Work Text:
Lonnie burst into Adora’s private quarters without knocking. Everyone knew that Shadow Weaver had the lock to the young woman's quarters disabled to allow her constant access and surveillance of her private Force Captain. It was also a reminder to Adora that nowhere was sacred or safe. Normally, Lonnie, the remainder of the squad, and Scorpia would knock, a conscience effort to provide their friend the choice she so very rarely got to have. To save time, that courtesy had to be foregone.
“Adora!” The other Force Captain called, door sliding open harshly. The blonde in question, sitting at a small table with a map and pens laid out, startled, dropping a few to the floor as she turned to the harried brunette.
“Hold up,” Lonnie interrupted when the other girls mouth opened to ask, and stared intense brown stared straight into Adora’s grey-blue eyes. “There - you need to come with me.”
Adora hummed and looked back at the map. “I need to get this done for Shad-” She was cut off by a raised hand.
“I need you to come with me, someone is hiding in the dumps that I’ve told General Cobalt you could find. He agreed based on your experiences with…” She paused, not sure what to call it. Not sure how to bring up Catra in a way without mentioning Catra, but not knowing what her species was made it harder. “She is like Catra.”
Adora who had already moved to her bed and was lacing up a pair of boots that had been laid neatly by her bed, and paused. “Wha-”
Lonnie continued. “Look, Sergeant Maze said she was abandoned, her parents left her near the mines, but Maze remembered some things about Catra as a species and a cadet and figured bringing her to the creche would be beneficial if she could be tamed like -”
This time, the blonde cut her off with a quick, sharp, “Like Catra wasn’t.”
Catra, who was smart, witty, strong, fast, angry, defiant, and uncontrollable. Even with all that was done to her. Catra, who got angry at Adora and her clinginess, who got angry when Adora wouldn’t stand up for their suffering. Adora who wasn’t strong enough to stop her pain, wasn’t strong enough to stop her death. That death had shattered any remaining belief of a free Etheria, because what was a free Etheria in a place that willingly let a cadet die under a Horde doctors misguided experimentation? Sure, he had been punished, sent to Beast Island, but another doctor had taken his place and had taken great pleasure in rediscovering Adora, Rogelio, and others who were different in some exploitable or curious way. If this were a creature like Catra, they would want every precaution to make sure she came out ‘right,’ and the new doctor would have a new toy.
“What happened?” Adora finished up her laces and stood, grabbing her jacket and a spare grey ration bar that had been lying on her desk. The very few benefits of being a Force Captain were being able to grab an extra ration from time to time, and sometimes you could even pick the color. The blonde headed to the door with Lonnie as she pulled on the jacket, stuffed the ration bar into an inside pocket she had sewn in with the intended purpose to hide ill-gotten goods. Adora had been sewing pockets into her jackets for years, often with the purpose of hiding anything Catra stole or anything she stole for her team, mostly for Catra. The pockets were useful, and even after the cadet passed, she had continued to add them.
Lonnie followed and continued as they sped down the hall at a reasonably controlled pace least attention be drawn. “Nobody has told Shadow Weaver,” she wanted to make that clear; she had intercepted the notice before that could happen, she wanted nothing to get out that would drag Shadow Weaver back to the Fright Zone and away from whatever battle she had been sent to by Hordak in such a hurry.
If Adora and her could find the kid, she’d make sure it would land in the creche, unmolested by that woman or any other higher up. For all the anger Lonnie had held for Catra as cadets, she understood the things that had been done to her out of malicious curiosity and what it had cost the cadet, what it had cost Adora, what it had cost the squad. There were still things being done to Adora, suspicious things that had suddenly lightened plans meant for Rogelio. Plans Lonnie was afraid to think of.
She had decided that she would do her best to get the kid away from prying eyes and curious minds and try to keep her off the radar. The creche workers would understand and continue the practice as they had with all crechlings who were different in the same ways Adora, Catra, and Roeglio were. Least they lose another crechling to a megalomaniac higher up or to the doctors who all to often augmented them beyond repair.
Adora nodded and prompted her to continue as they headed to the dumps, past the mess hall and kitchen, and out of sight from other cadets. “Maze brought her in, said he found her abandoned at the mines, but I know he had been out on a raid support detail, the same one Shadow Weaver had been called to.” She let that ominous thought fall, the truth of the found crechlings bleeding into the lies they had been told and had been crumbling since Catra’s death. “But she must not have been as out of it as he thought because she ran as soon as the skiff doors opened. Running everyone ragged as they tried to catch her and out the doors, we think she's hiding in the dumps and refuses to come out.”
