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She’s sixteen years old when she leaves the only home she’s ever known, which is two years earlier than she’d intended.
She’s always been adaptable.
The catalyst, too, deviates from its original, planned standard. It isn’t her high school graduation, something she’ll never get to experience now.
The way it actually happens is a little bit like this;
Adora lives in a sort of group home. They call themselves the Horde because their benefactor is called Hordak. It’s a stupid joke that Kyle came up with when they were seven, but it’s stuck. Everyone else just calls them ‘orphans.’
Despite Hordak being the one to actually adopt them and have them live in his estate, the one who raises them is Shadow Weaver.
Another stupid joke that stuck, this one from Catra, a thought which sends a lot of hurt shooting through Adora. Shadow Weaver is actually Madam Weaver, but her tendrils of dark hair and overall… less than cheerful air had led to the nickname they all called her behind her back.
Shadow Weaver, frightening as she might’ve been, was always something of a mother to Adora. She had been the one to encourage her, to brush her hair, to teach her to read. Those were, according to basically everyone, the qualities of a mother.
This is why, on a cold day in February, just a few weeks after Adora’s birthday, she feels comfortable, or at least manageably uncomfortable enough, to walk into Shadow Weaver’s absolute chamber of a bedroom in hunt of a jacket.
It is, looking back, an attmittadly stupid reason. It’s just that, as much as she loves her friends, because she does as much as her sheltered heart is able, they really have no concept of personal property. She’s fairly sure that Rogelio has her normal jacket, but she’s not sure. Point is; it’s cold outside, and Shadow Weaver has more clothes than anyone Adora knows, though that’s not saying much considering Adora’s small social circle that doesn’t really extend past the members of Hordak’s estate.
As she is rummaging through Shadow Weaver’s closet, she is simultaneously trying to pull her hair into a ponytail and put her shoes on. Now that she’s old enough, she’s the designated driver, meaning she has to hurry or she’ll be yelled at by a legion of angry Horde kids.
This is why it’s really not her fault when she bumps into a pile of clothes and something comes rattling out.
Letting out a little oomph , she goes to pick up and put the small metal box back where it came from when something gives her pause.
There’s a white label on the box, and it says Adora Greyskull .
Adora has no clue what Greyskull is, but she figures it must be her birth surname. All of the Horde kids have Hordak as a last name, and Shadow Weaver doesn’t take kindly to questions about their past.
Furrowing her brows, she tries the lid. It’s locked, but Catra hasn’t been her best friend for nine years for nothing. She grabs one of Shadow Weaver’s nearby hair clips and jams it into the lock, wiggling it around for a bit until she hears the telltale click .
Inside the box is a collection of papers. She lowers herself slowly to the floor of the closet and picks up the first one. It’s a birth certificate. Her birth certificate.
It has her birthday, the one she’s just celebrated. It also has names under the ‘mother’ and ‘father’ sections.
Randor Greyskull and Marlena Greyskull
She feels her breath start to quicken, but she ignores it.
She puts the document to the side gently, already picking up the next one. She flips through them at a quick pace, hospital records and referrals and prescriptions and profiles. She keeps flipping, getting faster and faster, hands moving in pace with her breathing, before one of them makes her stop suddenly, hands and breath quitting as one. Two documents, really. They’re letters of resignation, a customary two week notice. One from each of her parents. Each addressed to Hordak.
Her parents had worked for Hordak?
Hesitantly, she puts them in the growing pile of things she’s looked at and picks up the next paper. It’s a coroner’s report.
It is at this moment that Catra walks in, already loudly saying, “Adora, I’ve been sent to complain. We have to leave soon, idiot. It-” She cuts herself off as she enters the closet, dual colored gaze assessing the scene before her quickly. Her face melts into an expression that Adora is familiar with her making. It’s the kind of pity she gives Adora when she says something dumb or makes a mistake. It’s a look that says ‘you should’ve known, but I still feel bad for you.’
“Catra, did you know about this? About my parents working for Hordak?”
“Oh, Adora,” Catra says, pity exonerated by her voice, “ All of our parents worked for Hordak.”
---------
As it turns out, following another frantic search, this time through everyone else’s boxes, Catra’s words are confirmed as true. Adora wonders how Catra knew. Then, immediately after, she wonders how she didn’t.
Catra, as though explaining something to an especially stubborn child, walks Adora through it.
