Chapter Text
One thing people always say, but some stubborn people still insist on ignoring it for some cruel and sadistic reason, is that doing what we love is not always the best path: sometimes we need to think only about money and have a stable life that is well balanced with everything. After all, love and passion do not pay the mortgage or put food on the table.
Catra learned this the worst way. She thinks about this every day when she wakes up and every day when she goes to sleep. In fact, sometimes while she paints, when she manages to sell a piece, when she manages to charm some buyer, or even one of her friends, she really appreciates her choices and admires her own talent, but that is becoming rarer, and because of that she needs to have a full-time job, and her talent with art has become a hobby, so to speak.
She only has bad days and worse days, and today, apparently, was one of the worst. She forgot to charge her phone the night before, woke up late and always forgets to buy batteries to put in the alarm clock her friend gave her years ago so things like this would stop happening. Catra’s eyes go wide and she jumps out of bed in a hurry, almost faceplanting on the floor. She throws on a random pair of pants and a shirt she finds along the way and practically jumps down the stairs until she reaches the kitchen, where she shoves a protein bar into her mouth without even bothering to check what her face looks like. She can check that in the car’s rearview mirror on the way.
Her car window was so dirty that it was almost easier to just stick her head outside and look at the road. When she arrived at work with miraculously only seven minutes of delay, she found Lonnie with her arms crossed and a displeased expression.
“Well Catra, who died this time?” Lonnie asks with a mocking tone. Since Catra really needs a salary and has no patience to go looking for worse options, she just sighs and goes to the dish room that already has a considerable pile for seven in the morning.
Catra ties her curly and voluminous hair into an unbearably tight bun, puts on her cap and gets to work.
It has been almost two years since she moved and works in this chain restaurant that is somewhat famous in Etheria. They have never even seen the owner, but the people here act like a big family. Well, she thinks so – Catra never met her biological parents, since she grew up in an orphanage.
Lonnie is the manager of this unit, Kyle is a terrible waiter who always gets orders wrong and drops things, and Rogelio takes care of the grill-and does everything else. Sometimes Catra helps him, but never ever by her own choice, since getting the rancid smell of grease out of her hair was a difficult task.
Since today was Friday, some people who worked in more special places in the downtown area would come to eat the food here, because besides being surprisingly good (Catra would never admit that to Rogelio), the restaurant was very well regarded. Some people had already arrived for lunch time, she watches through the little dish window.
Catra was busy trying to go to the back to throw away the trash and steal about five minutes of her shift when Lonnie tells her that she needs to help Rogelio with the grill because he is swamped. She was halfway to the doors that led to the back alley when she bumps into a tall figure that barely moves.
“Ah, Wildcat, I’m so sorry, my Gosh!” Scorpia exclaims with her hands up while stepping back as if she were apologizing for simply being a human brick wall.
Scorpia had been Catra’s friend since college. She worked in her own seafood and meat delivery business for several restaurants and markets in Bright Moon.
“Scorpia,” Catra almost growls, but after years of companionship she knows she does not scare her friend anymore with her dry and rude tone, “actually, I really wanted to talk to you.”
Scorpia raises her eyebrows in surprise and asks, “Oh really? What is it?”
Catra passes by her, holding her by the wrist and taking her outside, away from the curious ears of the other employees. When they are near the delivery area she says, “I was going to text you, but my phone is out of battery and I forgot to charge it. I just wanted to ask you to grab a drink tonight, I really cannot stand rotting at home every Friday anymore.”
Scorpia gives her a somewhat worried look, but says nothing. She knows Catra has been drinking more and more and refuses to seek professional help or listen to anyone from the outside telling her how she should live her life. Catra has always been like this, an exceptionally difficult and stubborn person, however that way of being hurts her more than it helps.
Scorpia chooses not to say anything this time and nods enthusiastically.
“Sure! Drinks! We can go to a bar near Elberon that serves some different drinks.”
That was music to Catra’s ears.
