Chapter Text
There was a type of vacuum that appears after reaching a goal that had been worked towards for such a long time. For however many steps forward they seemed to take, many more steps backwards were taken.
Adora wasn’t sure what or how to feel when the time was finally switched back. Between destroying the sigil and regaining consciousness…what happened? There was no way to be certain, but the next time her brain woke up, all she knew was—
Cold.
I’m cold.
She tried moving her arms, but they were nearly frozen solid.
It took another few minutes to bring warm blood back into her limbs, and only then she was able to open her eyes.
White. Cold.
Adora sat up, knocking a few inches of snow off of her in the process. Snow?
It was still completely dark out, but the air tasted different. How different? What was wrong? The world around them would have been completely dark, except for the moons overhead. They put off enough light to see at least some of the surroundings.
Her head hurt… It was almost painful to form a coherent thought. She was achy, and a little confused, but mostly just cold.
How did I get here again?
With a frozen hand, Adora began brushing the snow from her arms and ended up bumping something covered next to her.
Hair, ears—
“Catra!”
Adora leapt up to her knees and immediately began tugging Catra up out of her fetal position under the layer of ice.
Catra groaned, fighting back the hands for only a second before cracking her eyes open.
“Where—” She shivered. “Where am I?” Her pupils stayed hazy and dilated for a second before focusing. “…Adora?”
Her name—When Adora heard her name, she wanted to cry. She wasn’t sure entirely why, and her head hurt too much to really form any coherent thoughts. It was all horribly overwhelming.
“Come on.” Adora helped Catra up into a standing position, using the side of the well for support. The sword strapped to her back was unusually light. “We need to warm up.”
It was still so dark outside. The light of the moons didn’t do too much, but from what Adora could see—something was different. When she walked, it was a muscle memory that told her feet where to go. Each step was another memory forcing into her headache.
This house…
They stopped at the front porch steps, and Adora looked up to see that, underneath the snow, the wood of the porch was splintered.
Up the crooked stairs, opening the front door—a shriek of age, the glass yellowed and stained. And inside…
It finally hit Adora.
We did it.
Inside their house in the Whispering Woods, time had returned. This meant that dust covered every inch of every surface, holes eaten in the fabric of the couch. Cobwebs in the corners, cracks up the wooden beams inside.
The lighting didn’t seem to work either, but Adora was grateful they’d left some firewood to start a fire.
“I hope I’m not going crazy,” Catra eased herself onto the floor in front of the fireplace while the other girl was lighting a fire. “But did what I think just happened, happen?” Her voice was still groggy, but she sounded present.
It had happened so fast.
Her headache was waning, and as it did, Adora began to realize the gravity of what happened. She finished lighting the fire, and when it finally roared to life, she got the chance to actually take in her surroundings.
Catra, fur and clothes wet from the melting snow, looking at her with a sort of disbelief.
“We did it.” A sigh heaved from Adora’s chest. Was it relief? Exhaustion?
They must have been delusional thinking that they’d just be able to walk right out, especially since it seemed to be the same time of night. They hadn’t slept much, and it was freezing cold outside. How could they have possibly trekked in the pitch-black night in this weather to a place they weren’t even sure which direction to go?
Bright Moon…
Memories coming back to her were so rich and full of emotion, she almost felt her throat getting thick. She hadn’t lost anything. Her memories…
Catra, sensing her partner’s upset, put her arm around Adora and leaned onto her shoulder with a sleepy hum. “Can we finish resting tonight and leave in the morning?”
“Please.”
The one good thing was that the blanket they’d left in front of the fireplace the previous night (a thousand years ago) was still there. It was pretty disgusting and flat from age, but they wrapped it around their bodies and curled up together in front of the fire.
Maybe sleep will cure the headache, Adora hoped. And tomorrow they’d wake ready to face the day.
Hardly two hours went by before Adora woke to a buzzing in the back of her neck. When consciousness hit her, she jolted upright, knocking Catra off her shoulder.
“Catra!!” She had to cough to clear the hoarseness of her voice. “We did it!!”