Their parents all worked for Hordak, involved in the shady science business he owned. Their parents had all resigned. Conveniently, they had all died within the following year. Natural cause, evidently. The children had been adopted by their very generous boss, Lord Hordak. Perhaps killing the children would’ve been too suspicious. Why adopt them, Adora wasn’t sure. An ego thing, perhaps. It was a good cover up. Who would suspect the eccentric millionaire who had an army of orphans. Certainly not Adora.
When Catra gets through this little story in a very Catra way, Adora is left still sitting on the cold closet floor, blank expression on her face.
“We have to leave,” is the first thing out of her mouth.
“ What? ”
“Leave. We- We have to leave. I have, I mean I’ve been saving, money, I have money. We can leave, we have to leave.”
“Adora, we can’t leave. You’re only sixteen, don’t be stupid.”
She’s getting really tired of Catra’s condescension, no matter how accustomed she is to it.
“Of course we can leave. He killed our parents!” She’s still in shock about that, but there’s no way she’s going to process it in this house. This prison.
“Adora, we have a plan. We’re going to stay here for two more years, and then we’re going to graduate, and you’ll get some fancy lacrosse scholarship, and I’ll go where you go, and we’ll be free of this place,” Catra says this the way she has said everything this morning, slowly, but now it is tinged with a bit of desperation, as if she realizes Adora is serious about this.
Adora shakes her head, once, twice, three times, and says, “Plans change.” Even as she says it, she knows it isn’t true. Not for Catra.
Catra had come to the estate older than the rest of them. Seven and distrusting and angry. Adora had been the only one to reach out. She had grown into their little group, but that distrust had stayed with her. She didn’t take well to broken promises, and their plan
had
been a promise.
Catra’s eyes shutter, her face closing off, as she backs out of the room. Adora stays on the ground, closes her eyes briefly, and gets to cleaning up.
------
She hadn’t been lying when she said she had money.
Shadow Weaver was the one to encourage her to get a job, to learn real responsibility.
Shadow Weaver was not the one to encourage her to save a portion of every paycheck she got, just in case. No, that had been Mara.
Mara was a senior when Adora had been a freshman. To little fresh faced Adora, Mara was the coolest person. She was the captain of the Academy’s tiny little lacrosse team, and she actually gave Adora attention. Those were immediate elevators of status in Adora’s eyes. Mara had given her a lot of advice through their year on the team together. She had always cheered Adora on, and listened to her, and given her little concerned looks when Adora talked about her home life that she hadn’t understood until now.
The money Adora has saved up isn’t very much, but it is enough to get her through a couple months’ rent and bills until she can get a new job. It will be difficult. Like Catra had said, she was only sixteen. She doubted even Shadow Weaver could convince Hordak to put a missing person’s report out for her. She wouldn’t have a degree, high school or otherwise. She knew she could figure it out though. Like she said, she was adaptable.
No matter what Catra says, Adora isn’t stupid. Naive, maybe. Oblivious, but not stupid. She waits, looking on the crappy communal computer for an apartment shady enough to house a sixteen year old. She finds one in a poor part of a nice town, far enough away from the estate that no one will recognize her. She finds a job too, a little bake shop run by an excitable old woman named Razz, who doesn’t even ask for Adora’s qualifications over messages before telling her she starts in two weeks.
It is still cold, and it is still February when Adora leaves. It is also, coincidentally, three o’clock. She puts some of her clothes and toiletries into a little duffle bag, slips quietly into her shows, and opens the door.
“So, you’re really going to do it. I didn’t think you had the balls.” The voice comes from a location that she is not yet familiar with, as it normally comes from the foot of her bed. Catra hasn’t spoken to her since that day in the closet, much less sleep on her bed.
“Yes,” Adora says quietly, and then, even quieter, “Please come with me.”
Catra doesn’t respond. Adora doesn’t expect her to.
-------
Her apartment is more a shoebox than anything, and her landlord has three hairs total and was staring at her chest the whole time they spoke.
The building is a peeling stucco, only four stories high. It does have a gym, though! Something Adora is sure she will be the only resident to take advantage of. It is surrounded by similar buildings and also a Buffalo Wild Wings. For some reason.
Her room is on the fourth floor, with a window view of the dumpster out back. Conveniently, that is where her landlord goes to chainsmoke.