“It’s not very fancy, right? Because I don’t have clothes to go to the bars in the rich part of the city.” She thinks about pulling a cigarette from the pack she keeps in the small pocket of her apron, but gives up. She knows Scorpia hates seeing her smoking.
“Oh no, no. It’s just a little bar with live music. Nothing special. You can pick me up at my house tonight and I’ll show you exactly where it is.”
They set the time and Catra goes back inside to a furious Lonnie and a somewhat desperate Kyle behind her. It would almost be funny if her day hadn't started off in the worst way.
Lonnie massages her temples and closes her eyes. “Catra, I already told you to help Kyle. Can’t you follow a simple order?”
“It’s not my fault you chose the most incompetent person on the face of the earth to take orders,” Catra replies irritably while passing by her and making sure to bump into Kyle’s shoulder as she heads to the dining room.
“Catra—” Kyle begins, but she does not give him time to complain and simply ignores him.
The restaurant was really quite full, with almost every table occupied. They had a silent agreement in which Catra took care of the even-numbered tables and Kyle the odd ones, but looking quickly around she was clearly at a disadvantage because all the even tables were very crowded. Deciding what was best only for herself, she walks to one of the even tables that had three people who looked like they worked in healthcare or something like that, judging by their uniforms.
Catra stops beside the table, pulling out her notepad without even greeting them or saying good morning. It was her own little way of telling the world “go screw yourself.”
One of the women clears her throat and begins her order without bothering to hide how irritated she sounds. Catra ignores the hint and writes everything down. She writes two of the orders, waiting for the third person to finally take the cue and start speaking, when she loses patience and raises an eyebrow without looking up from the notepad.
“I would like a rare steak, please,” she kind of stammers and speaks so quietly that Catra can barely understand. Catra taps the paper and murmurs a muffled “ok” before heading back to the kitchen with the order.
While serving other tables and thinking terrible things about the starving customers, she goes back to the kitchen and brings the orders from the medical table. After placing the dishes down, still refusing to raise her eyes and look at the people who obviously must think they are better than her, she leaves so quickly that she almost leaves a vacuum behind her.
Less than a minute later, Catra is called back to the table to hear a complaint about the dish. The woman who ordered the rare steak claims that it was not rare enough and she takes it back again.
It really is a pain when this happens because when it needs to be well-done you can simply throw it back on the grill and that’s it. When it’s like this they need a new steak and she already knows Rogelio is going to huff about it.
After a brief moment, the new steak is ready and thirty seconds later, yet another complaint comes, claiming (again) that it was not rare enough. Catra’s left eye twitches and she grabs the plate with more anger than usual. When she reaches the grill she pushes Rogelio aside with her hip and throws the steak hard onto the grill, leaving it there for only ten seconds on each side before throwing it back onto the damned plate and delivering it to the cannibal at table eight. There was still blood dripping from it. With a mocking smile she walks away, and she is not surprised when she receives no tip after that. The steak had disappeared.
At night Catra was in her house, which was already begging for a general cleaning, standing in front of her cracked mirror in her wrecked bedroom. There were clothes on the bed, on the chair, and in a pile behind the door. She makes a mental note to go to the laundromat (she was almost out of clean underwear) and also to the grocery store.
Catra puts on ripped black jeans, a black Slayer t-shirt and heavy makeup around her eyes. Good enough. She grabs the keys to her faded Honda Civic and leaves to go to Scorpia’s house on the other side of the city. Not that Catra really wants to be the driver, but it is simply that she has basically no risk; she has been driving since she was nine years old, and driving while drinking is a new habit. She has been getting better and better at it. If she crashes into some random tree in the middle of the night, that could be considered a true divine favor by finally ending her suffering.
It does not take long for her to reach the street of Scorpia’s building, who was already waiting for her on the sidewalk. She was wearing a black leather jacket that highlighted her huge biceps and had brushed her platinum hair back. Without wasting time the two head toward Elberon, with Scorpia talking and giving basic directions. It had been calm, almost too calm, when Scorpia finally clears her throat and Catra knows what is coming. She almost closes her eyes, but she does not want to worry her friend tonight.