Clearly still bleary, Catra sat up, too, and wrapped the blanket tight around her shoulders. “This sucks. It’s so cold. And isn’t it still in the middle of the night?”
They did it.
They did it. They did it.
After how many weeks??
It was still completely dark, probably around two in the morning, but Adora was able to stand and look around. The house clearly did not stand the test of time very well, but it was a roof over their heads for now. In the fireplace, their fire had died down just enough to see.
We did it. Adora wanted to scream. She had to take several moments to sit and process everything, as well as all of the old memories she’d left coming floating back. Maybe this was causing the buzzing in her neck?
It was growing more intense.
Adora, overwhelmed with everything filling back into her brain, looked back over at Catra.
All Catra was doing was staring into the fire with a blank look.
“Are you…feeling okay?” Some unpleasant memories surfaced to Adora’s head and they disrupted her train of thought just a little.
It seemed that Catra was also remembering something bad. “I’m fine,” she responded, looking down onto her bent knees. “Are you getting your memories back?”
Boy, was she. Many things surfaces. Memories she didn’t want back, but knew she needed. Memories of Catra…and how badly they’d hurt each other.
“Yeah,” Adora bit her lip, “but they’re just memories. We can’t let those get in the way of what’s happening now.”
The truth was difficult to processes, and it seemed to really be weighing on Catra’s mind.
Her ears were flattened just a bit. “You don’t hate me again, do you?”
“No. Do you hate me?”
A pause. “No,” Catra said. Her voice was unsure, but when she heard her own uncertainty she straightened. “I don’t hate you, Adora. Not after everything. It’s going to be really weird, but—”
Adora interrupted, throwing her arms tight around her partner into a hug. It crushed the both of them.
She smooshed her face against Catra’s. “Am I still allowed to say ‘I love you’ then?”
“Gods, Adora…” Catra held her back, grunting like she was annoyed. “Do you really need an answer to that?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. Now please let me go, I can’t breathe.”
Too much. This was almost too much. Adora could say it to herself a hundred times but it not fully process.
They were back in the present. The buzzing in the back of her neck was getting louder, and it definitely wasn’t like the headache she had earlier, but…
Adora shivered and stood, walking up to the window. “Do you hear something?”
The ears on Catra’s head lifted and swiveled. “Not really? What do you hear?”
Pause for another moment…
The buzzing got louder. Then it hit her.
Adora nearly jumped out of her socks when the buzzing went from in the back of her neck to outside of the house.
Whuump. Whuump.
“Is that…?”
They both spun to the window, where the noise grew louder and more rapid. Then sounded kind of like shouting? Familiar—
Then the front door was suddenly blasted inwards into a million splinters of wood, two hooves forcing their way into the house.
“ADORA!!”
Between one second and the next, Adora was completely overwhelmed by fur and feathers and tears.
“Swift Wind??”
She remembered. Adora remembered Swift Wind, after…forgetting him. She forgot him.
Adora grabbed onto Swift Wind’s neck, holding his mane in her hands. Almost immediate tears sprang to her eyes. “I can’t believe it’s you,” she half-sobbed, smelling the fresh snow in his fur. “I was worried—I was worried that—”
If it was possible for horses to sob, Swift Wind would have been. His wings were curled tight around her and poked feathers into her arms and sides. “Adorraa.” He tossed his head back dramatically. “I was worried. We were worried. Where on Etheria have you been??”
It sounded like his horn had hit a beam on the ceiling, because everything creaked around them like the house was going to collapse. It didn’t, though. For a second, they cried together, but something happened that made Swift Wind freeze. His wings lowered.
“Don’t move,” He used his muzzle to knock Adora behind one of his wings, “but there’s a Horde soldier behind you.”
A Horde…?
Adora turned and saw Catra, straggly from lack of sleep and wrapped in a blanket. She was staring at the two, trying to look unimpressed. And honestly, she looked completely harmless. Seeing her, Adora’s heart did the little squeeze thing it had lately.