The apartment, though, is absolutely wonderful. Dreadful, sure, but hers. The door, with three deadbolts and two chains, opens right into it. As in, you can see the whole place from the door without turning your head. There’s her bed, twin sized and stuffed into the far right corner. It’s white, but it’s so dingy that it matches the gray of the walls. At the foot of the bed is a squat dresser, and across from it, in the opposite corner, is a table and two chairs. Her dining room. Next to that, on the same wall as the door, is her kitchen. Kitchenette, maybe, is a better term. White cabinets, also dingy, but it has a fridge and a stove and a microwave! Even better, the place came with its own bathroom. It’s just through a little door on the small wall between the kitchen and dining room. It has a toilet, sink, and shower, all accent with green mildew.
Adora cries when she walks in because it's the best place she’s ever seen.
------
She has money left over after what she’s calculated for this month’s rent and bills, so she leaves the apartment almost immediately to go shopping.
The little area she’s in is a back street of the biggest city she’s ever seen, much less lived in. Etheria is beautiful, when she walks the mile it takes to exit shadyville. It’s all gleaming storefront and beautiful people, and Adora almost cries again.
She makes it to a little second hand store after spending thirty minutes wandering around the city slack jawed. She buys curtains before anything else, because she’s pretty sure her landlord might be smoking outside her window as an excuse to stare at her. After that, she buys a hideous blue lamp for her dresser, a large, bright red quilt for her bed, two pillows, and a little miniature sword with a stand, because it’s cool, and she can do what she wants now.
After that, she goes to a run down looking grocery store and buys enough food to last her through the week. She also gets some cheap plates, cups, and silverware. The works. She doesn’t mess with pots or pans. She doubts she’ll need them.
She gets back home ( home!) a couple hours later and gets to setting up her things. It’s then that she remembers her lack of tools. She really doesn’t want to ask her landlord for help or invite him into her little piece of the world, so she sets up her lamps, lays out her blanket and pillow, throws the groceries haphazardly into the cabinets, and goes to her neighbor’s door.
There’s a wreath of pink, blue, and purple flowers on the door, so she feels like she’s safe in knocking lightly. Apparently not lightly enough, as her knocking makes the wreath fall off the door. She is hurriedly trying to put it back on when the door swings open.
She and the boy in the doorway both blink at each other for a few seconds before Adora thrusts her arm through the hole in the wreath’s center and says, “Hi! I’m Adora.”
That’s how Adora meets her best friend.
-------
Bow, as he tells her his name is only seconds after that little encounter, is probably the nicest person Adora has ever and will ever meet in her life. He does , in fact, have tools, and cheerfully goes to her apartment with her to help her put things up.
As he helps her put the curtain rod up, he talks idly and without pause, filling up the silence Adora that she was going to have to get used to.
“The curtains are because of Dave, right?” Dave is, evidently, the landlord. “Yeah, I get that, he skeeves me out. I wish I could afford to move out of this place, but really I’m only here because of my parents.” Adora almost says ‘me, too’ before thinking better of it. “They want me to be, like, a historian. So not happening. They think I’m at boarding school, can you imagine? I love them, but I needed to get out of that house. See who the real Bow is, you feel me?”
Adora, surprisingly, does.
-------
With Bow comes Bow’s girlfriend, Glimmer. Glimmer is a whirlwind, and she reminds Adora of Catra in ways that make her cry into her thrifted pillows, as she does everynight. Her new home is nice, but her parents are still dead, and Catra still hates her, and she’s still sixteen.
Glimmer, though, and Bow, of course, make things better. Glimmer isn’t the most trusting of Adora at first, and when Bow goes to the bathroom during their first meeting in a little corner cafe, Glimmer says, “Listen, you seem sweet, but you should know that Bow and I have been together for a very long time now-”
Adora cuts her off stutteringly, “Oh! Oh, god, no- I mean, I’m not trying to- I don’t even, I just, I don’t even like boys.”
Glimmer says, “Oh.” Everything gets better from there.
Glimmer and Bow are real friends. She loved the Horde kids, but they were friends forged in the fire, necessary for survival. Plus, she left them all. She’s pretty sure she burned that bridge. Glimmer and Bow are her choice, and she’s there. They like her, and she likes them. No ulterior motives. Nothing.
They do friend things, normal things that Adora was unaware of. Every Friday, they put on face masks and watch chick flicks that Adora has never seen, Glimmer hates, and Bow loves. They paint their nails, they try new places together, they go out for fun.
