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It’s over.
The thought kept echoing through the back of Adora’s mind as she swept through blades of grass with her left hand and returned Catra’s grasp with her right. Every so often, she would turn her head to either side and just watch her dearest friends breathe: Bow was practically humming through his lips, watching the stars in the pale pink sky above glint as if they were winking at him, their friend and admirer; Glimmer started giggling every so often, whispering delightedly, “I can’t believe it,” either to herself or to all of Etheria; and Catra’s chest rose and fell steadily, like she was in contented slumber. Her quiet but constant purr had brought a smile to Adora’s face—hours ago now—that would not fade.
It’s over. The war’s over and we can breathe.
There was plenty of work ahead. Even in this moment of bliss, Adora could not help but to start listing the tasks to address. Villages and kingdoms had to be rebuilt. Refugees had to be resettled in their homes. Alliances had to be mended. A whole universe of magic had to be restored. Had to, had to, had to—
Catra rolled onto her side to face Adora. She opened her eyes slowly—but closed them abashedly when she caught sight of Adora gazing back at her.
“Creep,” Catra mumbled, her crinkled nose betraying her outright glee. Adora’s smile grew wider when she noticed Catra’s fangs poking into her bottom lip, almost as if she was biting back her own grin.
A soft breeze rustled through the meadow, carrying the scents of revived fields and groves near them. The aromas were so new and intense that Adora wondered if the entire planet had suddenly bloomed when She-Ra released the Heart. When she released it, Adora corrected herself. She brushed her thumb over Catra’s knuckles, tracing an arc from the base of her index finger to her wrist. When we freed Etheria—together.
The sky grew saturated with hues of blue and violet, and the stars shone brighter for it. Adora extended her free arm towards a constellation just above the horizon, catching a glowing wisp on her palm as she did so. Rotating her hand about to drop and catch the little light, she let the wisp fall once more to float just above her face. When it inevitably drifted down onto her nose, she couldn’t help but laugh at the slight tickle of heat and from the memory of how these specks made Catra sneeze on Krytis.
Almost as if on cue—or as if Adora had unwittingly willed it to happen—a wisp landed on the edge of Catra’s lip. Catra lifted her head from the ground and shuddered involuntarily.
“No no no—achoo!” Catra immediately scowled as everyone else broke out into laughter. Bow even sandwiched his cheeks between his hands as he kicked out his feet like a giddy toddler.
“The cutest sneeze! It’s just the best and cutest sneeze in all of Etheria!”
“Is not!” Catra growled.
“Oh, but. It. Is.” Bow clapped between words for emphasis.
“Gotta say, it’s a pretty great sneeze.” Glimmer drew her fingers through the air to create a glyph that burst into little streams of confetti light. “So great, we just have to celebrate it.”
Catra nudged closer to Adora and groaned into the red jacket. “Is this going to happen every time? You’re going to insist on embarrassing me every time?” Now with Catra’s face pressed into her torso, Adora invested a little bit more effort into suppressing her laughter.
“Yes, yes we are!” Bow announced, sitting up and proudly placing his fists on his hips. “We insist on embarrassing you, because we are a family, and that’s what families do—”
Bow stopped abruptly with a gasp, hopping to his feet as the next rush of words came tumbling out. “Dads! My dads are probably worried sick about me and where I am and—”
“And,” Glimmer assured him as she rose to be by his side, “we are going to find them, safe and sound.”
Bow’s shoulders drooped with the release of a long sigh. “I just hope George didn’t hurt himself with any of those arrows.”
Glimmer shook her head as she giggled at the image. Lacing her fingers through Bow’s, she looked down at Adora with a slightly worried expression. “We’ll be right back, I swear.”
Adora’s smile didn’t waver for a second. “I know.” She raised up her hand to meet Glimmer’s, holding it gently for a moment before releasing. “Go. I know you’ll come back.”
Tears started to well up in the corners of Glimmer’s eyes, which she quickly brushed away with her fingertips. Bow placed the edge of his thumb below her chin to lift her gaze to meet his. The pair leaned in closer to one another until the bridge of Bow’s nose was pressed to Glimmer’s forehead. Then in a shimmer, they were gone.
In the distance, the rebels were still celebrating their victory. If she focused enough, Adora could identify the individual voices of her friends, exclaiming delight and relief. She thought she picked up the sound of Micah profusely apologizing to the other princesses. It must have been Micah, because the next thing she heard was Frosta protesting for him to stop apologizing and to rest. The distinct clinking thud of ice fists punctuated her point.
Adora snorted through her nose and murmured, “I guess Glimmer’s going to have three dads soon.”
“Huh?” Catra squinted at her, tail flicking from side to side.
Adora laughed again as she turned to match Catra’s posture. She scooted even closer so their foreheads could touch, their knees could press together. “Don’t worry about it.”
“No, what’d you say?”
“It’s nothing…” Adora trailed off, wanting to share what she had seen, but also worrying that it was too much information.
A wish. Prime’s taunt called out to her. Shocked her. Her eyes grew wide with the fear that he was still here somewhere, maybe even in her head.