“So, how have you been?” she asks cautiously. Catra just pretends indifference and shrugs while still looking at the road ahead of her.
“Very well, I’m this close to catching the damned raccoon that keeps rummaging through my trash-and our neighbor’s.” This was actually happening. Scorpia hums before continuing.
“I see, and how is your love life? Any new crush around that I don’t know about? Or no new admirers?” She tries to keep a casual tone, she really tries, but because it is Scorpia she sounds like a police officer during an interrogation.
Catra snorts and lets out a disbelieving little laugh. “Nope. I already told you, I’m not interested in relationships or meeting some random woman. I feel great alone.”
Scorpia and Entrapta were the people who knew her best now. Catra likes to joke that she never even had to “come out of the closet,” because she was basically always like this. She never hid that she liked girls and whenever someone asked her about romantic relationships she dodged the question and walked away. She had never had a long relationship, never even fallen madly in love, always going from one mouth to another without emotion and without any feeling at all. If that counts as strong experiences, she must have kissed around five women, and all of them were at university parties in which she was not sober.
“Well…” Scorpia uses a cautious tone, “you know you can always tell me anything, right? And if you—”
“Look, Scorp, I’m fine. Seriously,” Catra interrupts her. “I really just want to have some drinks and relax after a day like that at work.”
Scorpia nods and sighs, simply staying silent until they arrive at the bar. The place was more like a pub, with a neon sign and exposed brick walls, but it still seemed very cozy; it already had several people outside too, some even leaning on motorcycles and smoking. She parks her car a little further ahead so she does not have to stop her old junk car near the wealthier people.
They both go inside and find a small table near the wall and far enough from the stage so they can talk comfortably while ordering their drinks. The waitress leaves her number on Catra’s napkin, but she barely notices it, so determined to get drunk as soon as possible.
It doesn’t take long, maybe less than two hours (a new record), and the two of them have already left the table and are closer to the stage, with the alcohol already controlling at least seventy percent of their brains. Scorpia has a wide smile and seems to have trouble keeping her head upright. During that time Entrapta had been called in for the fun and was laughing a lot with a very pale and strange-looking guy near the bathrooms. Wow, Catra hadn’t expected that.
Catra needs some fresh air. Between the people on stage singing, the heat of the crowd around her near the front, and the warmth of the beer that already feels more like a part of her than her own blood, she pushes through the crowd so she can go outside and into an alley to get some air and light a cigarette.
It was a full moon night and it was high and bright in the sky, no clouds trying to steal its spotlight. Even a little drunk, it gives her chills; thinking about creatures that transformed so abruptly and lost control of themselves was very uncomfortable. Even more uncomfortable was thinking that those people lived among her. For many years there had been no news of werewolf or shapeshifter attacks in Etheria, but Catra knows they exist somewhere out there, they must just be almost extinct.
She leans against the wall of the lonely alley while taking a drag and letting the smoke spiral into the cold night air, looking up at the sky. Suddenly, she notices a shadow moving in the corner of her eye. Catra jumps and quickly moves in that direction, only to find a large dumpster. She hears a sound again, like something rummaging through the trash or hitting the metal of the dumpster, and involuntarily moves closer to check if it is a cat or something like that. Near the broken wall that leads to tall grass, she sees a dark, low shadow, something that maybe looks like a dog. She stretches her hand out as if trying to calm the animal when someone places a hand on her shoulder and Catra lets out a small scream, spinning quickly on her heels.
Standing behind her is Entrapta, with a Scorpia who looks very dizzy and delirious. “Catra, I think I should take her home.. She just told me she’s seeing everything double and the ground is turning into water under her feet,” Entrapta explains in her characteristically calm tone.
Scorpia looks paler than usual, with a bit of sweat gathered on her forehead, but still wearing a wide silly smile on her face while staring into the empty alley.