The two of them never look at Adora wrong for not knowing something she should, whether it be friendship, functioning, or pop culture. They don’t look at her with pity, just empathy.
Adora still misses Catra.
She meets other people, too. Etheria is a big city, with new experiences and people in a surplus. Glimmer’s mother and father, an absolutely beautiful and intimidating pair, own a high end boutique called Bright Moon. Adora meets everyone through there.
There’s Entrapta, a slightly older girl who’s absolutely obsessed with technology.
Mermista, who Adora is both afraid of and a little attracted to.
Sea Hawk, which cannot be his real name, Mermista’s boyfriend/admirer/stalker. She’s fairly certain Bow has a crush on him.
Frosta, a surprisingly young girl who absolutely clings to every word Glimmer speaks.
Netossa and Spinnerella, friends of Glimmer’s parents, who ruffle Adora’s hair everytime they see her.
There’s also Perfuma, a total stoner chick who does mediation classes out of the back of Bright Moon. On their second meeting, Perfuma gives Adora a tiny little succulent in a white pot. Adora puts it on the sill of the windows between her bed and dining room and speaks to it every night. She’s never had to take care of something before. She finds she likes it.
They’re all rich kids, spending their parents’ money at a boutique that they pretend isn’t better than their homes.
Catra would’ve called them princesses. Adora calls them friends.
------
Amidst all of this, Adora starts working. On her first day, she walks into the cramped bakery to see a girl bent over the counter, sheets of silky brown hair covering her face as she writes something down. Her head tilts up and the sound of the door and reveals-
“Mara!”
“Adora? Oh my god!”
Mara races around the counter and embraces her immediately. Adora is getting used to tactile people by this point. Bow is the most touchy person ever, and it’s second nature to Glimmer, as well.
It’s different when it’s Mara though. Mara was basically Adora’s older sister, and it’s nice to be swept up in arms, her cinnamon sweet smell engulfing Adora.
“Adora, I missed you so much! What are you doing here, shouldn’t you be at school?”
Mara, it turns out, works at the bakery when she isn’t taking courses at the local university. Adora gives her an abridged version of ‘I ran away from home,’ something which looks unsurprising to Mara.
Work becomes a high point for Adora. Mara is just as kind as she was years ago, just as soft spoken. The old woman, Razz, who Adora thinks might actually live in the bakery and also might possibly put weed in the pies, is the odd grandmother Adora hadn’t known she was longing for. She can’t quite keep Adora and Mara differentiated in her mind, but it doesn’t bother Adora too much. They’ve all got things.
------
So that’s Adora’s life. She goes to work on Mondays through Thursdays, working from seven to three. She spends afternoons at Bow’s with him and Glimmer, and sometimes another one of their friends. Most nights, they go out and do something. The city has no limit on activities. Her weekends are spent with all of her friends, doing whatever they please. It’s a good life. She finds herself longing for her old one less and less.
It’s a Saturday when it gets brought up. Glimmer and Bow haven’t said anything because they have a certain sense of tact. A sense of tact Mermista has no qualms about breaking;
“Okay, so, Adora. I get why Bow lives in this cesspool, with his Daddy issues times two, but, like, why are you here?” She barely looks up from where she lays on Glimmer’s expensive bed, feet pillowed in Sea Hawk’s lap, but she still betrays interest. Everyone else does too, no matter how much they play at nonchalance.
Adora tugs at the end of her ponytail as she considers her response. Glimmer’s arm tightens around her shoulders (she wasn’t lying about the tactileness) in a clear reassurance.
Hesitantly, she says, “I lived in a, uh, group home, I guess. Our- well, the man who adopted us was pretty rich, but he was also not a really good guy, so I left.” She keeps it short and sweet, hoping it will end the conversation. It does not.
“Oh, Adora, I’m so sor-”
“Wait, did you say ‘our’?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t the only one he adopted.”
“So, like, siblings?”
“No, not siblings. We weren’t much of a family. Just a bunch of people who got stuck together.”
It feels odd and wrong to demote her old friends to such a status, but it’s true. Adora realizes it more every day.
“What were they like?” Bow asks from across the room, his perceptive eyes watching her carefully. Actually, everyone is watching her carefully. She’s not used to so much unbridled attention, even now. She feels her cheeks heat.
“Well, there was Kyle. He was kind of stupid, but whatever. Then there was Rogelio. He was mute, and he used to dye his hair green whenever he was upset. Lonnie was, well, she was Lonnie. Scary, but still a friend. And then there was-” Here, she falters, unsure of how to talk about the one thing she doesn’t know how to process, even now, “Catra. There was Catra.”