“No, she’s fine, Swift Wind.” Adora stepped out from behind his wing. “She’s not—”
“That’s what she wants you to think.”
Although the living room was not entirely big enough to fit an entire winged horse, Swift Wind stepped completely inside and towered over Catra. His wings expanded from wall to ceiling to wall. Against the light of the dying fire, Adora could see that his fur had grown a little longer around his chin and around his hooves. Maybe for the cold?
He snorted a breath of air from his nose. “She’s probably been brainwashing you this entire time.”
Adora knew where he was coming from, and probably would’ve agreed with him before, but it was hard not to roll her eyes. “Catra is fine, Swift Wind. She’s not our enemy. Anymore, I mean.”
It was Catra’s turn to roll her eyes, but she didn’t say anything.
This, weirdly, seemed to make Swift Wind angry. He tried keeping his body between the two girls. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you, Adora. You want me to believe that you’ve been stuck here by choice this whole time? That you’d rather be here with the enemy than with your family at Bright Moon?”
Her family…
Adora’s heart ached a little, and she opened her mouth to ask if anyone else from Bright Moon came with him, but he interrupted.
“Everyone thinks you’re dead, Adora.” The neigh from Swift Wind sounded pained. “The regular search parties stopped months ago. Now it’s only the princesses, and they—”
“Months?” There must have been some confusion. Adora stepped over to her partner and helped her up, tossing the blanket onto the couch. “Maybe you’ve eaten some bad hay, Swift Wind. The battle at Wimborne was a few weeks ago.”
A cold breeze wafted in from the fractured door, blowing a flurry of snow onto the carpet. It ran shivers up and down Adora’s skin, and she pressed close to Catra.
The cold didn’t seem to bother Swift Wind. He folded his wings slowly. “Adora,” he started. “Wimborne fell last winter.”
“Wait… No it—”
“We’ve been looking for you for over a year.”
No, that couldn’t be right.
A year?
That didn’t make any sense. They had kept track of time as best as they could. It had only been a few weeks. Unless…
Catra and Adora looked at each other at the same time, both looks of shock and disbelief.
“The magic of this place,” Adora whispered. “It must’ve…”
“Messed things up.”
The horrible pause lasted for several more seconds, before Swift Wind spoke.
“Okay, please, can someone tell me what is going on? I can’t be the only one who’s super confused right now.”
He wasn’t the only one. Where could they even start though?
“A year…” The words sounded like another language coming from Adora’s own mouth. “That can’t be right.”
“Adora.”
She looked over at Catra, trying not to feel frantic. “No, that can’t be right. We’ve only been here for a few weeks. Otherwise, your scar would be flatter, right?”
Catra bent down and pulled up her pant leg, exposing the lower edge of her scar. “Still fresh.”
This didn’t make any sense.
Feeling Catra wrap a comforting tail around her shoulders, Adora sat down hard on the edge of the couch. “The time magic…” She felt her hands shake. I’ve been gone for over a year. They…stopped looking for me. They thought I abandoned them. Or died…
Wood creaked painfully under Swift Wind’s shifting hooves. “Okay, well, I think we have a lot to discuss about this,” he bumped his muzzle against Adora’s head, prompting her to pet him, “but no one knows I went out. We should get back to Bright Moon to let everyone know you’re okay.”
“No one knows you found me?” Although Adora was trying really hard not to be anxious, her heart was jammed painfully up in her throat. “Does Glimmer… Do Glimmer and Bow think I’m dead?”
More snow blew in through the broken door frame. Swift Wind expanded his wings to block the gust.
“N…No, they don’t.” He looked nervous, too, like he didn’t quite believe his own words. “They’re still trying to look for you, but… They’re never going to believe you’ve been held prisoner for an entire year!”
“…Swift Wind, I wasn’t—”
“But why wasn’t I able to sense you this whole time? Was it some evil trick of the Horde??”
“Catra didn’t hold me captive. We were tr—”
“That’s what she’d like you to think.” He pointed the tip of his wing at the bike marks and bruises on his companion’s neck. “She’s clearly been hurting you!”
