Chapter Text
Adora does not convince Entrapta to build robot archers or much of anything, because Adora's too busy ruining She-Ra with some infection so she's sick and totally useless in front of everyone and all she did was make them look worse. It was only incredibly important they make a good impression on the only person Bow and Glimmer know of who could help the rebellion get better weapons than bits of pointy metal.
"I didn't know She-Ra could get sick like that," Adora mumbles. And she wants to say, "What if it happens again?" but she can't. She can't. If they aren't already thinking that she can't say it, and if they are thinking it she still can't say it because then they'll know there's nothing at all she can do to make it not happen, that she's a liability.
Bow puts a hand on her shoulder. "It won't happen again," he tells her, and she gulps and nods. "We destroyed that evil She-Ra-hating disk."
"Good. I never want to feel that way again."
"A dopey idiot?" Catra says. "I have bad news for you. But whatever. Those robots weren't even tough."
"They were tough," Glimmer argues.
"Nah."
"You weren't there for the wall-cleaning bot, it…"
Bow tugs gently at the side of Adora's sleeve. "Soooo Adora," he says, slowing down. "I wanted to talk to you about how things went with everybody."
Ahead of them, Glimmer and Catra start to get distant.
"Well I, uh, I don't really remember half of it," Adora says, laughing awkwardly. "Or like, any of it after stabbing the first robot."
"Yeah...but, the thing is..." He slows down to a crawl and his voice drops. "So...Catra...was with me...when we bumped into the kitchen staff…"
"Catra just gets hungry a lot," Adora defends. "She has a fast metabolism."
"Huh? No!" He catches himself, drops his voice again. "It's not that. But she said some really disturbing stuff to them. Or, about them. I said they should come with us to help save you guys, and they said that, you know, they weren't princesses, they didn't have any powers. And Catra said that we should just go and leave them then."
"Oh yeah, Catra never thinks she needs help."
"Nooot exactly." He takes a breath, then it all comes out in a rush: "She, uh, said they were going to all die so we should just leave and find you guys on our own. And I was like, but we can work together, they can totally do stuff! But she said that they wanted to just wait and die so they should just die. And they got, you know, kind of freaked out by that. Because they very much did not want to die. They were staying where they were because it was safe, and they said that, and she started yelling at them that they were going to get torn apart by robots or starve or be crushed when the Horde realized the princess wasn't doing anything and flattened the place."
"Oh."
"I mean...it did convince them to try fighting, I think. But she sounded really...intense... And she said she was sorry she'd fought the robots when we first got attacked there because she would've let the robots have them if she'd known."
"It isn't that she actually wants people dead, she just, it's how she talks," Adora tries to explain. "She says the same stuff about herself. The reason we went into the Whispering Woods the first time was because she was complaining she was going to die of boredom. She probably didn't think anyone would take it seriously."
"She sounded serious," insists Bow.
"She just…" Adora finds herself crossing her arms, holding anxiously onto her own wrists, and she forces them apart and squares her shoulders so she's standing properly. "I don't know...she was always fooling around and being lazy, she said so constantly even in front of instructors, but she hated when she thought other people weren't trying. And she always did really good anyway, so it didn't matter, it shouldn't have mattered, because it worked fine for her. But one of the others, he was always failing training exercises, and this one time, he got separated and Rogelio doubled back and Catra got in the way. She told Rogelio that there wasn't any point paying attention to what was going on with Kyle. He failed the training most of the time so she said we should all just ignore Kyle, since we were supposed to be practicing for what things would really be like and he wouldn't be there after the first time or so. And then we all failed because of the argument." Lonnie and Rogelio were too busy railing at Catra that it wouldn't be her problem because she wouldn't be there at all by the time it was real to hear the next set of bots appear.
"That's really mean."
"She just gets frustrated at things. Kyle tried to talk to her later but…" Adora wasn't sure what, exactly. She'd only showed up once the shouting and screaming started. She'd wrestled Catra off Kyle, then Catra had started bawling and clawed up her arm to get loose. "It didn't go well, and she ran off. I sat with her and she calmed down and she never brought it up again. Maybe she just...she wasn't wrong, really."
Bow gives her a disbelieving look. "You think she wasn't?"
"I kept thinking Kyle would get better at things, but he didn't."
"That's not...people don't have to be good at something to have value. You shouldn't abandon people just because they're not good enough at something."
"We weren't abandoning anyone! It's not like it was our choice!"
