Polythene Jen (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jengrrrl) wrote,@ 2008-01-01 11:39:00 |
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| Current mood: |  accomplished |
| Entry tags: | fic-she-ra, yuletide07 |
FIC: The Death of Myth-Making [She-Ra] (Cat(ra)/Adora), Part 1
“The Death of Myth-Making” by Jengrrrl
[She-Ra] (Cat/Adora)
This is an AU of the "She-Ra" animated series, told from Cat(ra)'s point of view. Cat/Adora. Contains violence, strong language, and sexuality.
20,130 words
adult
A/N: I forgot to thank the people who were kind enough to look over this in its sadly unfinished state: ripptyd, littleceasar2, and ishfeeny.
For the first time in weeks, the sky above Etheria was clear. The dark clouds that had brought rain to the land had dissipated to nothingness, and all that remained in their wake was a blue sky, so bright it hurt to look at. The land was clean, the hillside a deep green.
Cat lay on grass and stared out across the valley below. Beside her, Adora sat slumped over, idly playing with still-damp earth before reclining onto her elbows with a sigh. “We’ll get caught.”
“We won’t get caught.” Behind them, one of the ponies whinnied softly. Cat turned her head and saw Adora’s pony, Spirit, stomp playfully at something on the ground before bowing its head to graze once more. “Besides, you won’t be punished.”
“You will.”
“I don’t care,” she replied, straightening and squinting as she gazed below. From their vantage on the hill, they could see most of the eastern side of the village of Vivid. “Look, a wedding.”
Adora sat up, arm brushing Cat’s. “Silly,” she murmured.
People streamed out of one of the larger buildings, and it looked like half the population had shown up for the event. The women wore gowns, the men suits; they were in their finest clothes, which were only slightly better than what most peasants could afford, Cat knew. (She still had dream-like memories of her earliest years, spent in a town not unlike this one). The bride and groom were mobbed by well-wishers, but Cat could still make out the blinding white of the bride’s dress. “Why silly?” she asked, eyes drinking in the sight of the couple’s kiss as distant cheering filled her ears.
“What’s the use of it?”
Cat shrugged and dropped onto her back once more, eyes searching the sky for nothing at all. “I’ll marry you, when I’m older.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re a girl.”
“I’ll dress as a boy, and we won’t have to marry anyone else. We’ll run away and have adventures.”
“Adventures?” Adora laughed a little meanly. “I’m going to be an officer in Horde Prime’s army.”
Cat resisted the urge to sneer. She fisted her hand around a tuft of weeds and pulled. She wondered if she’d sounded like that only a year ago, when she’d turned thirteen. By then, she’d been under Hordak’s protection for five years. Adora… she’d been in his care her entire life. And maybe that was where the fascination stemmed from. Because though Cat knew she’d end up there--she’d already begun rudimentary firearm training--Horde Prime meant nothing special. It had been chosen for her, like so many things.
“I’ll be Force Captain by the time I’m twenty, you’ll see.”
“Now who’s being stupid? You won’t even start Basic until you’re sixteen.”
“Still.” Cat turned her head and saw Adora pouting. She pouted beautifully--her arms crossed, her lower lip jutting out just so.
Cat’s mouth curled into a grin and she relented, as she always did. She wondered if she always would. “All right, all right,” she said. “You’ll probably be Force Captain by the time you’re 18, okay?”
Won over, Adora scooted closer to Cat, propping her head on one hand. She tugged on a strand of Cat’s hair, and Cat felt her smile soften. “You can kiss me.”
“What?” Startled as she was, Cat tried not to show it. It was a game they’d been playing since childhood. Adora tried to shock, and Cat tried to pretend she was fazed by nothing.
“You can, if you want. Sea Hawk—I mean Alec, the boy who hangs around the stables—sometimes he wants to, but I say no. If you want to marry me, you might as well kiss me.”
Cat didn’t think about it. She leaned in and placed a brief kiss on Adora’s mouth, which tasted, ever faintly, of the cider they’d had before riding out. When she moved back, sinking onto the ground with a soft sigh, Adora tentatively licked her lips. “I don’t like that pirate, sneaking into the Sector and asking you for kisses.”
Adora smiled. “He’s not a pirate. His father’s a fisherman. This season he’s on the Sea of Bright Moon.”
“Then he should be called Sea Dog.”
Giggling, Adora amended, “Sea Monkey!”
Cat laughed, and was about to say more when a renewed flurry in the valley caught her eye. An older model black sedan had arrived to take the bride and groom away. The villagers had brought out a large cage full of birds and started to release them.
“Doves?”
“They’re a symbol of peace,” Cat explained, keeping her gaze trained on the birds as they took flight, their bodies curving gracefully into the wind.
“Who needs symbols when there’s a war to be fought?”
Cat rolled her eyes. She recognized the words. They were Hordak’s. She was about to tell Adora, Don’t you have something of your own to say? when gunshots rang out.
She sat up quickly, heart in her throat. Beside her, Adora had done the same; she reached out and gripped Cat’s hand tightly.
Cat exhaled heavily when she saw what had happened. “Oh.” The wedding party was departing, and a few men had pulled out revolvers, were firing into the air. “They’re just celebrating,” she said, smoothing her thumb across Adora’s palm.
“They shouldn’t have guns.” Adora’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe they’re rebels.”
“They’re not,” Cat replied, suddenly irritated.
“But the guns…”
“Maybe they’re shooting at the doves,” Cat half-joked.
“Either way. We should tell Weaver.”
