Chapter Text
Catra had been joking, initially, when she had asked if Adora spontaneously turning into She-Ra in the middle of the night was something that she should be getting used to. She had taken Adora at her word when her girlfriend had reassured her that no, she did not usually turn into She-Ra without wanting to turn into She-Ra, saying the words, the whole bit. So, when Catra was startled awake a few nights later by the sensation of Adora transforming in her sleep again, she did her best to not be upset. She accepted her sudden relocation to the floor with as much grace and dignity as she could muster at three o’clock in the morning, glad that the pillows had been jettisoned along with her and softened her landing.
“Hey, Adora.” She sat up and looked at the shining goddess before her. “Bad dream?”
“No,” Adora responded, and Catra’s ears flickered slightly. Adora sounded happy, thrilled, even. “He is free!” She turned to look at Catra, her blue eyes blazing in the darkness. “My brother is free.”
“Your brother?” Catra was incredulous. As far as she was aware, Adora did not have any family to speak of. Well, none that she was aware of. Catra knew how things worked, knew that logically Adora had to have come from somewhere, but beyond assuming that she had once had a mother and father, neither she nor Adora had ever given any thought to potential siblings. “Adora, what are you talking about?”
“I am talking about my brother, lost long ago and imprisoned by the dark powers during his attempt to free Eternia from the threat of Horde Prime. He is a great warrior and a loyal companion, although I fear that he was too trusting of the Eternians in the end.” Adora was speaking in a tone that felt much more formal than Catra was used to. She narrowed her eyes at Adora and frowned.
“Adora, what’s going on? You’re acting really weird and it is too early in the morning for me to figure this out, so can you just skip to the part where you tell me who you are and what you’ve done with my girlfriend?” Catra let a low growl build in her throat for emphasis.
Adora looked down at Catra as if realizing that she was there for the first time. She gave a slight cough of embarrassment. “My apologies, I seem to have gotten carried away. Just a moment, please.” The glow began to fade and Adora slowly returned to her normal form. She shook her head as if to clear it and looked down at Catra on the floor with a yawn.
“Hey, Catra. What time is it?”
“What—Adora, what just happened?” Catra stood up, clutching a pillow as if she were going to strangle it. “We just had an entire conversation, and you have a brother, apparently, and he was in some kind of prison but now he’s not and something about Eternia and you were so formal, Adora, it wasn’t you.” She threw the pillow at Adora. “And it’s three o’clock in the morning.”
“Oh,” Adora replied in a small voice. “I think I get it.”
“Well at least one of us does,” Catra grumped. “Would you like to explain it to your girlfriend who, by the way, loves you very much and isn’t going to hold the fact that this is the second time this week that you’ve jettisoned me from our bed?” Adora had the decency to blush, thought Catra, and the absolute indecency to look cute as hell doing it.
“Right, so, uh, She-Ra—” began Adora.
“By which you mean you?” Catra interrupted.
“No, well, sort of?” Adora shrugged helplessly. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, I’m awake now, and I promise I’ll do my best to understand,” Catra replied. Adora smiled at her response and stared up at the ceiling, collecting her thoughts. She gave a sigh, ran her hand through her hair, and looked back down at Catra.
“Okay,” she began, “so there’s me, and there’s She-Ra, and sometimes I’m both at once and sometimes I’m just me, but She-Ra is still there, because she’s this magical goddess, I guess? And she has a brother, and she hasn’t seen him in like a thousand years, but now he’s back and she’s very excited and so sometimes her emotions get the best of her and she… turns into me? Or I turn into her, I guess, without exactly meaning to.”
“Huh.” Catra sat quietly for a moment, her tail flicking back and forth. “Huh,” she repeated, still staring at Adora, brow furrowed. “Huh!” she finished, beginning to gather up the scattered pillows and place them back on the bed.
“Is that all you have to say about it?” Adora looked at Catra worriedly.
“No,” Catra said slowly, climbing back into bed and pulling the covers over her. Her tail curled itself around Adora’s arm. “It’s a lot. And it’s late. And I’m tired. But!” and here she wrapped her arms around Adora and lay her head on Adora’s shoulder. “I love you, and I trust you. We can talk about your goddess and her long-lost brother later. For now, just…” She trailed off, looking into Adora’s eyes. “Just stay here with me.” She softly kissed Adora’s neck. “And for gods’ sakes, let me sleep.”
Adora hummed her assent and wrapped her arms around Catra, running her hands through the soft fur of her back. Catra quietly began to purr, and the two were soon asleep again.
*
“You should tell them now.” Hordak, one-time leader of the Horde and current laboratory assistant to Entrapta, Princess of Dryll, had his hands clasped behind his back and was staring at a giant screen that was currently displaying a map of the known galaxy. Dotted about the map in an orderly fashion were glowing green lights – the currently identified nodes of Horde Prime’s network.