The blonde Force Captain could have laughed at the irony, were it not for the sudden lump in her throat that felt like a badly swallowed ration bar. A child like Catra in the dumps, very reminiscent of their own childhood when she had found Catra in a box in the dumps . The new crechling was more than likely stuck there too, because beyond the dumps were the trash incinerators that always burned so hot you could see the heat haze that clung to the area, this left the gates relatively unguarded because of that, but the area beyond only led to a toxic wasteland, and on the other side, the very building she had already run from. “I told Cobalt to let me grab you, you have experience with children that age that are, ya know,” she pushed on, “and that you could get her out without wasting anyone else's time.”
“I have experience with Catra,” Adora muttered, reaching the large bay doors, currently open, that lead to the trash heap. The kid must have gotten lucky for it to be dump time, leaving the doors open wide and allowing for the smell of trash and smog to come inside
Lonnie nodded and stopped at the door, letting the other pause a little bit. “I wanted to give her a chance.”
A chance Catra didn’t get. Darkly, Adora thought, because she had found her which brought the attention of people like Shadow Weaver. But she appreciated Lonnie's honest need to not see history repeated. Lonnie had seen Catra’s pain rarely, but there is little you can hide when there is no privacy allotted to cry.
She didn’t want to let the horrors she knew about, the horrors she was still discovering, and the horrors she still didn’t know about, happen to this child. In fact, she felt a fire burning in her chest, one she had tried to contain for a long while now and was quickly starting to burn through her. Galvanize her. Dragged up from the depths of the hole she’d buried Catra in, long forgotten and beaten out without a whisper. A fire to make the world better for one person. A person who was gone.
“Lonnie, stay in here, let me try on my own before you come out.” The other Force Captain nodded. “Is everyone else out of the area?”
“Yeah, I told them to take a hike, so they wouldn’t accidentally chase the kid into the fire. I’ll make sure no one else comes out there.”
Cobalt trusted Adora and Lonnie to handle this on their own; they were no longer cadets and showed great promise as upcoming Force Captains. The two young captains understood responsibility and would ensure the job got done. Adora gave a sharp nod, the only form of thanks she could offer, and then stepped outside the doors. The smell was stronger than what was inside, all bay doors having large air units to blow out the hot and poisonous air of the fright zone. Keeping the air inside clean and sterile. She began her search.
Really, she wasn’t sure what to look for, and so she pulled forth memories of Catra as a small child, a young, chubby body with a wild mane and ears too big for her head. She thought of her behaviors and how the other girl preferred to hide, trying to remember that logically that this was a different kid who probably did not behave the same way, and realized that Adora herself probably did not look like a safe person either. When she had found Catra, they had been the same size, small and young. But Adora was nothing if not determined and had been very good at finding Catra even when she was trying to purposefully hide from the blonde. The thought sent a stab of pain through her chest. Shaking her head to dismiss the sudden heartache, she set her eyes out and walked slowly, calling out, projecting her voice enough to be heard but remaining calm and soft.
“Hello?! I know you’re out here. Why don’t you come out? It’s not safe out here.” Distantly, she could remember that Catra hadn’t been able to speak Etherian when she had found her. Adora had taught Catra how. If this child were of the same species, maybe from the same society that had abandoned Catra in a box, and she tried to pretend that the ‘truth’ they had been told was that there were no people like Catra out there, along with all the other truths that felt like lies, maybe this kid also didn’t speak Etherian.
With that conclusion, Adora began to mimic the vocalizations she remembered, in startlingly perfect detail that she didn’t want to mention to anyone else, that Catra had been making since she was a child. She began to make humming noises, her version of the soft rumbles that vibrated through their bodies late in the night, having perfected long ago a deep thrum in her lower throat and upper chest. It would be difficult to hear, but if the child's hearing was as good as Catra’s, it would be fine. Every once in a while, she let out a cry that sounded like a mewl, remembering the mornings when Catra would release them as they curled together for warmth and safety, comforted in each other's arms. She stepped slowly and scanned the area. There was a large trash heap of bags ready to be pushed and shoveled to the incinerators, but towards the sides were crates and boxes that could be hidden in and behind.