Sighing, Cat nodded. “Fine.” She looked back at the villagers, sorry their day’s happiness would be ruined when Prime soldiers went to search their homes. Still, they shouldn’t have had guns…
She stood and brushed dirt off the back of her riding pants. “Let’s go.” As she reached her pony and took hold of its bridle, Cat paused and looked over at Adora, who’d already mounted Spirit. “Was that your first kiss?” she asked. Adora looked startled for a moment before her face turned pink and she nodded. “Good.” Adora’s blush intensified, and she looked away.
“Hey, Cat?”
Cat put one foot in a stirrup and swung over her horse, felt it take a few steps before stopping as she reached to stroke its mane. “What?”
“You think he named you because of your eyes. Because they’re green, like a cat’s?” Once she’d gone into Hordak’s care, he’d renamed her; Cat he’d begun to call her, without giving reason. After so many years, she couldn’t remember her real name, what her mother had called her. Though sometimes, in the dead of night, she tried.
“What a funny question,” Cat replied, shrugging. “I don’t know. He says I’m his favorite pet.”
Adora’s face fell. “Favorite?”
“You’re still his favorite person.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean…”
“Forget it,” Cat replied. She dug her heels into the side of her horse and took off without another glance, hair whipped up by the wind. Behind her, she could hear Adora urging Spirit on, could hear hoofs pounding the ground.
This race, Cat would win.
--
She coughs violently, thinking she’ll drown once and for all. The cloth that has been placed over her face is removed and she lurches against her restraints, gasping for air. The knot that binds one of her wrists is loose and she thinks, for one delirious moment, that she might free herself. But when she tries yanking her arm out of its hold, she manages only to wrench her shoulder. Something in the joint pops and she bites the inside of her mouth to keep from screaming. One of the men in the room snickers. The other, the one standing over her holding the rag, rings the water out of it over her eyes and she flinches as the scruff of his days-old beard blurs. “Well?” he asks.
“What?” she sputters, dazed. She feels her eyes roll back in her head and, suddenly, a hard slap on the cheek. It stings badly, manages to rouse her from her near-faint.
“This is all in your hands,” the man says. “You can end this now. Tell us.”
“I don’t know what you want,” she rasps. “I don’t know anything.”
The man stretches his arms over his head and groans as though he is very tired of her games. As he scratches his beard, he leans over her again, so close all she can focus on is the thick copper-colored mustache that hovers above. “I wish you wouldn’t force us to do this,” he murmurs. In her delirium, she thinks him kind.
“I don’t know anything,” she repeats.
He gazes at her somberly and shakes his head, moving slowly, deliberately, as he places the cloth back over her face. As soon as he does, her heart hammers painfully in her chest. “No, wait…” she begins, but her words are cut short and there is water in her mouth and down her nose and in her lungs and everywhere. All she can hear is that water pounding in her ears, and the erratic beating of her heart as she struggles uselessly.
Her world goes dark.
--
She dreams of water. A large body of water, perhaps a lake (though not the sea; this is familiar, and she’s never been to the sea), the kind she hasn’t seen since she was a small child in the Northlands. When she had a mother, maybe a father--though she can remember neither. In her dream she is submerged and there is no way to surface, no reprieve. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to swallow, but she does not die. The lake holds her prisoner, gives no quarter. Still she does not die.
She dreams of water.
--
She wakes up shivering, the sounds of voices coming from the other side of the cell door. Not really a cell; she is in no government-run prison. This is a room, small and bare and dingy; once white-washed walls have turned brown, moldy. The floor is cold concrete, absolute gray. Only one small cot furnishes the enclosure, and she lies upon it now, eyes half-closed as she stares through near-darkness at the door, the three heavy locks that reinforce it glinting, catching little bits of light that seep in from underneath. The words she hears are muffled, but she knows someone is arguing.
She is parched, her thirst seizing her unexpectedly and completely. The irony of it strikes her cruelly as she works her throat, thick saliva sticking to the inside of her mouth. She raises a shaky hand to her lips, runs her fingertips along their chapped surface. She thinks that maybe drowning--the real sort--is preferable to this long, torturous death.
The door opens, letting in a bright, hurtful light that makes her wince and blink. She doesn’t dare close her eyes for want of seeing what is coming. She sits up as best she can, readying for anything as a figure approaches. In shadow, it looms large, and just as she is expecting to be hauled to her feet, she is instead wrapped beneath a heavy woolen blanket which scratches her bare arms and shoulders, but which nonetheless tamps down the overwhelming cold she’s been feeling.
The figure kneels in front of her, and it is close enough now that she can make out features and the color of hair and eyes, the hue of tanned skin. This man’s stubble is sparse, his expression kind. “Do you need something else?” he asks.
“Water,” she replies, something itching the back of her throat. She wishes she could reach in and scratch.
He nods and stands, leaves the room. When he returns a few minutes later (she’d begun to wonder if he would return), he brings with him a glass of water and a plate of food. She hadn’t even realized she was hungry until the smell of braised beef reached her nostrils. She takes both items eagerly, drinking first, water running down her chin before she is satisfied. Then she begins sopping up the stew with a hard roll, not caring how desperate she looks as she stuffs the bread in her mouth. It is then she notices a fork, and she begins eating in earnest. “So you’re the good one,” she says, once she’s swallowed her third or fifth mouthful. “That’s the method?”
“Good one,” he repeats. “No. I’m sorry about what’s happened here. We don’t do this.”
“My burning lungs say otherwise.”
“It was a mistake,” he replies, his face a mystery. He runs his fingers through his short, blond hair and sighs, looking as weary as the other man had, his blue eyes ringed black. “We still need information.”
“I don’t have any.”
He grits his teeth, working his jaw as he stands and paces the length of the room, just a few steps in either direction. He looks to her like a caged animal, like he’s the prisoner. “The uniform you were wearing named you Force Captain.” She shrugs. “This isn’t the time to play stupid.”
“If not now, when?” she murmurs, half to herself.