Adora slapped her hand over the marks. “Okay, okay. These aren’t…” Her face turned as red as a tomato. “She hasn’t hurt me.”
“Yeah, Adora.” Catra, after being quiet for that time, couldn’t resist. “How did you get those bruises?”
“Oh my god, Catra, please shut up.” Adora punched her hard in the arm, knowing full well her own face was red. This was not helping. She turned back to Swift Wind. “There has clearly been some miscommunication.”
Clearly.
Despite Catra enjoying the tease, she had been standing back for most of this conversation. She had on a bit of a blank expression, and it was impossible to tell whether she was upset, deep in thought, or just trying to stay emotionless for Adora’s sake.
This must’ve been hard for her. Adora wasn’t sure if any outward affection to comfort or defend her would be appreciated, though.
She took a deep breath and put one of her hands on Swift Wind’s face. “You’re right in saying we have a lot to talk about. It is probably best to talk it all out with Glimmer and Bow—” Saying their names wrung her heart. “—but let’s get one thing straight. Catra is not the villain of this story. She saved my life, and she deserves respect just like anyone else.”
When Swift Wind frowned and narrowed his eyes menacingly at Catra, Adora patted him again.
“I know it’s going to be weird, but you have to trust me.”
It was going to be an adjustment different than anything they’d ever been through. Though he didn’t speak, she could feel Swift Wind’s intense relief of finding Adora and gratitude she was okay. Their bond hadn’t been severed, and she knew that he could feel her gratitude as well.
The coming days had such an uncertainty, but things were going to be okay. Eventually.
Swift Wind shook his mane out and, without saying anything else, backed out of the door frame and continued outside into the dark and snowy night. The two girls followed behind, carrying their bags.
“Feeling okay?” Adora asked Catra in a hushed voice as they descended the crooked porch steps.
“Fine,” Catra answered. “He’s right, though. Four weeks here doesn’t erase the years of torture I put this planet through.” Her eyes were dark. “I need to take responsibility for what I’ve done. No matter what that entails.”
In perhaps a different circumstance, Adora would be proud of her owning up to this. However, she was worried this stemmed more from a point of self-loathing than it did from empowerment. She didn’t want this to be her punishing herself.
No matter what…
Adora bit her lip. She didn’t like thinking of what may happen when the Rebellion gets their hands on a criminal of her standing. They were gone for a whole year…
What does Bright Moon look like now? How has the war been going? Is everyone okay? Have they moved on without her?
A million and one questions bounced around in her head, but the answers scared her. She almost didn’t want to ask. Swift Wind seemed to be avoiding being specific in talking with her, too, and that made her nervous. What information was he avoiding?
The world outside was still pitch black, windy and cold. They followed the sounds of hooves in snow until they stopped.
“It’s a long flight back to Bright Moon,” Swift Wind said, kneeling down for easy access to his back. “I hope you’re bundled up.”
Just as Adora began to step on, Catra realized their plan.
“Wait, wait.” She held her hands up. “Are you saying we’re flying back to Bright Moon? Like, through the air?”
“It’s not as bad as you think,” Adora tried comforting.
“Oh, no. No, no. No thank you.” She backed up. “I would rather walk than have to do that. Boats are bad enough, but this??”
How to convince her? Adora knew that Swift Wind was being patient, but it wouldn’t last long. She didn’t want to hurt Catra’s dignity any more than it already was.
“I’m fine with leaving her behind,” Swift Wind muttered.
Adora poked Catra’s arm with her elbow. “It’s going to be freezing up in the clouds. Your body temperature is way higher than mine.”
“I know I won’t be cold up there, it’s not that.”
Another pause.
Catra sighed. “Oh never mind, I get it. You’re convincing me to fly because I’ll keep you warm up there.” She made a noise and, passing Adora to get to Swift Wind, bumped their shoulders together. “You’re a nerd. You could just ask me to hold onto you.”
“What is happening,” Swift Wind whispered.
They climbed onto his back, not without several choice curse words from Catra. She ended up clinging on for dear life during takeoff.