Somehow, they all seem to understand that that’s the end of it.
-------
When her seventeenth birthday passes, she gets the day off work. She has plans, her friends are not the type to let something like a birthday go uncelebrated. Still, she wants a little time to herself, so she gets up early, puts on a blue sweater, and goes for a walk. The sky, too, is blue. It’s going to be a good day. She can tell.
She’s walking past a street side art vendor when she sees it. She doesn’t know how she knows , deeply, instinctually, but she does. When she leans closer, the little signature at the bottom confirms it.
The painting is a small rectangular thing, just taller than Adora’s hand, and just wider than her hand. Set against a background of gray blue, the shade of gray blue that greets her every morning when she looks in the mirror, is a bundle of lavender stalks.
They’ve always been Adora’s favorite.
------
Shadow Weaver dies on a cold, bleak day. Adora doesn’t go to the funeral.
She doubts Catra would either.
--------
When she eases her way back into her apartment just thirty minutes later, she pauses for a minute to take it in, looking around in a way she hasn’t for months. The bed is covered in pillows and blankets. The dresser is covered in knick-knacks. There is a plushy, yellow rug on the ground. There’s a bookshelf by her bed, filled with books on subjects she’s actually interested in. Her dining chairs have been replaced with cushioned armchairs, courtesy of Glimmer. Her walls are tacked with photos of her and her friends. Her window sill has an array of plants, and the stray cat she had adopted is trying to swat at them from the ground. (She had almost named him Catra, whether out of spite or the deep loneliness she couldn’t curb, she wasn’t sure, but she had settled on Swiftwind, assuring herself that Catra would’ve hated that name just as much.)
She uses her tools, the ones she had bought ages ago, to hang the painting right above her bed, centered above where her head will lay when she sleeps. She wonders if Catra had meant for her to find it. For some reason, she thinks the answer is yes.
----------
Adora, for the first little while, at least, is content to let Catra come to her. The Catra she knew was fierce and uncompromising and maybe a little mean. The Catra she knew would never approach her, would probably never forgive her. That Catra would never even apologize. But Adora has changed, and she wants to believe that Catra has, too.
( Adora meets Catra on an especially cold day in September. She’s starting to realize that most significant things in her life happen on cold days. Anyway, they’re all seven, and, at this point, Adora and Lonnie and the rest of the Horde kids have formed themselves into a hobbled little group, tight-knit, but sharp around the edges. Catra does not, and has no desire to, fit in with them. She has a sort of haunted look in her eyes, and she snarls like some sort of feral thing when anyone gets too close. This, and her wild mane of hair, and her multi-colored eyes, and really a lot of things, is why Lonnie twists her name into ‘Catra’ from ‘Caterina,’ a cruel moniker that Catra wears with more grace than she does anything. It is Adora that finally manages to get through to her, probably because Adora is the only one trying. No matter her roots or her upbringing, Adora was always and has always been softened by anything, really, but especially Catra. Eventually, after being literally scratched multiple times, Adora manages to hesitantly befriend the other girl. It is strengthened by their experiences, they’re bonded by the desolace. They make plans for the future, they agree not to seperate.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
They hit snags, because they both rage like two different kinds of storms. Catra nearly kills Lonnie when Adora sits with her at lunch instead of Catra. They work through everything”
“I’ll never say sorry! To anyone!”
But, through everything, they had each other. And Adora broke that. She has no right to try to fix it. Not that she doesn’t want to, because she does, but she knows enough to know it wouldn’t be wise.)
Anyway, Adora really is going to wait, but it takes so long, and patience is not, absolutely never has been, one of her strong suits. Before she can put one of her wildly convoluted plans into action, however, a perfect opportunity presents itself.
She’s going to some new, small alternative shop with Mermista, because Razz is ill and the shop is closed for the day. Their other friends are off at some odd, hipster art show that neither she nor Mermista is interested in. Mermista is, however, interested in the prospect of new fishnets, so off they go.