His fist hits a wall, not hard. She can see that beneath his carefully constructed veneer of civility, he holds his frustration tightly checked. “We’ll keep you here as long as necessary.”
“It doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t. No one will come for her. No deal will be offered. She can die and rot. Hordak does not negotiate with rebels.
“We need what you know.”
“I don’t know anything that could be of any use to you.”
The man leans against the far wall and tips his head back, bumping it. “Your interrogator thought you were about to talk before you passed out.”
She almost laughs. “I would have told him the sky is green and the ocean red if I’d thought it would stop him.” The man nods dully as she continues, “You know, if you want to keep claiming the moral high ground…”
“I said it was a mistake. We haven’t killed anyone--”
“Really,” she interrupts, incredulous.
“Not innocents,” he stutters. “Not when we can help it.” He leans forward and, for the first time, he’s almost menacing. “How many have you killed?” Temper flares in his eyes and it is then that she sees it, then that she asks:
“What’s your name?” When he hesitates, she adds, “You need information. So do I.”
“Adam.”
Cat nods, her suspicion confirmed. She knows he isn’t lying. Holding his gaze steady, she almost smiles and whispers, “You look like her.”
--
The gym smelled of mildew and sweat and every time Cat found herself face down on the mat, she inhaled chalk dust.
A knee was wedged against the small of her back, her arms held in a tight grip above her head. Cheek flush to the floor, Cat considered her situation carefully, wondering if there was any sane way of getting out of Adora’s hold or whether she’d have to expend all her remaining energy in further humiliation.
“Had enough?” Adora had the nerve to sound amused. Cat grunted. “Say the word and I’ll let you up.”
There was no use prolonging the inevitable. Several privates who’d stopped to watch laughed when Cat languidly murmured “Bitch” and the weight on her back lifted. She jumped into a crouch and she was suddenly in a hold again, Adora’s arms wrapped around her like tentacles. One around her waist, the other up around her arm and behind her neck. “Is that all you’ve got?” Cat sputtered, clearly overpowered but not willing to let that get her down. “You should know,” she said, twisting in place, trying desperately to get a toehold, “that everyone here thinks you stuff your bra because no one’s tits could possibly be that great.”
It was enough, just a second, but enough, for Adora to falter, to let her grip slip a scintilla, for Cat to slide out and under, sweeping her leg beneath Adora’s in an attempt to knock her off balance. In less than two seconds, she had Adora in a choke hold, but she knew it wouldn’t last. “Everyone’s welcome to check out my great tits.” The men in the gym hooted and whistled as Adora grunted, shifting her weight on her legs, almost pulling Cat off her completely. But Cat hung on out of sheer stubbornness. Then Adora murmured, low so only Cat could hear, “But yours are amazing…”
Trash talk was all it was, but the way Adora said it, silky smooth and almost a whisper, sent a shiver down Cat’s spine. Adora took the moment and ran with it, easily unmooring Cat, knocking her down and pinning her beneath the weight of Adora’s entire body. She was straddling her and grinning, and there was nothing Cat could do to wipe the smirk off her face. “Turn about’s fair play, Cat,” Adora said, loudly this time, for the benefit of their audience. She leaned in and winked and before Cat could see what she was up to, had her hand on Cat’s breast. Squeezed. “Oh, yeah. Amazing. Much better than mine.” The soldiers watching laughed loudly as Cat’s face burned. She slapped Adora’s hand away and struggled violently until Adora got the picture and got up and off her.
Cat immediately jumped into a fighting stance, thinking that if she couldn’t get the upper hand, at least she’d smack the smile off Adora’s face. But Adora was right there with her, already throwing punches, countering Cat’s moves. Cat dodged most of the blows, considered grappling again except Adora was too good a wrestler and she’d win that fight again. So Cat leaned back, evaded a succession of punches and swiveled to kick. It wasn’t until she was on her back--sucking in air and clutching her midsection--that she saw her mistake, but by then it was too late. Above her, Adora was still wearing that shit-eating grin. She held out her hand, but Cat refused, rolling onto her side with a groan.
Adora crouched beside her. “Did I hurt you?” she asked, not sounding all that sympathetic.
Cat didn’t reply. She stood up slowly, exhaling through her teeth as she walked to a side bench and grabbed for a towel. She wiped her face roughly.
“Hey.” Adora put a hand on Cat’s shoulder. “Really, did I hurt you?”
“No,” was the muffled reply, and Cat threw the towel down, grabbed her gear and headed for the door. She didn’t look back, but she could hear Adora scuttling to follow. Within the moment, she was striding alongside Cat, looking down at her with a guarded smile.
“You’re not mad, are you?”
“Why would I be mad?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not mad, Adora.”
They passed through a series of double doors until they were out in frigid air. Cat dropped her bag and headed for a water fountain, drinking as Adora hovered. When she’d had her fill, she stepped away and let Adora have her turn. “Are you sneaking off with that pirate again tonight?”
Adora leaned back from the stream of water, eyes narrowed as she wiped her mouth. “How’d you know about that?”
Cat rolled her neck, twisted her torso and winced when her body reminded her of her injury. “You’re not that great at keeping secrets.”
Adora made a face. “Did Pia tell you?”
“She’s a ridiculous gossip. You should watch who you talk to.” Cat leaned back into the brick façade of the building, raising her hand to feel her ribs. It hurt to breathe, and she idly wondered if she’d broken anything.
“What?”
“I think you cracked my rib.”
“Seriously? Let me see…” Adora brushed Cat’s wandering hand away, and she began an exploration of her own, fingers smoothing carefully along Cat’s ribcage.
“What, are your fingers scanners now?” Cat teased, unable to keep a slight tremor out of her voice. Adora ignored her, touch so gentle it was barely a whisper of skin on skin. She was standing close, her breath warm against Cat’s ear. “Apparently you can’t stop touching me today.”