Freedom, Adora thought as they climbed.
This felt like a dream, the elation of retuning memories and the possibility of finally returning. It won’t be anything like it was before, of course. There was no real way of preparing herself for what lie ahead. Not even a little.
Catra, sitting behind her, held on so tight that her claws nearly poked through all the layers of clothes Adora was wearing. They were fortunate that Swift Wind and his thick (probably magical) fur radiated some heat. Otherwise they would’ve been turned into popsicles.
The muscles of Swift Wind’s wings and shoulders rippled as they climbed, beating higher and higher. They spent thirty very unpleasant seconds in the snow clouds before breaking the upper surface.
Once broken, the view…
Adora felt the breath knocked right from her lungs.
From above the clouds, the sky…was endless. Nothing to block the horizon like at the house, no trees or chimneys or mountains. A sky, void of stars, yawned a blue so dark and deep it could’ve swallowed them whole.
And the clouds beneath Swift Wind’s hooves…
Adora wanted to read down and see if she could feel them. Under the light of the moons, they looked like a sea of churning silver. Endless. It was all so endless, and it made her feel both horribly insignificant and on top of the world at the same time.
From behind, Catra let out a warm puff against the other girl’s back. “The stars,” she said, though over the rush of wind it was almost lost.
She was right. There were no stars.
They really did it.
Adora clung to Swift Wind’s mane and tried not to cry into it. Two extreme conflicting emotions bottled inside of her. Relief of going home, being free. And a fear of going back to find her friends had moved on without her. That Catra will be ripped away from her. A fear that maybe…staying at their house would’ve been best.
She wasn’t quite sure how long they were flying for. It must have been very early in the morning when they left, because the sky was barely lightening when their flight path dipped back under the cloud cover and they got a full view of the familiar.
Bright Moon.
The castle was definitely the focal point of this section of Etheria. Its runestone glowed as brilliantly as any moon would. It served as the guiding light to get home.
“Home,” Adora whispered to herself.
The city was asleep when Swift Wind glided down and landed on the balcony of Adora’s room. His hooves made softs taps in the snow when landing. Then he knelt to let his riders off.
While Adora was more used to the riding, when Catra got off, her legs wobbled once before she fell backwards into the snow.
“Please never make me do that again.”
In any other circumstance, Adora would’ve answered with some sort of tease, but she was much too tangled in nerves to do much other than stare.
There were curtains closed that separated the balcony and her room. A string of colorful lights lit up the balcony, but she didn’t remember those being there before. The fountain of water, despite the winter chill, still ran. Everything even smelled the same, like the cold of marble, sharp lavender, and magic.
Apparently Adora hesitated too long, because she heard Catra stand and brush her tail supportively against the other girl’s leg. Despite being worried herself, Catra still was trying to be reassuring.
No matter what, they had promised to stick together. It might’ve been hard for Adora, but it must have been even harder for Catra.
Here we go.
With Swift Wind and Catra lingering on the balcony, Adora moved the curtain back and stepped into her room.
It was warm inside, as usual, with gentle ambiance making the scene not as spooky as it might’ve been. Even though the room was dark, she could see enough to know that not much had changed. There was her canopy, dressers, tub, the door to her restroom…
She didn’t notice anything on the floor, however, until it was too late. She only got a few steps in before her foot caught on something lumpy.
It tripped Adora, making her exclaim and stumble to the ground.
“Jeez,” she groaned, sitting up. “I don’t think I left my room this messy.”
The lump stirred. Made a noise. Then two bleary eyes cracked open to see what the disturbance was.
Adora froze. If Swift Wind and Catra would’ve been in the room, they would’ve as well.
“…Glimmer?” Adora squinted. “What are you—?”
Glimmer shrieked and immediately vanished in a puff of glitter, leaving behind an empty sleeping bag.
“Hey! Glimmer!” Adora scooped up the sleeping bag in her arms and stood, looking around the room frantically.
What just happened?? Did she imagine that?? Where’d she go?
“What’s wrong?” Catra came rushing into the room. “What happened? Are you okay?”