“Alright, Scorp, wouldn't you rather I drive you home? I'll get you there faster and let you choose the music,” Catra says while tossing the cigarette butt on the ground and walking back toward the street, heading to her car.
“Uhh, I think it would be better if I take her home, you know, I didn’t drink tonight and I can guarantee I’ll be a safer driver for her.” Entrapta says. Beside her, Scorpia lets out a small giggle.
“No offense, Wildcat, but I want to get home in one piece,” she says while leaning on the shorter purple-haired woman. Entrapta lets out a loud laugh, while Catra simply stops near her car and huffs, shrugging.
“Just remember to send me a message tomorrow so I know you didn’t die or get arrested.” Coming from those two that was very much a real possibility. It wouldn’t be the first time Entrapta got into trouble with the police and certainly not the last.
They say their goodbyes and Catra gets into her car, which is very cold from the late autumn chill. In a few months it will be her twenty-seventh birthday. Wonderful.
Catra lives in the more dangerous side of the city, affectionately nicknamed the Fright Zone, and whenever she leaves home she passes through at least a mile and a half along the edge of the Whispering Woods. The cold settles into her bones and she curses herself for forgetting to bring a jacket. The heater in the car is very inefficient and is fogging up the windows. Catra doesn’t know if it’s the alcohol talking or the beginning of a small paranoid episode, but she feels like she’s being watched. More than that, she feels like something is following her, even though she is alone inside the car. There are no other cars on the road and no vehicle has passed her in the last five minutes. She isn’t driving far above the limit, but she is still too fast.
She was starting to accelerate even more in an attempt to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling of being watched when a large pale movement on her right side, at the edge of the trees, caught her attention. Catra turns her head so abruptly that her neck cracks. There was nothing there, but when she looked forward there was something standing in the middle of the road.
It was too late to swerve or do anything, and her first instinct was to slam the brakes. Her car skids across the road and the tires scream along with something else. It takes a moment for the car to stop completely, but reason still hasn’t caught up with her, and, driven by adrenaline, Catra jumps out of the car without even really looking. She runs back a good few meters and stops in front of a large mass of fur.
Such a rush of emotion must have sobered her at least a little because she crouches down desperately while murmuring to herself, or to anyone who might hear in the world, “Please don’t be dead, please, please, please don’t be dead…”
It was an enormous dog lying on the road-whimpering. Catra lets out the breath she had been holding and examines the animal more closely. Its head was lowered, but when it turns to look Catra in the eyes she finds a very bright blue. The wolf stops whining and lowers its snout, sniffing her cautiously, curled up with its ears flattened against its head.
“Okay, okay,” she says with her hands raised in surrender, a little unsteady but managing to stay upright without falling flat on the asphalt. “I’m going to check you out, please don’t kill me.”
Catra starts to feel along the back of the giant dog, but doesn’t get far because after two light touches the animal throws its head back with a dramatic, pained howl. It snorts and whines and she is forced to cover her ears because of the immense amount of drama. She snorts.
“Alright, good, you’re not bleeding, but you might have an internal injury, I need to take you to a vet, buddy,” she says while standing up, and with the quick movement the world spins and she staggers backward. The wolf stands up as well, now on all fours and suddenly very alert. Its golden ears move forward, trying to catch any sign of imminent danger.
Catra presses a hand to her forehead to steady herself. “I need to put you in the car, yeah, I’m taking you home and you’re going to the vet tomorrow morning,” she says as she approaches the dog, now noticing how bizarrely large it is, its furry face almost at the height of her collarbone. She pats the animal’s head and considers what to do next. “Uh, alright… how are we going to get you into my back seat…”
The dog barks and wags its tail, and honestly it doesn’t seem as badly injured as it did a moment ago, just very happy and excited about the free ride it was getting from the drunk driver of the night. It turns around enthusiastically, its giant paws hitting the asphalt, stops beside the passenger door, sits back on its haunches and waits for Catra with its mouth open and tongue hanging out.