The store is cute, maybe not Adora’s vibe, but she’s content to wander around. That is, of course, until she sees one of the framed photos on the wall behind the counter. There are, admittedly, a lot of them. So many photos. The one that really catches her eye, though, is one of three girls, arms slung around each other. On the far left is a grinning girl with long, purple pigtails. In the middle, is the girl working the counter currently, a large, muscular woman, with close cropped blonde hair. And on her other side…on her other side is the most familiar face Adora will ever know. Catra, hair cropped closer to her head than ever before, decked out in sick reds and blacks. And, get this, she’s smiling. Reluctant, small, but a smile, nonetheless.
Adora’s heart absolutely sings and breaks at once, because she has never seen Catra so happy, and it makes her happy, but also because she has never seen Catra so happy, in all the years they stood by each other.
She realized she’s been staring, mouth gaping slightly, for a bit too long when the girl from the photo says “Hey, are you alright?”
Adora’s mouth snaps shut, and she manages “Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I’m fine.”
Smooth.
The girl- woman, really- has a name tag reading ‘Scorpia.’ Rad name, honestly. Adora’s a little jealous. The woman gets to have muscles, Catra, and a name like “Scorpia?”
“Hey, do I know you?” The woman asks, giving Adora a little squinted appraising.
Oh, god.
What if Catra had, like, shown them pictures?? Not that Catra would have a photo of Adora, but her new friends did post her a lot. What if she had been making fun of Adora with her new, cooler friends??? What if-
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.”
“Are you sur- Oh my, God!”
“What? What, ‘Oh my, God’???”
“You’re She-ra!!”
That-
Well, that’s not what Adora was expecting, but whatever.
She-ra was what they had called her on the lacrosse field. Some dumb nickname that Catra had, for some reason, despised.
“You- did you play lacrosse?”
“Yeah!” Scorpia says, brightly, “Yeah! I was captain of the Garnets.”
That explained it. The Garnets were a very small, very bad group.
“Hey, I, uh, know this is awkward, but could I get your number? I’m kinda new here, and I was really looking to make new friends, and-”
“Sure, you can have it.”
--------
Okay, so, Adora feels maybe a little bad about using Scorpia’s hero worship against her. It’s just- the best way to get to Catra is to get to Catra’s friends! It’s strategy!
Okay, she totally feels bad. Whatever.
Weirdly, it’s Scorpia, who is actually a pretty good person to talk to, who tells her about the prom before Glimmer and Bow can.
Adora never went to prom because (a. no one liked her off the field (b. no one would take her and (c. she didn’t have the money for a dress.
Apparently, though, when you’re a rich kid who peaks in high school, you want to keep up the tradition. Hence; prom. Like, adult prom. Princess prom, if you will.
“I’m not going.”
“Adora, please, you have to,” Glimmer is using her puppy eyes, and Adora is maybe two seconds away from caving.
“You can go with Bow!!”
“No, I can’t! We’re on a break, and he’s going with Perfuma, so I have to go with someone equally hot and make him jealous!”
“Uh, okay, first, you guys have such a weird relationship. Second, absolutely flattered that you think I’m as hot as Perfuma. Third, Bow will not be jealous! He knows we have no romantic chemistry,” Adora tries, really not wanting to subject herself to this.
“That last part is so not true, did you forget the hot springs at my aunt’s place last summer? And anyway, Bow will be so blinded by his jealousy, he won’t care who I’m with,” Glimmer says, turning her little pointed nose up.
Adora, who, by the way, did not forget the hot springs, like at all , squeezes her eyes closed, deliberates, and, finally, heaves out, “ Okay.”
“Yes! Yes! Thank god, I knew you’d come around!” Glimmer accompanies this with a little dance, which, like most things with her, is so over-the-top unnecessary.
“So what am I supposed to wear to this?” Adora asks, stretching her arms above her head, nearly grazing the low ceiling of her apartment, “My nice jeans?”
Glimmer stops her dance to stare at Adora with absolute horror. “Dear god,” she mutters.
---------
Shopping with Glimmer is a nightmare, even when they’re doing it in her parents' boutique. She spends the whole time talking about Perfuma and Bow, and matching outfits, and words like ‘sweet-heart neck-line.” Eventually, Adora tunes her out. After a while, Glimmer pushes her towards a changing room after dumping a towering pile of red dresses into her arms. Apparently, Glimmer is wearing blue, so Adora has to wear red. Something about gender norms and color contrast, except Adora couldn’t wear pink because it would wash her pale, cracker arse out.
She feels a bit like a mannequin, stuffing herself into dresses and then emerging to let Glimmer turn her this way and that, making little hums along the way. After a while, she tries on one that she knows, even without Glimmer’s hums, is the one. It has delicate off-the-shoulder sleeves, and a long red skirt with a subtle shimmer. She loves it.