I have no idea what happened. “I think Glimmer ran away from me?”
Upon hearing the princess’s name, Catra flattened her ears and decided to sink back away in the shadows. Completely hidden again.
Swift Wind poked his head in. “She hasn’t seen you in over a year.” He shrugged his flank. “And it’s, like, super early in the morning.”
“Yeah, but—”
*POOF*
Glimmer reappeared in the center of the room, clinging onto the neck of Bow, who still looked asleep.
“See??” Glimmer smushed their cheeks together and pointed. “I told you ghosts were real!!”
For a second, Adora stood still, not quite knowing what to say. She stared at her best friends, hardly believing the changes. Glimmer had grown her hair longer, to her shoulders, and looked just a little more like her mother. Maybe taller?
Bow was taller, too, and more sculpted, with sharper cheeks and jaw but tired eyes.
My friends, Adora’s heart squeezed. They were all grown up. It was only a year, but…time stopped for no one.
She swallowed. “I’m…not a ghost?”
Bow rubbed his eyes and glared suspiciously. “Okay, then say something onto the real Adora w—”
“ADORA!!!”
The silence was over, and Glimmer launched herself at Adora, hitting her square in the gut and sending them flying backwards. All of the air knocked from their lungs, flying limbs and excited shouting and laughing.
“Is it really you??” Glimmer instantly began crying, not letting her grip give up. Her hiccupping sobs immediately made the other girl tear up, too.
Bow joined, too, collapsing in the pile. “Are you okay??”
For a moment they just hugged and cried. Swift Wind joined eventually, wrapping his head and wings around the group. It got uncomfortably sweaty very fast, and Adora ended up having to pull away to wipe her nose on the back of her sleeve.
They were each ruffled from lack of sleep, covered in snot and tears, and looked an overall mess. But they were there. Together again.
Adora didn’t think this day would come again…
“I’m okay, guys. I’m okay.” She had a tight hold of each of their hands. “I’ve missed you so both so much.” Until her memory had disappeared.
“You missed us??” Glimmer used both of her hands to squeeze. “You can’t just vanish for a whole year and come back saying you’ve just missed us.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
Sorry… Real words couldn’t come close to expressing everything that had been bottled up inside of Adora. Maybe it had only been four weeks on her end, but she’d been through too much in her life; these friends were her family.
Her heart had been without its home for so long, and despite giving herself to Catra, this was where she belonged. This was home.
Adora couldn’t have let go to their hands even if she wanted to. “Look at you guys.” Her voice cracked, tears threatening to fall again. “I know it’s only been a year, but you both look so grown up.”
“You look…the same.” Glimmers eyes searched and didn’t seem to like the scars exposed. “Except you’re hurt. Jeez, Adora. What…happened?”
Oh boy. This was going to be a lot to explain. Adora was grateful she’d waited to explain it to all of them at once rather than share the story with Swift Wind before. Where should she even begin?
“This is going to sound kind of strange,” Adora’s voice was clearly hesitant, “but that night at Wimborne—”
“ADORA GET DOWN!”
Glimmer pushed Adora down suddenly and shot a violent blast of magic over her friend’s head to the corner of the room. It happened so fast that she didn’t even get the chance to register what was happening until it happened.
Someone yelped, and Adora had to turn to see Catra fall onto all fours and hiss. A burst of light and sparkles rained down upon her and gave away her hiding place.
“How did she get in here??” Glimmer stood. Her arms were reeled back to send another blast. “Were you tracking Adora, is that it??”
“Glimmer, she’s not—”
“Are you trying to take this from us?!” She, without any warning, charged like a bull.
“Glimmer, STOP.” Adora grabbed onto Glimmer’s arms just before she hit. “Catra’s not going to hurt us!”
All Catra had done to protect herself from the attack was hold an arm up, but every bit of her fur stuck up and he was growling in the back of her throat. Fear, or anger?
Glimmer almost seemed to be growling, too. “What are you talking about?? She’s hurt us plenty before! Let me go so I can get her!”
