Chapter Text
Catra actually comes with them to the week's rebellion meeting instead of sneaking in early or hiding outside the window and Adora, an idiot, just thinks that's great.
And she sits down, and Catra's still standing, and the queen comes in, and Catra's still standing.
Catra stares right at the queen and climbs into Micah's seat without breaking eye contact.
Adora's heart stops.
"Catra," the queen grinds out.
"What?" says Catra. Her tail starts to lash and her claws are gripping the armrest.
"That's not your chair."
"What are you going to do about it?" Catra demands.
Adora should get up.
She should she should she should.
She doesn't want Catra to do this and she doesn't want Catra to get hurt.
But she wants to know too.
"Catra!"
And the thought of the queen's anger turned on her is so terrifying, whatever horrible things the queen can actually do are nothing compared to the idea of provoking her in the first place, she doesn't know how Catra can do this, and Adora is stuck in place.
"Make me!" Catra snarls, her ears flat and all her fur on end. "Go on and make me! I'm not afraid of you!"
Glimmer touches Catra's side.
Glimmer yips and claps her hands over her nose and there's barely time to register the absolute terror on Catra's face before she's bolted over the top of the chair and flung herself toward the doorway.
"It was an accident," Adora tells the queen.
"Ow," Glimmer says.
"It was an accident." Catra smashes shoulder-first into the wall, gets her hands and feet back under her and takes off to the left, out of sight. "It was an accident she didn't mean to. She scratches me all the time."
"That doesn't really help your case as much as you think it does, Adora," Glimmer says, rolling her eyes. She pulls her hand back and Adora can see the red line across the tip of her nose. Bow is making a face at it.
"It was an accident I swear it was an accident!"
The queen just sighs and holds up a hand. "It was an accident."
"It was an accident!"
"Yes. You can sit down now. Let's just continue."
Adora can't hear any of it over her heart hammering. She presses her hands into her lap, presses her arms against her sides.
When it ends and the queen stands Adora jumps to her feet.
"I'm sorry for what happened. I should have done something and I didn't and-"
The queen just sighs.
"I - I can go g-g-g-"
"That won't be necessary."
It's always so much worse when people have to go through the frustrating process of finding Catra first. "Please, it's my responsibility, I should have, I could have stopped her," Adora begs.
The queen shakes her head. "Your friend's actions are not your responsibility."
They.
They can just go though, they can go, she can find Catra first and run.
"Adora, it's not that big of a deal," Glimmer says. "She must've got hurt more slamming into the wall than this scratch. Just go find her so we can leave on time, okay?"
"Yes! I will, she'll be there!"
Adora finds their room and throws herself under the giant pillow. "It's okay!"
"What does that mean!" Catra yowls.
"They said you got hurt worse running off so nobody's looking for you!"
The tight ball of Catra's form puddles out across the ground in relief. "First thing these floors have been good for." Then she rolls over and kicks her legs in frustration. "Arg, and I still don't even know what the queen can do!"
"Let's just not find out," Adora pleads. "What if that is why Shadow Weaver looks like that? What if you just die right there? I don't want you to get your face burned off just to know that she can burn faces off. What's the good of knowing something after it's too late?"
Catra groans. "I know, I know! It was stupid, I'm stupid!"
"You're not stupid."
"You only think that because you're too stupid to know better." Catra rolls onto her belly again. "So what now? I can go hang out in the forest until the evidence heals."
"Actually...we've got to leave. Glimmer and Bow are going out again."
"Where? Why?"
"I… I wasn't listening. Probably to another kingdom to ask a princess to join the alliance."
"Plausible." Catra pokes idly at the bottom of the bed. "Hey, it's a pillow on this side too."
Adora reaches up to check and finds it deforms squishily under her fingers. "No wonder it's so lumpy."
After a moment, Catra says, "I wonder when things will start making sense."
"Maybe places are just different. Bright Moon has festival-parties with moving and things to hit and hand-animals, Plumeria had the celebration where we only ate a lot, the person at Salineas didn't know what a party was… Maybe everyone has stuff that makes no sense to other people."
"That guy...why was he even there when everyone else had run off?"
"Well, he was her guard. And, uh, there was some other job, food-getter-person. He was one of them and then he had to fill in for the other one."
"That's what I mean. The other person ran off. Why didn't he? What'd she even need a guard for? It's not like Shadow Weaver has guards. And Hordak doesn't. I don't think so, anyway."
"Nobody's attacking the Horde," Adora points out. "It's not the same thing."
"I guess."
"Well, maybe we'll find out when we see how things work in this new kingdom."
"Sure. And anything to stay clear of the queen for a while," Catra agrees. She pokes at the bed again. Her claw catches and she jerks it free, exposing a tiny bit of white. "Is that…"
"...feathers?" Adora pulls at the bit of fluff. The split widens with a tearing sound. "Oh no."
Adora's concerned about what will happen when Catra meets up with Glimmer but when they arrive Glimmer is more interested in why they're covered in feathers.
"I killed the bed by accident," Adora says, more relieved than upset because this is nowhere near as big of a deal and it's hard to be mad about several things at once. "It, uh, there was a tear and then suddenly it exploded."
Glimmer and Bow laugh. "I wish I'd seen that!" Glimmer says, and they just...don't mention anything that happened earlier which is so much better than Adora could've hoped for.
Bow fills up the air by chattering about the princess and Glimmer joins in with what seems sincere excitement. "Princess Entrapta will be a total catch for the rebellion! My mom's going to be so impressed!"
"We need to impress her," Adora agrees. Now more than ever.
"Entrapta's a brilliant inventor," gushes Bow. "She makes robots and rehabs old tech by the First Ones. She's a pretty big deal in the Etherian makers community.... Which I am a part of, because I dabble in gadgetry myself." He twirls one of his arrows.
"Wait," says Catra. "Your bow and arrow stuff is something you made?"
"Well, yeah," Glimmer says.
"I built every one!"
"And if we convince Entrapta to join the rebellion, she'll invent all sorts of cool junk for us!"
"But...but people shot at us with sticks with bits of metal on the end, not all that!" Catra gestures at Bow's quiver of arrows. "If they'd had net-arrows or gunk-arrows or anything-else-arrows they might've actually caught us. I thought your stuff was magic like the princesses or Adora's sword! Why doesn't everyone use them if anyone can?"
"Well I mean…" Bow says. "It's not like anyone can, exactly. They're trick arrows. They're totally different to shoot. Someone who knows how to use normal arrows can't just pick one up and fire it, they'd have to practice a ton with them."
Catra and Adora stare at him, waiting for the rest. When he doesn't elaborate, Adora prompts, "And…?"
"And, well, so they're not interested." Bow shrugs, looking a bit down. "People don't want stuff that's hard to use." Then he perks up. "But Entrapta's stuff won't have that problem, because she's great at automation! She can make technology that doesn't rely on people learning how to use it, because it can use itself!"
Adora doesn't really get why people can't just practice, but, Bow and Glimmer know more than she does. If they think they need robot archers before anyone else can take advantage of Bow's inventions then Adora will just have to convince Entrapta to build them robot archers.