“That’s because you’re so very pretty,” Adora countered, stepping away and adjusting the cotton shirt back over Cat’s midsection. “Don’t you remember when I broke my rib?”
“That make you an expert?” Cat inhaled, and it felt sharp as a knife. “Spirit threw you--”
“Spirit didn’t throw me. I fell.”
“You fell, and you broke more than a rib. And of course I remember, because I had to carry you back to the Sector, which wasn’t easy because you’d already turned into a giant.”
“A giant?”
“A giant. You’re almost half a foot taller than me, and you weigh as much as an elephant.” Cat couldn’t help herself. She reached out and squeezed the flesh that peeked out beneath Adora’s shirt, finding only soft skin and hard, lean muscle. She held on longer than necessary, and if Adora noticed, she only smiled furtively.
“Fine.” Adora crossed her arms over her chest. She was doing a poor job of pretending to be offended. “You may find me completely unappealing, but there are others…”
Cat dropped her hand. She didn’t need to hear about others; she knew well about others. She walked toward her gear bag, and slung it over her shoulder, trying not to whimper at the resulting pain that coursed down her side. “Who’s supposed to be covering for you?”
“What?”
“For your outing with the pirate. Who’s covering for you? Not Pia.” Adora shrugged, and Cat rolled her eyes. “I’ll do it.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, why? You don’t even like Sea Hawk.”
Cat curled her lip. That stupid moniker. No, she didn’t like the pirate, she never had, and she wanted to ask Adora just what she found so attractive about him. But she didn’t, because she already knew. As a boy, he’d been tall and rail-thin, his coarse black curls cut close to his scalp. In the last couple of years, he’d earned the body of a seaman, let his hair grow unfashionably long. He’d grown a beard, too, which stretched across his cheekbones and lent him an air of danger. At 18, he was a man, and he had all the experience to match. Of course Adora found him attractive. “You start Basic this week,” Cat replied. “Any trouble and that could fall through. Hordak would be displeased.”
“Oh, Hordak would be displeased, would he?”
“Come on, Adora. You’re already on the fast track to becoming Force Captain. Why do you think I’ve bothered training you?”
“Not out of the kindness of your heart?” Adora replied sardonically. Her brows knit together as she looked away, and Cat sensed the bout of anger that seized her. Adora’s temper had always run hot.
“I never do anything out of the kindness of my heart,” Cat replied.
“Bullshit.”
Cat ignored that. “I’m meeting with him later to discuss your progress.” Adora stared sullenly at her feet. “I’m going to tell him I can’t train you anymore.”
That got Adora’s attention. “Why not?”
“Because you’re a brat and I’m afraid you’ll kill me with your brute strength.”
“Ha.”
“Look, we can still shoot together, if you want. I can still teach you something about that.” Cat was proud of her abilities with a gun. Only a year into service and she was already considered one of the best in the corp. “I made sharpshooter with the Elite Squad today.”
“Great. Congratulations.” Adora’s smile was small, but sincere.
“You’re not going to lecture me about how dangerous the assignment is?”
“No, you can handle yourself. In fact, if you were the enemy, I’d make sure to take you out first.” Cat snorted. “Seriously. You’re lethal, Cat.”
--
Cat pulled at her collar, fidgeting as she sat in the anteroom of President Hordak’s office. Prime Sector 9, Presidential Palace. Five miles from the training camps, ten from military HQ. Cat had to make the longer trip in order to don her best uniform, which felt stiff, unnecessarily restrictive. Bored, she traced the outline of the single star on her lapel. Above it, her finger pressed against the edges of the embroidered insignia of Horde Prime.
The door to Hordak’s office opened and his secretary, Lieutenant Leech, walked out. He threw Cat a smile, all teeth, and said, “He’ll be with you soon.”
Cat nodded and managed a fake smile of her own. She was used to this routine. Visiting the president was always the same.
Always the same exchanges, the same amount of time waiting to be let into Hordak’s office. She wondered if it was purposeful. If they kept her staring tediously at the same drab wallpaper, at the same portrait of Hordak that hung opposite where she sat. A plaque proudly proclaimed him the first president of Etheria, first democratically elected ruler and leader of the vast and powerful Horde Prime army. Cat still carried with her the vague recollection of dull history lessons in which she’d learned about Etheria’s monarchical past. But any shadow of that past had long since disappeared. Only the present mattered, and the future.
--
On her way up the wide marble steps that led to the presidential palace, Cat had run across General Weaver, Supreme Commander of all Prime Forces. They’d saluted each other and exchanged pleasantries, as they always did, the fine wrinkles at the corners of Weaver’s eyes deepening as she smiled thinly. “Nice to see you again, Private.”
“Thank you, General. Likewise.”
“How’s Adora’s training coming along?”
“Just fine, ma’am.”
“Good. Well, if ever you need anything, remember the door to my office is always open.”
Cat had stared into Weaver’s long, expressionless face and could think of no reason why she’d ever seek the woman out. “Thank you, General.”
“In to see the president?”
“Yes.”
“Take care with him. He’s upset I’m not on board to invade Sector WW.”
“Ma’am?”
“What a quagmire that would be.” Weaver had seemed to be talking to herself, looking not at Cat, but somewhere over her shoulder. Then, her eyes had focused sharply, keenly, on Cat’s gaze. “Don’t tell him I’ve told you. He wouldn’t approve.”
“Whatever you say, General.”
Weaver had slapped her briefcase absently across her thigh. She was slim--slimmer than she’d been when Cat had first met her--and slightly taller than Cat (though not as tall as Adora). Her uniform was well-tailored; black slacks, boots, black coat with popped collar that reached just above the edges of her short, sandy blonde/gray hair. Black shirt, tie. All black except for the insignias, emblems that gleamed above her heart--too many to count in one sweep. "Let me know how Adora progresses, will you? The president can't stop talking about that girl's potential. I'm hoping she'll live up to it."