Glimmer does, too.
---------
The prom comes faster than Adora expected, and getting ready is actually kind of fun.
Her and most of the girls, Perfuma conspicuously missing, go over to Frosta’s and do each other’s hair and make-up. Adora has never felt like this before. She adores it.
At the end of it, Adora’s hair is down, as it so rarely is, her makeup is subtle, and her dress looks wonderful. Bonus; her shoes barely have a heel.
They all pile into Seahawk’s big car, chatting and laughing and grinning. When they get there, Bow is standing, just as dashing as always, with a gorgeous Perfuma on his arm. Glimmer fumes. Adora nudges her before she literally melts her makeup off.
They step out of the car like they’re stepping onto a runway. Adora glances around at the venue, people milling around outside the vast doors. She can hear pop music, laughter, and general conversation. Really, she’s not as afraid as she thought she’d be. She truly has changed.
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Scorpia, invited because of her mother or something, is bringing two plus ones, as Adora finds out from one of their many text conversations. She tries not to get her hopes up, really, but it’s not all that effective. She does have a good time, regardless, swaying with Glimmer, getting closer at her urging. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, it really does make Bow glare at her a little.
It’s been a couple hours when Scorpia shows up, trailed by three instead of two. First, is an absolutely fabulous looking person, with long, bleached hair, and a green and black dress. After them is Scorpia, looking radiant in a black dress. Then is the girl with pigtails from the photos, bouncing around and chatting. Lastly, is the exact person Adora had been praying would come, and also praying would not.
Catra is wearing a sharp, gorgeous maroon suit, newly short hair slicked back a little. She looks confident and different and imposing and so, so familiar. Adora kind of wants to cry. She decides, right then, that she will not approach Catra. She already talked to her friend, bought her painting. She’s not going to do anything else to mess this up, not when it was her fault. She goes back to twirling Glimmer and tries to ignore the pain in her chest.
Unsurprisingly, Glimmer leaves her about ten minutes later to go make out with Bow, meaning Adora is alone on the dancefloor when a new song starts. She’s about to start awkwardly shoving her way to a table, when she hears, “Hey, Adora.”
She freezes, eyes widening, before turning slowly.
Catra is grinning at her, head ducked a little, hand outstretched.
Hesitantly, Adora grabs it.
She doesn’t pay much attention to the dancing, but she knows Catra is leading her through it. Really, she spends the time drinking in the sight of Catra, searching for differences. Somehow, she knows Catra is doing the same.
They twirl and spin and dip, hands roaming along with their eyes. They’re on a floor full of people, and somehow, Adora feels like they’re the only girls in the room.
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Conversations do happen, of course. They sit on the terrace afterwards, still staring at each other, arms brushing with every movement.
The moonlight illuminates Catra’s skin and eyes, and Adora doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone so beautiful. When Catra moves a little closer, Adora is hit with the scent of jasmine and chamomile, so familiar and so missed.
Haltingly, Catra talks about moving out, about Hordak’s boss coming to town and destroying his little operation. She talks about understanding why Adora did it, about understanding why Adora left, about never being mad, just really hurt. She talks about Shadow Weaver dying.
Gradually, Catra’s head shifts down onto Adora’s shoulder, their hands intertwining. They talk until they can’t anymore, and then, Adora asks if she wants to go back to her place.
She can see it so clearly, Catra in her little piece of the world. She wants her there, to see the tea in the cabinet and the rugs on the ground. She wants her to see her own painting on the wall. She wants her to make fun of her landlord, of her friends. Wants her friends to be their friends.
She thinks about how she saw Perfuma chatting up Scorpia. She thinks about how similar Glimmer and Bow are. She thinks, above all, that it was always meant to be this. Her life, above all, is love, and nothing, for her, is love without Catra.
She will keep making pies, Catra can go get her degree. Be a social worker, maybe. Whatever she wants to be. Adora can be happy. They can all be happy.
She plans it out in her head, so sure of herself for the first time in her life.
When Catra looks up from her shoulder and says, “Yes, I’ll come home with you, idiot. Of course I will,” Adora feels everything click into place.
Everything is as it should be. No matter what bumps they had in the future, Adora and Catra would stay together.
Hesitantly, Adora lowered her face. Catra raised hers, and their lips met for the first time, as the moon watched on.