Glimmer appears. "Hey! Hey, you guys okay back here?"
"Yeah!" Bow and Adora say at once. Well ahead of them, Catra is now looking back quizzically.
Glimmer gives Adora an encouraging smile. "Great! So, there's this huge rock up ahead that really needs smashing. And since She-Ra's not sick anymore...she should probably smash it!" Glimmer pounds her fist into her palm.
And that seems to be the end of it.
For supper that night, Bow decides they could use a 'hot meal' and Adora watches with interest as he gathers wood into a pile and sets it alight. So do they eat while they're around the fire, or…?
He gets a bowl with a long handle and holds it over the fire. So they and the food both get hot. Hot food eaten in a hot place. Yeah, she's getting the hang of this finally.
"My mighty Kitchen Knights gave me some teeny sausages before we left," Bow tells her, putting them in the bowl.
"Ooh!" Catra says, shoving her face over the fire.
Adora grabs her by the collar and pulls her back. "You're going to get burned."
"Sausages."
Bow says, "It'll take a few minutes before they're cooked." He shakes the handle, causing them to roll around, and a couple slide over the edge. "Whoops!"
Glimmer laughs. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire, again. Maybe I should be cooking."
"Oh no you shouldn't."
One of the sausages pops and rolls off to the side. Catra snatches it off the ground and shoves it in her mouth.
"Catra! Don't do that!" Glimmer tells her.
"Yeah, Catra," Adora agrees. "You'll burn your tongue."
"Es finn," Catra manages. She swallows. "Barely got hot at all."
There's no way to get the other sausages out so they stay where they are and char until they're indistinguishable from the burnt sticks, but there's still plenty left in the pan for them all to eat.
And they really do taste better hot, though Catra disagrees and says the first one was better.
"Probably because it was practically raw," Glimmer says. "You can't eat raw sausage!"
"Totally did." Catra sticks out her tongue.
And there's something nice about just being by a hot flickery thing.
"Awwwwwwww," Adora and Catra whine when Glimmer douses the fire.
"Sorry, but we can't leave it burning while we're asleep. It's not safe."
"What do you mean?" Catra complains.
Bow elaborates, "The sparks and embers from even a tiny fire can get blown away by the wind, and sometimes when they land they'll start burning and then the whole forest is on fire. It doesn't happen much, but, better safe than sorry!"
"The whole forest?" Adora echos.
"Yeah. Not everywhere's like the Whispering Woods. Regular trees can be really vulnerable."
Catra sighs. "I guess I don't want to actually be on fire."
"Exactly."
Adora yawns, which makes Glimmer and Bow yawn.
"It's been a long day," Bow says.
"A long, productive day," Glimmer corrects. "Entrapta's the first princess who's really seemed interested in joining up and fighting the Horde. We can go to sleep with the knowledge of a job well done." Then she lets out a little squeal. "Seriously, Mom's going to be so impressed!"
That's a nice thought to sleep on. Adora lies down and closes her eyes and thinks about how, despite everything, nothing terrible actually happened today.
"Adora."
She jerks awake, heart racing, and meets the panicked eyes of a just-awoken Catra.
"Did you hear...?" she whispers.
"I don't know," Catra whispers back.
"I thought I heard Shadow Weaver…"
"She can't be here." But Catra's voice is hushed, like she's just as afraid of being heard.
"It's because of what happened," Adora says with horrible conviction. "She-Ra failed. She-Ra failed and Shadow Weaver saw it. She's been watching us this whole time. I'm such an idiot. The boat that attacked the Sea Gate was sent after us, she knew we were there. She's seen everything. And now she knows how weak I am."
"No. No, she can't be here. She wouldn't. She's always there! She never leaves."
Not back then, but back then, they hadn't left.
"And, and, She-Ra's fixed again," Catra insists. "And it wasn't magic that did it, it was robots and computers and Shadow Weaver doesn't do that stuff, she wouldn't know how to replicate it."
"Like it'd be hard to find someone else to help with it in the entire Horde?" Adora's voice is getting higher and she claps her hands over her mouth before she gets too loud. It's dark everywhere, they won't even be able to see it coming.
"If she could make you sick again you'd already be sick," Catra says. "So she can't, okay? And...she's just one princess, and she's not in charge of us anymore. If She-Ra can lose, then Shadow Weaver can."
It's a comforting thought, but not so comforting that they can close their eyes again.