"I'm sure she will, General."
--
President Hordak’s office always seemed smaller than Cat remembered it, maybe because the first time she’d ever seen it, she’d been nine years-old. Now it seemed almost tiny, crowded with objects the president had once collected on his travels. He didn’t venture outside Etheria anymore, but in that room he displayed a lifetime of exploration.
He sat behind a dark mahogany desk that almost spanned the width of the office. When she entered, prompted by his secretary, Hordak did not stand. He only surveyed her with a shadow of a smile and said, “How are you, Cat?”
“Fine, sir.”
“Well, I’m so glad. Come and sit down.” And now he stood, pushed his chair back and walked towards a leather divan. He’d taken off his suit jacket and, as they sat side by side, began rolling up his shirt sleeves. As he leaned back on his hands, he really smiled, showing small, even teeth. “How long, kiddo?”
“Sir?”
“Since we last had one of our heart to hearts?”
“Six months, sir.”
“Really? Six months? Gee, I thought I told you to pop in every three.”
“I don’t believe so, sir.”
“Well, there you are. If you don’t believe so, there’s nothing to be done, is there?”
“No, sir.”
Pulling at his salt-and-pepper goatee, he looked at her expectantly. “So…”
“Oh.” She fumbled with the folder she’d been carrying and passed it to him. Inside were officer reports, certified test results--everything and anything that had to do with Adora’s training. He took it without a glance. “Sir, I’m happy to say that Adora’s doing very well--”
“Of course she is.”
“She, uh, has passed all first level exams. Written and physical.”
“Fine. Good, good. And when do you think she’ll be ready to take on second levels?”
“Sir,” Cat replied. “She hasn’t even started Basic and she’s already way ahead.” She paused, thinking he would interrupt again, but he didn’t. He just kept staring at her, his eyes the color of the sky on a foggy morning. Scratching his beard again, he cleared his throat and she took that as a definite cue to add, “She’ll need someone else to train her.”
“Too advanced for you?”
She swallowed the resentment she felt forming in her throat. “Yes.”
Having lost his smile while waiting for her response, Hordak’s mouth now curved into something vaguely patronizing. “Well.”
Dipping her head, Cat stared down at her boots. She’d forgotten to shine them. “Sir…” she began.
“But there’s no shame in that, is there? She’s a special girl.” Cat nodded, but her hands were tight fists on her lap. She hazarded a look at the man beside her. He sat closely, almost too closely, his knee not more than a few inches from hers. Even just sitting there, he towered over her. Someone, somewhere had once told Cat he’d been an amateur boxer in his youth, and he still held himself like one, still had a boxer’s body. His nose had been somewhat flattened, and he kept his chin down even when he made speeches. In newsreels, his pockmarked cheeks and pale skin were concealed with makeup, and his powerful frame gave him the appearance of youth. But, up close, Cat could see all the years that weighed on his shoulders. “And you’ve never really taken Horde Prime all that seriously. Have you, Cat?”
She frowned, then immediately tried to hide her reaction when she saw his answering glare. “I’ve tried to do a good job, sir. I didn’t have many choices when it came to picking a career.”
“You think?”
“With all due respect, yes.”
Hordak surprised her by leaning forward and grinning. He placed a cool hand on her knee. She could feel just how cold his fingers were, even through her uniform slacks. “Cat, my girl, if you’d shown any inclination towards anything, I promise I would have made sure you got all the support you needed. But you never did, kiddo.” He squeezed her knee once, very firmly, and released her, leaning back again. Cat’s entire body went rigid; he’d never touched her so intimately. “Now, let me tell you something about choice. We all make a choice--one important choice in our lives. I made a choice, a very long time ago, to liberate this country from tyranny and to keep it safe. Since then, every other decision I’ve made has been in service of that choice. Adora, she’s chosen to protect Etheria, just like me. She chose that for herself when she was just a child, and that’s why she’s so good at what she does. Now you, Cat, I think, have chosen to follow Adora. So, here you are, incidentally serving your country. Noble, in its own roundabout way.”
Cat’s tongue felt fat in her mouth. “Have I disappointed you, sir?” she managed.
“It’s not a matter of disappointment, is it? I just wanted to make clear you had your choice, Cat, and here you are. You’re a good soldier. You’re loyal to me and this country. That’s all I can ask for, kiddo.” He raised his finger and tilted his head close again. “Let me tell you about another choice I made. I chose to pluck a Northlander orphan out of poverty and bring her here to be raised with all the opportunity in the world. And I did that despite your mother’s crimes, Cat. I knew there was more to you than a feral little creature who’d been birthed by countryside rebels.”
Cat’s throat was beginning to close up. She curled her fingernails into her palm and pressed hard. “You never told me what my mother did.”
“Maybe I will, someday.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“No reason you should. You have another family. Tell me something, Cat. Do you think of me as a father?”
“No,” she answered, replying automatically, without thinking. She searched his face for signs of anger, but found none. He remained impassive.
“Fair enough. A girl only has one father, I suppose. What about Adora, then? Is she your sister?”
Cat shook her head. “No, sir.”
“No?”
Not sure what he wanted to hear, Cat said, “I’ve never had one, so I wouldn’t know. But I don’t think so. More than a friend, but not a sister.”
“All right.” Hordak stood, pulling at his waistband as he headed back to his desk. This was his way of signaling the meeting over. He rubbed his chin as he glanced back at Cat, who had not moved from her position on the divan. “I’ll get Leech to find someone more appropriate for Adora, soldier.”