Catra opens the door and the husky—or whatever breed this is (maybe a giant labrador or something, Catra always preferred cats anyway)—settles into the seat, which suddenly feels far too small for the enormous mass of golden and gray fur.
When she sits back down in the driver’s seat she realizes the car now feels cramped and way too warm, with the giant dog nearly spilling over the gear shift and its thick fur brushing against her bare arm.
The drive was extremely difficult, but at least the animal stuck its head out of the window so Catra didn’t have to deal with dog breath in her face. She was sweating, and when she finally pulled into her driveway she mentally thanked the universe for living in such a low-quality neighborhood where neither of the two houses next to hers had people who actually stay home or care about being sociable. Except for old Razz who lived about three streets away, already outside the Fright Zone, she didn’t talk to any of her neighbors. For all she knew, she could very well be living next door to witches and vampires, since she never saw any of them.
Catra opens the passenger door and the dog jumps out happily, slamming into her and almost knocking her over. It was like leaning against a giant wall of fur, and it keeps doing that all the way to the front door until she nearly collapses at the entrance. She barely manages to close the door behind her before turning to him as if the thing could understand her and grumbles, “Look, this is my house. Behave yourself and tomorrow I’ll take you to the doctor and we’ll find your owners, okay?”
She turns and drops onto the couch, not bothering to change clothes or even lock the door.
She falls asleep quickly, feeling warmth on the arm that hangs off the side of the couch, and once again dreams of beautiful forests, bright and impossible.
When she wakes up in the morning, Catra notices two things: first, that her head is exploding, she had slept in her jeans on the couch and she was going to throw up. Second, she was not alone, and as she runs trying to reach the stairs, she trips over something very large lying on the floor.
“Fuck,” she grumbles and almost throws up right there, but stops when she sees what she had tripped over. “What the hell is that?” Her eyes widen and she crawls backward when she sees the enormous, bulky creature now rising in all its glory to stare down at her with big, pleading blue eyes.
“You…” she begins, but of course the animal is not going to answer, because duh, but it steps aside as if letting her pass, curling up again and flattening its ears against its head. Catra feels her stomach churn and, remembering almost everything from last night, she runs to the bathroom barely making it to the toilet before throwing up everything her stomach had barely managed to hold from the day before. She basically vomits foam and stays there for a long moment with her face near the toilet, having one of the worst sensations of her adult life.
The dog followed her but now stands in the doorway sitting patiently with its head tilted to the side as if trying to understand what was happening to poor Catra. She looks at it, sighs, and sits on the tiles, letting the cold help her steady herself.
Catra remembers grabbing her phone and stands up unsteadily, walking past the dog that follows her to her bedroom. “No, boundaries, you don’t come in here,” she says, shutting the door in its face and hearing a muffled grumble through the wood.
There was only one message from Scorpia that morning saying she was fine and that the trip home had been smooth. Catra already knew Entrapta would forget to message her anyway to say she was okay, but since Scorpia herself was fine she automatically assumed Entrapta was too. She decides to take a shower to wash away the bad smells from last night.
She takes off her clothes and goes to the bathroom attached to her room, letting the hot water run as the strange memories from the night before come back to her. Closing her eyes, she goes through a mental list of what she needs to do.
First, eat; Catra really needs something solid in her stomach, and after that she needs to take the strange dog to the vet. She can probably use their network to look for the dog’s owners, who must certainly be desperate to find it—after all it was a very beautiful and well-kept dog—and then she can move on in peace, knowing she definitely didn’t kill an innocent animal while driving drunk.
When she gets out of the shower she doesn’t see the dog in the hallway. “Hey, are you there?” No response, but Catra obviously expected that. She quickly throws on the first clothes she sees and runs downstairs, only to find it disturbingly empty. Then she notices the back door open.
“But, what the—” Catra runs outside, but she no longer sees the big golden-furred dog.