactic fascist and reprogrammed to become a killing machine - but the horrors of those incidents are beginning to pale in comparison, fading like paint colors in water. She feels removed from their memories in a strangely distant way, as if rather than things that happened to her in the past, they were stories told about a girl who looked like her.
Catra shakes her head, trying to focus herself again. She pins her eyes to the path ahead of her, relying on vision to ground her.
Cracks spread across the surface of the bridge, splintering it into sharp-cornered sections. Most of these fissures are filled with sparse soil and scrubby grasses, but a few have small flowers blooming from them, raising their small leaves towards the pale light. Their petals are mostly soft pinks and blues, but one is a dark violet that reminds Catra of something - someone - she knows. Used to know.
Does she know someone with purple hair? Catra searches her mind carefully, and after half a minute of thought, the name appears on the tip of her tongue: Entrapta.
She’d gotten Catra here, hadn’t she? Had she?
“Fuck,” Catra mumbles, the realization sinking in: she’s beginning to forget the world above. She’d known that she had lost memories of Adora; she hadn’t known that she’d lose ones of her other friends as well.
There is always more to lose, Anubis had said.
Catra tries to remember Bright Moon, Bow, Glimmer, the rest of the princesses. The recollections come in bits and pieces, a puzzle scattered haphazard and piecemeal across the foreground of her mind. She remembers Glimmer’s pink hair, but doesn’t know what style it was the last time they saw each other. She remembers Bow’s cropped shirts, but not the color of his eyes. She can’t quite remember the sound of Perfuma’s voice.
She thinks back further: the Fright Zone, the Horde. A dim series of images play back in her head, a poorly spliced film reel on a muted screen. She sees a room crowded with bunk beds, a row of green lockers, a short boy with blonde hair ducking as a brown-haired girl throws something at him - Lonnie, Catra reminds herself, and - and who?
Adora appears amid the cascade of memories: smiling at her as they race, sitting next to her high atop somewhere - a rooftop, maybe? Catra presses her hands to her head, fingers tangling in her hair as she searches for something she can’t reach.
“No,” she says out loud. “Stop. I don’t care what else you take, but you can’t take her. I’ve already lost her once.”
No one answers. The air is perfectly still around her.
If I get through this, Catra thinks wildly, let me remember her. I’ll do anything for it. I’ll give you whatever you want. She throws this message out into the metaphysical space that surrounds her, bargaining with a nameless power as desperation sweeps through the center of her soul.
As if in answer, the bridge changes once more beneath her.
--
A warm glow of light fills Catra’s eyes, shining upwards from the surface of the bridge. It’s made of a pure white slowstone now; it’s as smooth as the sea on a calm day, and shot through with brilliant streaks of gold that look like living things.
The bridge arches upwards and then downwards again, forming a perfect curve. The railings are solid and unwavering, made of the same white slowstone. Behind the bridge, Catra can see a half-open door from which golden light is shining out onto the end of the stonework. She’s here .
She starts across the bridge, her aches and worries falling away as hope lends her wings. She’s halfway to the other side when a figure appears at the far end of the bridge, blocking her way. Catra stops dead in her tracks.
The figure is a woman whose skin is made of pure gold, glimmering as brightly as the veins of precious metal that trace through the stone between them. Her eyes are solid black, no light in them at all; it’s like making eye contact with midnight.
“Mortal,” the woman says, and her voice is hollow, the ring of metal striking stone. “You may not pass.”
Catra glares at her. “What do you mean, I can’t pass?”
“You are alive,” the woman replies. “The path beyond is only for those who have passed on.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Catra scoffs. She’s come too far, endured too much to be checked by a walking metal sculpture. She takes another step forward, ready to fight her way through if necessary.
A wall of force hits her, locking her in place, the air suddenly a prison around her. She struggles until her limbs burn with the ache of effort, but she can barely move a muscle.
The woman walks up to her, placing one hand against her cheek. Catra feels the cool kiss of tempered metal sliding against her skin.
“You are weak,” she says, her voice chiding, scornful. “You are not worthy of passage. But there is more than one way to cross a bridge, and despite your ineptitude, I suppose you want a second chance. Who wouldn’t?”
She lifts Catra as easily as if she were a feather, then approaches the side of the bridge.
“You want to bring her back to the land of the living,” she continues conversationally, “but the fact that you yourself are still living is the thing that will keep you from achieving that. Irony loves a cruel jest.”
Catra thrashes in the woman’s grip, her claws scoring uselessly against the shining alloy of her face. “Let go of me, you stupid statue!”
“I’ll give you some advice,” the woman says, her fingers wrapping around Catra’s wrist hard enough to cause fractures. “Death is like time is like love. You can’t fight it. All you can do is brace yourself for the fall.”
She flings Catra over the side of the bridge, into the darkness of an endless abyss. Catra falls like a stone.
Air rushes by her, embracing her without breaking her descent. The fierce whistle of wind by her ears renders her half-deaf, and her eyes sting from the speed of it all, watering painlessly, drops of salt flying from her face in all directions. She tenses herself, curls into a taut spring of muscle coiled tight from fear and anticipation; if she ever lands, it will probably break half the bones in her body. She can practically hear the snap already.
Green light blots out the backs of her eyelids, filling her vision with a memory only partially formed; she’s falling through different air in a different world, a hard metal floor waiting below. An unkept promise rings in her ears, and she’s never heard it before, but it sounds strangely familiar -
A hand wraps around her wrist, the grip strong yet gentle. Catra’s fall slows to a drag, catching on an updraft as the dark is pushed back by a pale lavender glow.
“Catra,” someone says. A woman, pink-haired and pale-skinned, hovering next to her on a pair of gossamer wings that gleam like opal. Catra’s old life may be fading from her mind, but she dimly registers the similarities between this woman and someone else she knows, someone important to her -
“Angella,” Catra says, pronouncing the name carefully. A stab of guilt rushes through her, for reasons she can’t identify. “Glimmer’s mother?”
“Yes,” Angella replies. “Listen carefully. We don’t have much time.”
“You’re dead,” Catra says, the words tilting up at the end of the sentence, a question she can’t answer by herself. “That was my fault?”
“Yes,” Angella says again, but there’s no anger in her eyes. It’s an unearned absolution, and Catra’s stomach twists again in guilt.
“I can save you,” Catra says, even though she’s not sure she can. “If you come with me, if we find Adora together, maybe all of us can leave - ”
Angella shakes her head. “That is not my destiny,” she says. “I’ve passed on already. Don’t worry for me, Catra; I’m not unhappy. I’ve found a place in the world beyond where I can be happy, and a friend to keep me company. You’ve met her already.”
“Mara,” Catra murmurs.
“We belong here now,” Angella says. “But you don’t. You will find Adora soon, and you can bring her back, but you have to remember.”
Angella’s wings beat heavily around them, fighting the pull of gravity. Catra feels sleepy, her mind dulled by something she can’t yet understand. She forces out her next words with a great effort: “Remember what?”
“There’s no time,” Angella says. “I forgive you, Catra. And I trust you to do what must be done. Tell Glimmer - ” Lavender tears pool in the corner in the corner of her eyes, and Catra stares at them dazedly.
“Tell Glimmer and Micah and Bow I love them,” Angella finishes. “And take Adora home safely.”
She opens her hand and lets Catra fall, slipping from her grasp like a memory forgotten. The abyss reaches up towards Catra, and this time there is no one left to catch her.
Adora, Catra thinks, and then she can think no more.