Oh jeez, Adora really wasn’t prepared to have to explain things like this. She’d tried to come up with a good speech in her head on their flight in, but nothing sounded quite right. She didn’t know how much information to share.
During the few seconds of stuttering, Glimmer seemed to have connected some sort of dots in her head.
“It was you,” Glimmer pointed accusatory at Catra. “You kidnapped Adora and held her hostage for a year!! What game are you playing, Horde scum??”
Only at that point did Catra step closer. Her ears were back. “Say that again and I’ll make you wish you—”
“Catra, seriously?” Adora scolded her partner. “You are not helping your case.”
“She’s accusing me of kidnapping!”
“Well you did!!” Angry sparkles rained down from Glimmers hair as she shook. “That is the only explanation for Adora to be gone for a whole year without telling us. We thought she had…” The words died down as a sob.
Ouch.
Adora stepped in between them and tried to put on the most reassuring face she could, but it was probably twisted with stress. “Please let me explain, Glimmer. It’s a long story and it won’t make any sense until you hear the whole thing.”
It was only then when Bow stepped up and put his hand on Adora’s shoulder. “I know you’ve been gone for a long time, but you have to know how this looks. I mean…”
How it looked?
Adora knew how it looked, and it looked bad. Trying to think of how to word everything, she took her bag, jacket, and sword holster off, and she put them down on the closest chair. The outfit she was wearing, which was “borrowed” from the house, was not her usual one. It certainly caught attention.
“We have a lot to talk about.” Adora stepped close to Catra and turned back to look at her two best friends. “And it might be hard to believe at first. I’ve been missing for over a year and suddenly show up with a Horde commander and say you can trust her. It looks really bad, but…” She sighed. “You have to trust me.”
The look on Bow’s face was still uncertain. “We trust you, Adora. We just don’t trust her.”
“I know. A lot has happened in the past and...” Red-hot emotion sunk Adora’s stomach. “We can’t erase any of it. I’m not asking you to immediately become best friends. But trust in me. Things have changed.”
There was too much to discuss just standing there awkwardly. It was a silent decision they came to pull cushions up to the center of the bed and sit in a circle. Instead of joining them, though, Catra decided to stand a ways off to the wall, looking uncomfortable and stressed.
Only then did Adora tell the story.
The bits she’d forgotten during their time there, the unpleasant bits.
When she was talking about how wounded Catra was and how she had to nurse her back to health, Catra paced back and forth, upset. Her pride was already wounded, so to have it recounted like that to Adora’s friends must have been painful.
The discovery of how they couldn’t figure out how to escape, the stars in the sky.
The time resetting.
The peach tree and their well.
The story about Madame Razz and Eri, how they created their oasis in the woods to escape the end of the world. But Eri left Razz, and she was trapped there for a thousand years. As they spoke, it became clear that Razz might not have been trapped for that amount of time, but the time that passed outside equaled a thousand years.
All of the journals and books, the research they worked on.
There were a few important details that Adora left out on purpose. She didn’t tell her friends that she’d completely forgotten them, and she didn’t share exactly how close her and Catra had become.
The whole time she shared the story, her friends got comfy around one another. Glimmer leaned up against Swift Wind’s side under his wing, Swift Wind had his head in Bow’s lap, and Bow had his feet propped up on Adora’s legs.
It was almost like the old times. Almost.
Catra, from the shadows, made eye contact with her every so often and made a face before going back to pacing.
“Last night we managed to reset the property around midnight,” Adora told them. “then we slept for another hour or two, I think, before Swift Wind came.”
Swift Wind lifted his head. “I sensed you over a day ago, though. I was flying around for a while before actually managing to find you.”
“Man, so time must’ve been really messed up.” It sounded like Bow was really believing the story, and he put up his fingers to count. “You’ve been gone for, like, fifteen months about. So that means every day…” He took a minute to count in his head before grimacing. “Every day you spent at the house in the Whispering Woods lasted over two weeks our time.”
Two weeks?