The term shook Cat out of her daze and she finally stood and nodded. “Sir.”
“That’ll be all.”
“Yes, sir.”
--
Hordak:
My fellow Etherians: First, let me begin by saying that today our nation is stronger than at any other time in its history. Good Etherians everywhere are united in the cause of keeping this great country together. There is uncertainty, to be sure, but let us, as a people, hold firm and unwavering in our resolve to keep those few elements in our society from harming the whole.
We are patriots. We hold dear the promises of the Fatherland, hold dear all that it has already given us: security and prosperity, hearth and family. This is why it is vital we nurture this young democracy of ours. Why we must, with the very core of our being, fight against those that seek to destroy us from within. Together we are everything; apart we are nothing.
We still have much to do in order to rid our homeland of those that wish us harm, but I am proud to announce that today we have captured at least ten rebels outside of Sector WW. Unfortunately, this region of our country continues to suffer under the yoke of ruthless mercenaries that ignore our laws and threaten our way of life. They wish nothing more than the destruction of this great nation and that, my fellow Etherians, I will never allow. Today I promise you that I will, until my dying breath, preserve this government and our Fatherland...
--
On average, it rained more often in Sector WW than in any other sector in Etheria. There was no conclusive scientific reason given for the phenomenon, but Cat attributed it to bad luck. Hers, probably, considering she’d now been stationed in WW for two years, and she barely remembered what it felt like to be kissed by the sun.
It was raining now, of course. She could hear heavy drops as she ascended the staircase of the factory that sat on the corner of Kowl Street. The building was large, empty—had been abandoned for so long that no trace of what had once been manufactured there lingered.
When she reached the third, and final, landing, Cat turned off her flashlight and shrugged out of her rain slicker, tossing it next to the case she’d set down a moment before. She pulled off her knit cap and loosened her hair only to retie it into a tight knot at the base of her neck. She worked methodically, reopening the com link she’d switched off as she’d entered the factory. She tested the public wave and it wasn’t long before a static-filled reply buzzed in her ear. Then, a beep, more static: “Cat?”
And that had to be the private wave, because Adora never called her by her name on public. “Captain.”
“We’re on private, Cat.”
“You’re still Force Captain.”
There was an exasperated sigh on the other end of the link, and Cat smiled to herself as she unlocked her case and began taking out the pieces of her rifle. “All right, Lieutenant, are you in position?”
“Affirmative.”
Another beep—the public wave open—and Cat overheard Adora checking the other squad members’ positions. With Adora’s voice in her ear, Cat expertly assembled her rifle, leaving the scope to be fitted last. Once it was, Cat pointed her weapon out the window and surveyed the area.
It was early enough in the morning that there weren’t many people walking around, but this was a heavily populated quadrant of the Sector. It was also a rebel stronghold, and these raids—raids which they conducted almost every single day—didn’t seem to be changing that.
Cat bent down on one knee and shifted, adjusting the aim of her rifle’s barrel. She kept her finger off the trigger and just watched and waited. From her position, she could see down the narrow street, could see as soldiers took houses one at a time, two soldiers for every row of houses. Most of the dwellings in this part of the neighborhood weren’t even houses really; they were densely stacked apartments and duplexes. More often than not, the entire process took at least a couple of hours.
This was boring work. Eye to the scope, she watched, changing angles every so often, as soldiers kicked in doors and woke up children, put their mothers and fathers outside and made them kneel on cobblestone streets. One soldier keeping his automatic pointed at the adults, asking for ID, the other inside, rummaged through their belongings.
As Cat adjusted her scope, she caught sight of Adora banging her fist against a door that belonged to a small house on the end of the street. Grizz, the sergeant that normally paired with Adora on these outings, wasn’t by her side. That wasn’t unusual. Sometimes Grizz stayed behind when other soldiers were having trouble subduing their residents. Cat watched as, for a long minute, Adora kept knocking.
Adora normally kept her private wave open to Cat’s com link and Cat switched to it and murmured, “Looks like no one’s home.”
From that angle Cat couldn’t see it, but she was pretty sure Adora was smiling when she replied, “Shut up, Cat.”
“Just saying.”
Adora knocked on the door again, so loudly it reverberated in Cat’s ear. “I hate kicking down doors.”
“See, I think you really, really get off on it. Makes you feel like the big Force Captain you really are.”
Without turning to face Cat’s building, Adora raised her middle finger high into the air. “Can you see that?”
Biting back a laugh, Cat replied, “What a shame, but I can’t quite make it out.”
“Then let me tell you— ” Before Adora could finish her sentence, the door she’d been knocking on for well over a minute finally creaked open. A woman was on the other side of the threshold. “Morning,” Cat heard Adora say, tone shifting into neutral, professional. “I need you to step outside, please.”
A crackle of static burst in Cat’s ear as the woman moved aside and let Adora into the house. The door closed and that was all Cat could see now, but she could still hear Adora’s heavy boots on wooden floors, could make out the other woman saying, “Couldn’t I just stay? The rain… I promise I’ll stay right here, by the door.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Please? I won’t move…” The woman’s voice sounded more distant, and Cat imagined Adora opening drawers, rifling through clothes.
“Fine. But stay up against the door or I’ll be forced to take you outside.” More movement, the clank of metal on metal, and then Adora saying, “What’s this?” Within a second, a shot was fired, and it was as if Cat herself had been hit, she jumped so violently, looking not through the scope but with naked eyes at the scene below.
“Adora?” she called out, but the com link was dead. “Adora? Shit.” She switched to public with fumbling fingers. “Grizz, Sergeant Grizz!” But as soon as she said the words, more shots rang out, clearly not coming from inside the house.
“Lieutenant!” Grizz finally responded, breathless. “We’re taking heavy fire! Where’s the captain?” The sound of more guns being fired; automatic, fast and furious in Cat’s ear, but she could see none of it.
“She’s in that house, Sergeant!” Looked through the scope again, holding her breath so it wouldn’t bounce on her and she could read the nearly faded number by the door. “Fourteen-eleven, on the end of the street! Get down there now, Grizz!”
“If I so much as raise an eyebrow right now, I’m cooked, Lieutenant… I can’t even see where it’s comin’ from…”
“Fuck, just, just try to get out from under it. I’m trying to find the source…” She called out orders for the rest of the squad to move in and reinforce Grizz, all the while gazing intently through her scope, finger on the trigger and at the ready, trying very hard not to think about Adora.
It was hard to see, with the rain and the ever-darkening clouds looming overhead, marring her view. But she kept scanning steadily until finally she caught a glint of something and, yes, there he was, a man holding an automatic, hiding behind curtains on the second story of an apartment not far from 1411. Was he alone? She didn’t stop to look. Holding her breath, she lined up her rifle’s sight and squeezed the trigger, so slowly that when the shot fired, it caught her by surprise. Where the man had stood, only billowing fabric remained. The oppressive fire of the automatic ceased.
Grizz came in on the wave: “Fuck that was close. You get ‘im?”
“Get to the fucking house, Grizz!”
“Already there.” And he was, suddenly appearing in her line of vision, three more from the squadron bringing up the rear.
Grizz and another soldier, Private Rapt, flanked the door. The other two soldiers were preparing to knock it down when another round of bullets had them scrambling for cover. “The fuck!” Grizz yelled. Cat was on it, saw the shots emerging from the same window as before. This time, though, someone had dared go up on the landing. He was a bad shot and he was exposing himself. Cat aimed and fired, taking him out easily, only then bothering to note that he was just a boy, that he’d probably seen his father or brother dead and taken up the gun for revenge.
“Got him,” Cat murmured into her link. “Go on, Sergeant.”
A battering ram blew 1411’s door off its hinges and Cat watched as the soldiers entered the house, Grizz shouting orders at the others. “Captain?” Grizz asked, and Cat’s stomach dropped down to her knees. “You all right?” Cat strained to hear Adora’s voice, but all that buzzed in her ear was Grizz as he mumbled, “Fuck, what a mess.” Then, more clearly, “All right, you, let the captain through. We’re evacuating, does everybody copy? Evacing!”
Cat didn’t need to be told twice. She was already dismantling her rifle, one eye on the scene below. The rifle cases’ lock clicked in place when she came into view, Adora, the front of her rain slicker soaked with something thick, viscous. Her knife, the one they all carried strapped to one thigh—a knife Cat had never wielded in combat—was still in her grip. For a moment, Cat froze, transfixed by Adora’s appearance; her hands were red with blood.
With trembling fingers, Cat pressed for the private wave, but Adora’s link was still down. Then the public beeped again, Grizz barking out orders to meet by the convoy’s evac position in less than five. Cat took a deep breath and rubbed her face roughly before she started moving in earnest, slipping into her slicker, grabbing her gear and taking the stairs out of the factory two at a time.
When she reached the evac point, Adora was already there, Grizz still by her side. She’d taken off the slicker and she stood in the rain, arms bare and crossed over her chest, goose bumps forming on her skin. Cat glanced at her hands, but the rain had washed most of the blood away. The bottom of her shirt and the front of her black cargos, though, were slick with it.
Cat stopped short when their gazes locked. “Ad-- Captain, are you…?”
“None of it’s mine, Lieutenant.”
“What happened?”
“You were there.”
“I meant inside the house,” Cat pressed, but the look Adora gave her said this wasn’t the time, that a lieutenant shouldn’t question her captain. Still, Cat couldn’t quite let it go. “But you’re okay?”
“I’m not the one with the hole in my belly,” Adora replied grimly. She absently rubbed her cheek and left a streak of red. Cat wondered if she could feel it. “All I need is a hot shower.”
Cat nodded wanly, only just realizing she was still holding her rifle case. She set it down and noticed Grizz gazing at her, looking like he was holding back a leer. Grizz was tall, wiry. His severe buzz cut and bare face made him look too young, but the white gash that ran from his ear to the corner of his mouth left no doubt he was a seasoned soldier. “What?” she asked him, glaring. Grizz didn’t scare her.
He shrugged, lifting an eyebrow. “Nothing, Lieutenant. Just wanted to congratulate you on your marksmanship.” It seemed to Cat there was a tinge of condescension in his voice, but maybe she was imagining it. Maybe she was imagining all of it. Her head was swimming. “You saved our asses.”
Cat glanced back at Adora, but she stood frozen, staring down at her crossed arms, at her hands, face a hard mask.
“Yeah, sure,” Cat answered. “I deserve a medal.”
--
Rain plopped down on the roof above her head, and Cat thought it was cold enough that it would soon turn to hale. She was in bed, on top of the covers. She’d untied her bootlaces, but she was still wearing her BDUs. Gazing at the plain white ceiling above her head, she thought about the boy she’d killed, about his father—she never saw their faces, but she’d seen the black body bags trucked in for identification. The man had been forty, a native of Sector WW, no previously known affiliation with the rebels. Two other children survived him, and his wife (she’d been taken into custody a few hours later). But the boy had been his only son. He’d been twelve.
Eyes stinging, Cat rubbed at them and sighed, rolling onto her side to reach beneath her bed for a book she’d been reading for months. She hadn’t gotten beyond the second chapter. Opening it to a dog-eared page she began to scan the words, but soon they became blurred and she realized she was crying. She tried to go on, to blink away the tears, but the heaviness sitting on her chest was too much--it was choking her. She dropped the book and turned into the bed, burying her face in her pillow as she began to sob.