Making her way over to the boxes, she continued her noises. She kept her ears strained as well and was rewarded with a small and curious mewl coming from the side and behind a stack of crates covered in old, torn tarps. Slowly, she made her way, continuing the mimicked vocalizations, and was again rewarded a second later with large ears, a short wild mane tussled up and tangled, and slowly, a pair of glittering green eyes appeared from behind the crate to look at her. The Force Captain paused and crouched, settling for the humming nose, and held out a hand.
Adora tried to ignore the illogical stab of pain in her chest when the child became more visible, stepping out from the crate instead of hiding. She wasn’t certain if it was because she looked nothing like Catra and she wanted her to, or that she was so small and her ears dominated her head in a way that she somehow still reminded her of her long lost friend anyway.
Her fur was a dark brown like the peat used in Shadow Weavers garden for potion ingredients, and she had no stripes like Catra had, but instead her hands to her elbows were a lighter, almost sandy brown, as was an oval area around her right eye; her eyes were a solid and vibrant green instead of the dual-toned glows that Adora longed to see and knew she never would again. There was a small snarl on her face as she crouched low and bared sharp teeth, little claws emerging from her hands, tail low and fluffed out, but she didn’t move backwards to run or forwards to throw a fight. Her head was slightly tilted to the side and listening to the older girls hums, ears up and alert, twitching. She took stock of the kid, the child was slightly chubby as most kids that age seemed to be, small, and while the older girl could see no visible wounds, she was a mess. Her hair was tangled with what looked like ribbons, a shredded wrinkled dress, and a woven bracelet on her small wrist with a small glittering star charm.
“Hey,” Adora said softly, almost a whisper. The sudden noise made the kid jump and she made a move as if to run back behind the crates before she gave a little stumble and fell on her butt instead. Woozy and too tired to balance, she mewled pitifully, scared, and tears began to fall. “Oh no, shh, hey, I’m not gonna hurt you!” The blonde reached into her front jacket pocket for the stashed ration bar.
“I had a spare bar, it's the grey kind, the best. I don’t know what type of rations you had where you’re from, but uh, you must be hungry.” There was the crinkling sound of cellophane as she began to unwrap the ration. “You can have it, come here.” Adora hummed lightly and made a mewled sound of hunger that she could remember Catra making when she was too young to stifle the noise if someone took her food. The kid looked at the taller blonde, who waved the bar around trying to be enticing but unsure how else to get her to come closer and knowing the girl may not understand her.
Trying to shove every bit of sincerity into her words, “I promise, I’m not going to hurt you.”
The child pulled herself up to her hands and knees, as if getting ready to run on all fours, before deciding to remain on her knees, proving to be too tired for any other movement and instead crawled towards the other girl, who held still and continued to lightly hum, making sure the bar was in reach of the girl but close enough to herself where she could quickly grab the child. The girl's ears twitched in that painfully reminiscent way that Adora was quickly realizing was just going to constantly ache. The kid sniffed at the bar and made a face showing her disinterest in the unappetizing ration, causing her to chuckle lightly.
“It’s the best one I got, kid, like I said, I don’t know what rations you’ve had, but I know these are safe for you’re kind to eat. Grey was mine and -” she paused, not wanting to bring the memory of her friend more into this moment than she already was in her heart, but figuring the story wouldn’t be understood anyway, and she wanted the kid to get used to her voice and start picking up on Etherian. “Mine and Catra’s -” as the name left her lips she was startled when intelligent eyes snapped up from their curious sniffing of the ration bar and were locked with hers, ears perked up tall.
This brought Adora into silence, and the two stared at each other, almost as if in an intense stand-off. The blonde ignored that the kid had gotten closer, right in front of her and in easily grabable. That was such a noticeable response to a name no one outside the Horde should know, because she had given Catra her name.
“Catra?” Adora questioned, and now the kid's ears were leaning forward, and she started leaning herself more towards the blonde, leading with her nose tin a painfully familiar way. “Do you know that name?”
The kid chirped and made a noise that could have been speech, but not a language Adora knew. “You can understand me, can’t you, kid?” There was a pause, and a nod.
“Is your name Catra?” A shake of the head and more noises that must have been speech. Seeing that she wasn't being understood by the other girl, the kids' lips began to tremble.
“Wait, wait!” Adora hurried, shoving the ration bar back into her pocket and picking up the kid, who began to wiggle, making upset noises and unrecognizable speach and vocalizations as tears fell and sobs shook her chest. She pushed at the strong arms holding her, but was too upset to remember that she could use her claws as weapons even as they poked into Adora’s arms.