“Tell them what?” Entrapta frowned, staring at a readout on a smaller screen set to the left of the map.
“About the messages,” Hordak clarified.
“I don’t think that the messages qualify as results,” Entrapta replied.
“Perhaps not the messages themselves, but the fact that someone is out there sending them.” Hordak turned away from the screen to look at Entrapta. “Someone who is not Horde Prime.”
“I guess, but all that proves is that we were right in thinking that we could use the network ourselves! It doesn’t actually tell us anything new.” Entrapta frowned at a readout on a smaller screen to the side of the main screen, as if it had personally insulted her by not giving her something more interesting to read.
“It tells us more than you think.” Hordak sighed. “Your… princesses, they are planning some sort of survey, are they not? Exploration of the planets?” He pointed towards the map. “If they are looking for other inhabited worlds, they might want to start with the ones that are broadcasting on this network.”
“Omigosh! Yes! That’s amazing!” Entrapta grabbed Hordak’s hands and spun around with him in excitement. Hordak’s face shifted from surprise to embarrassment to something utterly foreign and back to neutral. “That’s perfect!” Entrapta suddenly let go of Hordak’s hands and looked away, a faint blush on her face. “Thanks, Hordak.”
“Yes, well.” Hordak coughed politely and looked back to the galactic map. “It would appear that this is the nearest inhabited planet to Etheria.” He tapped the screen.
“Oooh, what’s that one called?” Entrapta’s head appeared over his left shoulder, one of her ponytails draped over Hordak’s right. Hordak’s pale skin reddened slightly but faded quickly.
“Ah, yes, that’s the planet…” He trailed off, frowning. “It’s the planet…”
“Yes?” Entrapta’s hair was slowly pulling her into the air.
“I... do not know.” Hordak’s frowned deepened. “I feared this might happen.” His hands clenched into fists. “It seems the death of Prime has taken a toll on my knowledge.” He sighed. “Monster though he was, Prime was a repository of centuries of information, one that we could access with a thought. No longer.”
“Oh.” Entrapta slowly lowered back to the ground, her hair winding about Hordak in a comforting gesture. “I’m sorry, Hordak. That must be terrible.”
“A necessary sacrifice.” Hordak turned his head so that he could see Entrapta. “If given the choice, I would do it again.” The faint beginnings of a smile formed on his face, and this time he did not attempt to hide it. “We can number the planets for now; doubtless those living on the surface can tell us the names.”
“Assuming we can understand each other, I guess!” Entrapta brightened up. “Ooh, maybe we can make some kind of universal translation device!”
“Not content to just trust to magic?” Hordak arched an eyebrow.
“Hah! Of course not.” Entrapta pulled a battered notebook and pen from her overalls and began jotting down notes. “Magic is too unpredictable and I’m still not exactly sure how it works on other planets. I mean, She-Ra was able to manifest on Horde Prime’s flagship and in that asteroid field, but I think She-Ra’s magic is different from the magic that the princesses use.”
“An asteroid field? Do tell.” Hordak’s eyes lit up, genuinely interested.
“Not now, Hordak, we need to put this plan together so I can present it to the princesses as soon as possible. But maybe,” Entrapta spoke in a quiet voice, “maybe I can tell you all about it later when we’re finished?”
“I assumed I would be put back in my cell once we were done here,” Hordak replied.
“Oh, right, well, you’re technically in my custody now, so I mean, you don’t have to go back there if you don’t want to.” Entrapta coughed, her face turning red. “You could just… stay with me instead.”
“Oh.” Hordak blinked in surprise. Had it gotten warmer in the laboratory? “Oh,” he repeated again. Surely, he could say more than that, couldn’t he? “I… That sounds agreeable.”
“Great!” Entrapta said quickly.
“Yes. Good.” Hordak nodded. “Well. The report, then?”
“Yes!” Entrapta turned away and began manipulating various files and readouts on her datapad to put them in some semblance of order.
“Ah, Entrapta?” Hordak straightened up, willing himself to look her in the eye.
“Yeah?” She turned to regard him. Rose eyes met red.
“Thank you.” The words felt strange to speak aloud, but Hordak found that it was not an unpleasant feeling. “For trusting me.”
“Of course,” Entrapta replied, internally dealing with some incredibly confusing feelings herself. “You’re my partner.”
“Yes, I… I suppose I am, aren’t I?”
As Scorpia walked towards Entrapta’s laboratory for her habitual check-in with the scientist princess, she heard Entrapta giggling and… someone else laughing? “Well that doesn’t make any sense at all, isn’t she in there working with Hord—oh.” Her face reddened and she increased her pace. “Nope, gonna just… I’m sure she’s fine. They’ll be fine.”