Adora felt sick to her stomach. She bit the inside of her cheek. “It really only feels like the battle was a month ago. That night…”
“Wait.” Glimmer smacked her hand on Bow’s arm, causing him to jump. “Bow, that night after the battle. Do you remember…?”
“The blast!” Bow looked like something just occurred to him. The look on his face was almost impossible to read. “The energy… It must have been because they went back in time.”
Blast?
It was probably time for them to tell their own story, but Adora wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear it without Catra.
From across the room, she gave Catra a look that was easily received. The other girl stopped her pacing and went to sit closer to the group, a few feet away from Adora.
Adora was grateful for the presence. It gave her a little more peace. “What blast?” she asked. “What’s happened since we’ve been gone?”
A whole year… There must have been so much that had happened without her. She could’ve asked so many questions.
Bow and Glimmer looked at one another with worried expressions before looking back.
“You…really don’t know what happened, do you?”
Bow mindlessly began running his hand back and forth across Swift Wind’s mane. “That night, after the battle… We couldn’t find you, Adora. So when we got back to Bright Moon, we were forming a team of scouts to go out. Swift Wind couldn’t sense you at all and it worried us.”
“I ate all of the castle’s hay stock, I was so worried about you,” Swift Wind agreed, looking sheepish.
“But before we could go back out, something happened.”
Something? Adora looked back at Catra, who shrugged.
Bow continued the story. “Yeah, I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was, but it was like…a surge of First Ones energy? Everything in my lab that was from the First One’s either shut down or exploded.”
“And less than a week later…”
They looked at each other again.
Glimmer wrung her hands. “Less than a week later, Scorpia and Entrapta came. They were…looking for Catra.” She glanced up at the third girl, who was clearly startled. “They thought that we’d shut off the power to all their weapons, since they ran on First One’s energy. But when they learned that you were missing, too, Adora, they…”
A pause.
All of this was impossible to process. Adora kept looking between the two to see if she could read between the lines in their facial expressions, but to no avail. “They what?”
“Well ever since Entrapta joined the Horde, they’d been running completely on First One’s energy. And when the blast happened, apparently the entire Fright Zone lost power.”
Glimmer nodded at what Bow had said. She didn’t seem to want to make eye contact with anyone, though. “It was chaos for a few days after that. They blamed us, we blamed them. I swear, Mom was ready to go over there herself and demand Hordak to give you back. We were all convinced they had taken you.”
“But when Scorpia and Entrapta came, we realized that something else had happened to you. And…” Bow sighed. “And to Catra. They decided to stay with us. They’ve been living here since then, but…according to them, the Fright Zone had gotten a thousand times worse since that happened.”
At that point, Catra scoffed loudly. “Worse?” she said sarcastically. “You have no idea.”
“We would find Horde cadets—children—stranded in the middle of the Whispering Woods covered in wounds and not even remembering their own names. And according to Scorpia,” Glimmer grimaced heavily, “younger soldiers were sent out on suicide missions, and just wouldn’t come back.”
“They what??” Catra’s voice squeaked. She scooted closer to the group and tried not to look panicked. “What about my squad? Lonnie? Rogelio? Kyle?”
She really cared. Of course she did.
Maybe Adora was the only one to get to see that side of her, but she knew that they had grown up with those guys, and they were as close to her family as she got. No matter how she treated them…
“They’re fine. We have them,” Glimmer answered, brows knit at the ground. “The Horde was the small and most defenseless as they’ve ever been.”
“…What do you mean ‘you have them’?”
The question hung unanswered for a moment. While Catra bristled with impatience, the only noise between the group for that time was the sound of the waterfall.
Then Glimmer let an intense look deepen in her eyes. “Maybe you’re not understanding. It’s over.”
Over?
A weight inside of Adora dropped. It might’ve been relief, but there was still some small part of her that remembered calling the walls of the Fright Zone home.
She turned her body towards Catra and saw her partner’s face drained of blood.
Bow leaned closer and followed what Glimmer had said. “It’s over. The war.”
The war is over.
“We did it. The Horde is defeated for good.”
TO BE CONTINUED…