“Wait, I know a Catra!” She exclaimed, trying to catch the kids attention again and hoping the name had been truly familiar to the kid, if her noticeable reaction before was more than a fluke.
Adora knew her Catra was dead, but the idea that there was someone out there with the same name, someone who knew this child, was a little heart-stopping. Fate-defining. This girl had someone, a Catra, like Adora had, and she probably wanted her Catra back, like Adora yearned for hers.
“I’m not lying, I do know a Catra.” The girl was eyeing her disbelievingly, but had again been caught on the name, a notable reactionary twitch to her ears. “It’s not the same Catra, obviously, I mean,” she rambled, “but I knew a Catra, and mine was great! She, she uh,” the more she talked the more the kid began to still, sobs slowing to sniffles and struggles turning to tight grips with little claws that now dug into Adora’s arms.
“She was fast! And strong! And smart, and loyal. Is your Catra like that? Maybe all Catra’s are amazing, you know?”
The girl leaned her head onto her shoulders, sniffing at her neck before making a confused-sounding mewl. She tentatively began to rub her head against Adora's shoulder and neck and made another surprised mewl when she willingly accommodated the movement, having done so with Catra all the time. Adora continued to speak.
“Yeah, my Catra was an amazing friend. Yours must be to, that's why you reacted to the name, right? A Catra that exists outside of the Horde,” Adora let out a wondrous laugh, and it felt a tiny bit like the safety under scratchy blankets, huddled next to a rumbling warmth. A Catra who lived outside of the Horde!
She continued, “Look, uh, look, kid.” The girl was leaning heavily into her now, relaxing her grip and stilling, but when Adora looked down, her bright and intelligent eyes were looking back at her as well. “I get you understand me, but I can’t understand you. I’m sorry about that. This place,” Adora gave a nervous shudder and lowered her voice even though nobody was out here, she moved her arms into a more comfortable hold and placed a firm hand on the child's back.
“The Horde isn’t good to people like you.”
It was part of the belief that Adora desperately tried to stamp down more and more. Because if she let it filter in, what had she left to live for? What more was there for her? The Horde wasn’t good for people at all. Her mind tumbled back to the doctor's examinations, the painful trials at Shadow Weavers' hands, taking the punishments meant for her squad so they could be safe, only to find out later that they hadn’t been safe anyways.
Catra. The examinations, the surgery, the punishments, the hunger, the tears, and the fear. The encouraged bullying and ostracization. Dying alone with a person who only hurt her, and not even the small comfort Adora could provide who had been unaware of her fate. How nobody stopped that doctor before it was too late. How those same doctors continued to use her, willingly or not, so she could save Rogelio from the treatment that would forever alter his body, and as an apology for not saving Kyle, who was sent on a raid to die by those who didn’t want him anymore, worthless and useless to the Horde besides cannon fodder.
Nobody wanted them. Nobody wanted Lonnie, who was bullheaded and blunt, but strong and strategic, and had earned the title of Force Captain. Nobody wanted Rogelio, whose body had grown too big, too fast to be normal, but is someone had decided his body would make the perfect soldier. Nobody wanted Kyle, who was scrawny and weak and fearful, even if he was smart. Nobody wanted Catra, who was defiant and sarcastic, and mean, but oh so intelligent, who would make a better Force Captain than either Adora or Lonnie, who could run the Horde better than Hordak! Nobody wanted Adora, except Shadow Weaver.
Adora felt her own tears slide silently down her cheeks, but she didn’t sob. Horde soldiers didn’t cry aloud once they learned that others would give them more to cry about if caught. The kid nuzzled into her, and her breathing began to slow, too exhausted to stay awake any longer.
“The Horde isn’t good to people,” Adora whispered to the small gril in her arms, whose swishing tail slowed to a stop, together they stood in the smelly trash bay where she had now found two children abandoned to the dumps, and for the first time, Adora realized, probably thrown away by the Horde. Taken by the Hodre. Stolen by the Horde? Deemed worthless as soon as they arived. Too young to be cannon fodder like Kyle and to useless to train for the battle field.
With sound barely even leaving her mouth. “So I’ll take you out of it.”
She refused to let this girl share Catra’s fate, Kyle's fate, her fate. Death, for the glorious purpose of the Horde.