Then the pressure of Catra’s hand on hers grounded her. Adora felt her face relax as she found peace in Catra’s mismatched eyes. It is a beautiful wish, Adora thought, and I might actually live to see it come true.
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Okay,” Catra accepted, smirking slightly, “we’ve got time.”
Somehow, Adora’s grin cracked even wider and brighter. Time—what a marvelous thing. She had never believed that time belonged to her. It had never been on her side before. And yet…
Here they were, scarred and exhausted, but reunited and smiling. Seconds, minutes, and hours kept passing. No new fault lines had burst open beneath them. No enemy ships were on the horizon. They were safe, free to let the time tick away without anxiously anticipating what the next moment might bring. Adora brought Catra’s hand to her own chest so the love of her life could feel her heartbeat, strong and fast. Catra’s breath caught in her throat, eroding the last of her playfully apathetic façade. She couldn’t hide the rosiness in her cheeks or the wet shine of her eyes.
“Wow…” Adora whispered, completely enraptured, “you’re so beautiful.”
A shiver ran through Catra’s fur, but she tried to fake a hiss as a distraction. “You’re delirious!”
Adora surged forward from her place in the grass to plant a kiss on Catra’s cheek. “And you’re gorgeous!”
Catra pulled her hand out of Adora’s to shield her face, giggling behind her fingers. “Stop, you sap!”
Adora took Catra’s wrists and placed them behind her own neck, pulling the other girl in as she pecked at every freckle on Catra’s face and shoulders. “Beautiful!” Another kiss. “Gorgeous!” Another kiss. “Lovely!”
Despite Catra’s squirming, Adora managed to wedge her face in the crook of Catra’s neck, where she placed her lips to blow a ridiculously loud raspberry.
“Oh, now you’re going to get it!” Catra threatened, eyes flickering with mischief. Adora then felt the tips of Catra’s claws in her armpits.
“No—fair! You always—win these!” Adora huffed in between squeals of laughter, shifting from side to side in failed attempts to escape from Catra’s nimble fingers.
Catra stuck her tongue out at Adora and sneered, but she couldn’t help herself from laughing at Adora’s sounds and motions. “The tickle champion reigns victorious!”
Adora snorted again. “And what does the tickle champion claim as her prize?”
The tickling stopped abruptly. Adora suddenly found her back pushed into the ground, Catra leaning down overhead. Just a fraction of an inch separated their noses now. The air, the wisps—the whole meadow seemed to still. Catra tilted and lowered her head even closer.
“This.”
Closing the last bit of space between them, she gently brought their lips together and Adora could have sworn that the whole planet had disappeared. Every thought in her mind evaporated. All she knew was what she felt: this kiss, these hands on her shoulders, this warmth emanating from her face and permeating every ounce of her body.
Adora could feel Catra’s lips taking the shape of her classic, smug smirk. “You’re doing it again.”
Eyes still closed, consumed by the moment, Adora reluctantly pulled away to ask, “Wait, what am I doing?”
Catra chuckled and cupped Adora’s confused face. “You’re glowing.”
Adora’s eyelids fluttered open, but she remained dazed from the kiss. “I’d say you’re pretty radiant, too.”
“No, dummy,” Catra groaned, “you’re literally glowing!”
Sure enough, Adora’s whole body was emitting a technicolor light. Bathed in Adora’s glow, the meadow seemed to come more alive: small flowers sprung up at the boundary between the grass and the trees, their petals unfurling in a dance-like sequence; creatures tittered in the shadows, stepping out just enough for their nearly translucent antlers to be illuminated; even the rainbow above them grew more vivid, each color gaining a depth and intensity that neither of them had ever seen in nature before.
A simple and breathless “wow” passed Adora’s lips before the glow faded, shrinking back like a wave crashing and retreating from the shore to the sea. The last trace of light was in her eyes—the vibrant blue of her irises shined even brighter in the moment that she found Catra staring at her intently, but the glow completely subsided when she cast her sight down at the ground.
Catra brushed a loose strand of hair behind Adora’s ear. “What’s wrong?”
“No, no, nothing’s wrong,” Adora swiftly corrected, letting her hands fidget idly with the tear in her jacket and shirt. She could sense her face heating up—now from embarrassment.
“Adora. What is it?”
Adora didn’t quite know what to say. She tugged harder at the frayed cloth, accidentally ripping an even larger hole and exposing more skin.
Catra hooked a fang out of the corner of her smirk. “Trouble keeping your clothes on around me?”
“Catra!” Adora flushed scarlet and finally looked up from the grass to lock eyes with Catra. She inhaled sharply at the sight of Catra’s still blushing cheeks, her mussed-up hair, her twitching ears—she had to kiss her again.
Both of them buried their fingers in the other’s hair, gripping each other tightly. Catra purred, Adora hummed—and the glow returned. Curiosity got the better of Adora, causing her to peek out and check if her suspicion was proven right.
“Ah, it’s just the effect you have on me, love.”
Catra pulled back in an instant, Adora’s radiance disappearing just as fast. Adora’s hands retreated to her sides, fussing with her belt.
“Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
Catra put an end to her frantic babbling, not with any words nor with any show of strength—but with silent tears. One bead rolled down her cheek to the line of her jaw. Adora caught it with the pad of her thumb.
“Catra, I—”
“You called me love.” Catra rubbed at her eyes, but tears still escaped from underneath the heels of her palms. Her breath was starting to stutter as she repeated herself. “You… you called me love.”
Worry and shame melted off of Adora. Tenderly and patiently, she placed her hands over Catra’s to usher them away from Catra’s face. She wanted Catra to see her.
“Yes, love.”
Adora embraced Catra, laying down so the other girl could rest her head on her chest. Catra continued to cry, even harder now, racking sobs shaking through her. Adora rubbed her back up and down, whispering, “Yes, love,” over and over into the evening air.
“I thought…” Catra whimpered, muffling her confession into Adora’s shirt. The tide of pain kept coming in, the floodgates were breaking. “I thought you were dead.”
Adora’s hand stilled between Catra’s shoulder blades. Night was falling, the moons dipping below the horizon. The meadow had grown quieter, as the rebels had probably broken camp and decided to return to what was left of their home at Bright Moon.
Home.
“I couldn’t hear your heart anymore, I couldn’t hear you breathing anymore, I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead.”
Feeling Catra’s tears soak through the fabric on her chest and her own tears streaking down into her ears, Adora laughed a bit perversely at her own brain.
“Yeah, I thought I was too,” she admitted, stroking an ellipse about the vertebrae just below Catra’s neck. She repeated the motion, minute after minute, to calm herself, but it seemed to be soothing Catra as well. The power of Catra’s crying fully waned until her breathing returned to normal—or as normal as could be in her state of physical and emotional exhaustion.
“I thought I was dead, but I had to come home,” Adora sighed, burrowing her nose and lips in the mass of Catra’s tousled hair so that not another soul could possibly hear her last words. They were only for this girl in her arms. “I had to come home to you, love.”
At that, Catra nuzzled into Adora’s neck with a groan. “Are you trying to make me cry even harder, you dork?”
Adora scoffed in mock offense. “Is that what I get for saying something heartfelt?”
Catra lifted her head just enough to show her exaggerated expression of exasperation. “Absolutely!” She dove back down into Adora’s neck, tickling with the soft fur of her cheeks. Adora started to laugh and thrash beneath her. “You’ve admitted your undying love for me and saved the universe in the same day, I can’t handle you turning into a sweet talker on top of all that!”
“Too bad!” Adora yelled, grabbing Catra by the waist and flipping their positions. It was decidedly her turn to have the upper hand in the tickle fight by now. “I’m going to sweet talk you—” she declared, teasing at Catra’s stomach with her fingertips “—and love you—” she added, grazing the hollow of Catra’s neck “—every chance I get!”
Catra could not contain her peals of high-pitched laughter any more than Adora could contain her affection. She gave up the fight and relented to her own desire to kiss Catra—on the fine black fur of her ears, on the crest of her forehead, on the corner of her jaw, on her lips. On her lips.
On her lips.
They could’ve stayed entwined and entranced in that embrace, hugging each other with their lips locked and their joyous tears mingling, for the rest of the night—if Bow and Glimmer hadn’t teleported right behind them.
“Don’t you guys think you should get a room?” Glimmer goaded with her arms crossed. Bow, on the other hand, gasped behind his clasped hands.
“Adora’s glowing—Glimmer, she’s glowing!”
Catra growled, just loud enough for Adora to hear, and pulled away to respond, “Actually, Sparkles, I think we’re doing pretty well out here.” Then she caught Adora in another kiss, this one especially searing and intense for the benefit and annoyance of their new audience.
“Unbelievable,” Glimmer spat, “that you call me Sparkles when you’re making out with a human nightlight!”
“Well, technically,” Bow broke in, “an alien nightlight.”
Catra tore herself from Adora’s face breathlessly to shout, “Wait, WHAT?”
“Ohh-kay,” Adora interrupted, rising up from the admittedly compromising position of straddling Catra’s thighs, “We should probably head to the castle and check on everyone, right?” She extended a hand to help Catra up off the ground, but didn’t want to leave enough conversational space for Catra to ask her question again, the next time probably more vehement and demanding. “How are your dads, Bow?”
Bow regaled them with tales of George and Lance’s misguided archeological adventures as they ambled slowly to Bright Moon, all of them wondering a little apprehensively about what they might find. Adora rested a hand on Glimmer’s shoulder, both as a show of comfort and concern.
“Are you okay?”
Glimmer nodded subtly, her eyes on her feet while she mulled over the question. The world had changed in just a day, but she was still queen.
She nodded once more, more forcefully this time. Confident. Ready. She glanced over at Adora and Catra, who was leaning into Adora’s side as they walked. “Are you?” she asked both of them.
Catra smiled, shaking her head on Adora’s shoulder. “Hm. Not yet.”
Adora agreed. “Not yet. But we will be.”
Bow turned around with a twirl when he saw the spires of the castle over the tree line. He ran up to Glimmer and pulled her into an enormous hug in celebration. “The Best Couples Squad is almost home!”
Catra yelled into the woods, “You are not calling us that!”