The next thing she was aware of was knocking at her door that matched the rhythm of the pounding in her head.
Stretching into a sitting position, she croaked, “Yeah?” Cleared her throat. “What?”
“It’s me, Cat.” Adora.
Grimacing, Cat rubbed the corners of her eyes and combed her fingers through her hair. “Yeah, okay. Come in.”
Adora’d cleaned up. She was wearing fresh cargos and a black t-shirt; her boots were spit-polish clean. Her hair, normally pulled back in a ponytail, was loose and fell past her shoulders. It looked soft. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Your eyes are red.”
“Mm.”
“Have you been crying?”
“No.”
Adora regarded her carefully and nodded. She still hadn’t stepped more than a foot into the room. “So, I’ve got a problem.”
Frowning, Cat patted a spot next to her on the bed, which Adora took. “What?” Cat asked.
Adora held up her hands. “I couldn’t… It wouldn’t all wash away. I tried, for a while. See?”
Cat took Adora’s left hand between her own and inspected it, turned it over. It was clean. “Where?”
“Under my nails.”
Looking more closely, Cat saw it. Blood, just a trace, caught beneath Adora’s short, blunt fingernails. “It’ll come out,” Cat blurted. “Just, use a brush. It doesn’t,” she gazed into Adora’s nervous eyes, “it doesn’t stain your skin.”
Adora nodded, looking down at her hand, curling her fingers into her palm. “I guess it doesn’t.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Cat asked quietly.
For a moment, it looked like Adora wouldn’t. Then, she shrugged and replied, “Just a routine search, and she was so young. Friendly.” She let out a sharp, angry bark of laughter. “I was so fucking careless, Cat. She pulled a gun on me, I don’t even know from where. Made me drop my pistol, my automatic. And then she said she was Angella--”
“The rebel leader?” Cat asked, surprised.
“She wasn’t. Later, in the ID… Anyway, she was just, just the daughter…”
“You tagged Angella’s daughter?”
Adora’s eyes turned hard. “I killed her.” She held Cat’s gaze for a moment longer, then dropped her head, hair a blonde curtain across her face. “She was nervous,” she murmured. “Her hands were shaking. She couldn’t, couldn’t keep them steady at all and she was waving the revolver in my face. I managed to knock it away, reached for my knife.” She paused to clear her throat. “She was stronger than she looked, you know? Most people are, stronger... I mean, I thought she struggled so hard and later, when I checked, I realized I didn’t even have a mark on me. Cat, she didn’t even bruise me, and I gutted her.” Her hand disappeared behind the blonde curtain and reappeared, wet. “I’ve never done that. I’ve never been that close to a kill.”
Cat wanted to say, You did what you had to do, but the words stuck in her throat. “I’m sorry.”
“It was just… I was holding her, pinning her, when she died. She just kind of…spasmed…and then there was nothing.”
Cat frowned. “Adora…”
“I wonder, when they’re that close, if they don’t take part of you with them.”
“Adora.”
“No, I know. That’s stupid.”
“No.” Shaking her head, Cat placed her hand on Adora’s thigh. “You’re alive. You kept yourself alive.”
Adora sniffed, laughed humorlessly. “If the soldiers could see their Force Captain now.”
“Don’t be an idiot. You think they don’t cry?”
Adora lifted her gaze. Streaks of moisture had carved their way down her pink cheeks. “You don’t.”
“That’s because I’m a robot,” Cat replied.
That earned her a tiny smile, at least. “No, you’re not.”
“Who’s to say?”
“Cat?”
“Hm?”
Adora shifted, tilting her head as she placed her hand over Cat’s. She squeezed, and Cat felt a muscle in Adora’s thigh jump. Then, unexpectedly, she pressed her mouth against Cat’s, firmly, deliberately. Cat jerked back, startled. Connecting their mouths—still so close Cat could feel Adora’s hot breath on her skin—was a thin trail of saliva, but when Cat licked her lips, tasting salt, it disappeared. Adora’s eyes were wide and pleading. “No?” she asked--a low, pathetic whine. A strangled sound formed deep in Cat’s throat, and she vaguely noted her elevated pulse, the way she couldn’t quite get enough air in her lungs. “Cat.” And that was it, because Cat had never been able to deny Adora anything. She closed her eyes and leaned in and their mouths were pressed together, very tightly. Cat’s hand was squeezing Adora’s thigh and the other was fisted around the threadbare blanket on the bed. And Adora, Adora was making this sound Cat had never heard her make. She sounded like she was broken, like only this could put her back together again. Her one hand was still covering Cat’s, but the other had wound itself through Cat’s hair, was pulling her closer as their mouths began to move more urgently.
Lips parting, Cat felt the tip of Adora’s tongue slip into her mouth and a dizzying vertigo overtook her--as though she were about to fall or fly, she didn’t know-- and she had to release her grip on the bed and wrap her arm around Adora’s waist to keep some sense of balance. Then balance was unnecessary because their bodies tipped onto the mattress and they were lying together, legs tangling, and Adora’s hand began to wander across Cat’s body. A new experience and one so disconcerting that Cat squeezed her already closed eyes and let out a groan so deep she didn’t think it could possibly be coming from inside her. Adora’s fumbling fingers found their way beneath Cat’s shirt, were stroking a little frantically across her back when Cat found the need to breathe too great. Pulling back, she stared into Adora’s face and found her staring back. She was flushed, and her mouth was wet. Cat was suddenly frightened; she had never in her entire life felt the urge to be more reckless than at that moment. Releasing her grip on Adora’s hip, she reached up and carefully let her fingers drift across a blushing cheek. Eyes fluttering closed, Adora leaned in again, nuzzled, and Cat felt her stomach clench with want.
They were kissing again, deeply, