“Adora put that down, you don’t know where it’s been.”
“But Shadow Weaver!” Adora complains, lisping the first syllable of her name. Her tooth gap has always been a problem with that, but she’ll probably grow out of it. Her eyes are only barely visible over the bundle of soaked, matted fur in her arms. It looks like she cleaned out every drain in the Fright Zone and stuck it all together.
And then brought it into the Black Garnet chamber.
“No buts, Adora. Did you really drag this through the entire Fright Zone?” Even from across the room, she’s still able to see the puddle growing at Adora’s feet. Every once in a while, a brown blob of... Something drips from the bundle and splatters against the floor. What even is that?
The smell hits her. It’s applesauce. Adora’s dripping applesauce in her inner sanctum.
Shadow Weaver’s preparing a spell to atomize whatever it is before she even closes the gap.
“She was cold and alone! I couldn’t leave her!”
Shadow weaver pauses. ‘Her?’ For a moment, she thinks that the pile of hair and applesauce is Adora’s new imaginary friend.
Then it twitches, and for a far longer moment, she thinks it’s a rat. She almost screams, biting down on it just long enough to see what did the twitching; a long, striped tail, covered in fur and very much belonging to the rat.
It’s only then that Shadow Weaver gets close enough to make out what Adora’s actually holding; a young girl, perhaps her age, that very literally looks like a drowned cat. She’s curled up in Adora’s arms, shivering slightly from the cold. Adora’s eyes, huge and blue, silently plead over the cat’s head. The cat’s, blue and yellow, peer out from her hair, afraid, but pleading just as much.
Shadow Weaver sighs. Either Adora found a stray, a child in the Fright Zone that somehow escaped the cadets, or she just found some random child and plucked them up. Either way, she didn’t seem to mind being carried around. Perhaps it was because Adora was warm and she was cold, or perhaps she simply enjoying being held. Contact was discouraged between the younger cadets, outside of violence, and part of Shadow Weaver wanted to make Adora put her down.
At the same time, she was carrying her body weight in fur and water like it was nothing and Shadow Weaver approved. Even at such a young age, Adora was proving her strength.
Besides, they looked happy together.
“Fine. Go wash her off before you make any more of a mess. You can both mop the halls once you’re done.” If she is a stray, she’ll just add her to Adora’s team. She’ll have to join one anyways, so it might as well be hers. Having someone indebted to her might be good for Adora, get her used to telling others what to do.
Adora cries in delight with enough volume that both Shadow Weaver and the cat in her arms wince. She runs in place for a moment, prompting another shower of water and applesauce from Catra. A particularly large glob of applesauce splatters at Shadow Weaver’s feet, sending little chunks of it across the bottom of her robes.
She doesn’t even have a chance to shudder before Adora’s hugging her legs with one arm, pressing her new friend between them with the other and absolutely soaking Shadow Weaver’s robe in the process. Judging by the look on her face, the stray doesn’t like it anymore than she does, but neither push away from Adora.
“Thank you thank you thank you!!!” She steps back, giving a bright, toothy smile that helps ease Shadow Weaver’s reticence. Before she can even reply, Adora’s turned and started towards the showers, chattering at the bundle in her arms all the while.
“See? I told you she’s nice! Oh, if you’re going to stay here, you need a name! How about, uhhhhhh- Oh! Since I’m Ador-ra, and you’re a cat, why don’t you be cat-ra?”
Catra speaks up for the first time, her voice hoarse and quiet. “That’s dumb.”
“Aw, okay! There’s also Meowmeow, Applesauce-”
“Catra’s fine.”
The door slides shut behind them before Shadow Weaver can hear anymore. She’s tempted to follow, practically feeling the trouble radiating from them, but ignores it. She’ll deal with that tomorrow.
Rain, bitter and slightly burning, came over the Fright Zone occasionally. For all intents and purposes, hellish and unwelcoming, but things were samey enough that any difference would be noticed immediately.
Adora actually liked the rain, but even this was upsetting enough for her. It came in big heavy droplets, that she kept having to wipe away - and if not for her trying to see, she would’ve missed the box in front of her.
It was so Other, so unlike anything else in the Fright Zone, Adora was immediately drawn to it. She remembers that feeing of curiosity, maybe of fate. She walked closer, shoes squelching in the wetness, and noticed more details. Apples painted on the box, the cardboard half withered from the rain.
Curious still, she peered over on her short legs into the box’s contents, and was puzzled. It didn’t match the picture.
Actually, there was just a big ball of hair in the box. The movement from it could be the wind, but it might’ve also been shying away from the wetness. Adora leaned in a little closer, and that noise must’ve alerted whatever was in there.
In a second the ball of hair moved, and she heard a very small, but very vitriolic hiss. Like this Thing would gladly bite the shit out of the world, no matter how big and scary and imposing it was, disturbing its rest in the box.
No, not it.
Her.
In childlike curiosity, Adora doesn’t flinch from the hiss, but glances at the pair of eyes staring at her. Glowing slightly. She’d never seen someone with two eye colors, one yellow, one blue like hers.
Another little hiss, less angry. A warning.
Immediate, warm compassion flowed through Adora, because it was RAINING, and who would leave their kid by themselves in a box outside? She blinked, and the memory of her first words to Catra make her laugh to this day.
“I like your eyes. I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
That makes ears flick, and Adora reaches out, to brush some droplets off of wet hair, offers her hand. She remembered Catra looking unsure, but something in Adora’s demeanor calming her. Convincing her to take that hand.
“I’m Adora. You can tell me your name once we’re out of the rain. Come on!”
At least it wasn’t Applesauce. That was Catra’s last name.
Magic and screams had filled the crypt, right after Adora had secured Entrapta. She was aware of Glimmer and Catra holding off the guardian, torn. She could get up again and help, save them. But the both of them - as proven again - were capable warriors. more than capable. The truth of the guardian made her shudder too, of course.
They looked hurt. Entrapta was hurt more, cradled in She-Ra’s arms. This was familiar. She looked down at the prone princess, hair hanging off like a sheet, flowing out in waves of purple. Her eyes were open, red. Red and pained. No wonder. Adora saw her connected with the ground painfully, the snaps and the resulting agony...
Entrapta was not a warrior. Not like the others. They’d been hurt before, but they knew how to deal with it. Adora feared putting her down and helping dispatch the mummified knight, and during the rest of the scuffle eyed the others warily. A low, warning growl vibrating in her chest. Any of the others could come alive at any moment, something else would come from the depths and snatch Entrapta away.
Exercising extreme gentleness, She-Ra’s fingers curled around the back of the other princess’s head, possessively. Protectively. She’s lost her before. Never again.
When things were quieter, Adora had looked back down at her, seeing the pain in those eyes. Red, but weirdly warm and beautiful. Face marred with agonizing sweat. In that agony, in that forced stillness, Entrapta looked so... small. She WAS small. Five foot one, three feet shorter than She-Ra. It was different, now. Still, without her energy and her hair making her appear bigger... She looked so fragile. An egg of glass.
“Entrapta. I got you,” Adora says, and she’s surprised at the lump in her throat, barely able to talk aloud.
Entrapta’s body was betraying her, but it was clear from the look on her face, the light in her eyes, that her mind was still working. Ever present, likely looking for some response.
“Ouch,” she says. Understatement of the year. Adora nearly laughs, but her eyebrows knit together in worry. Worry and concern. Something else surprising the warrior princess is the hand coming up, curiosity trying to override pain, ungloved and clearly broken. Blood was at those finger tips, and almost reverently Entrapta goes to touch She-Ra’s hair poof. “She’s back,” Entrapta tries again. And it’s clear moving, looking, and speaking first. A bit of that blood stains pale gold hair, but Adora doesn’t mind in the slightest. Broken bones, bleeding.
“Hold still. Sshh. Let me...”
This is so familiar. Catra, lying broken and dying in a similar way. Seeming so small, so fragile. She did not know Entrapta the same, but seeing her in this state? That much pain? She-Ra bit down on the urge to pour her life force full stop in the other princess. It was different in space, it was an emergency. No healers, no one else that could help. Healing was... exhausting. Such an amount of healing would force She-Ra to revert, and Adora wants to remain in this form. But she can do something...
“Sshh, Entrapta,” Adora keeps saying, over and over, in different tones. She feels magic surging in her fingertips, and leans into it, feeding off the great pool of energy within her. A golden light surrounds those fingers, one held very gently at Entrapta’s chest, the light going into the broken body. Healing was taxing on the healee, too - She-Ra mainly accelerated the body’s healing rate, and she had no idea how Entrapta would cope with that. The healing is minimal, mostly ache reducing. Adora watched, fighting tears in her own eyes, as a whole slew of emotions went across the other’s face. Sharp pain, curiosity, surprise, heavy eyelids.
Something was working. Even Entrapta’s miind began to relax, or some approximation of it, and her eyes closed. Looking smaller, even more still, the pain eased just enough to let her pass out. She-Ra stands, turns around, looks at the others.
Glimmer looks hurt. Catra is limping, the mummified knight is defeated. Still glowing slightly, the emotion and the urge to save, changes her tone. Hundreds of lifetimes speak through Adora, a slight echo in her words. Aura pulsing, eyes glowing slightly, she approaches them, the unconscious princess in her hands.
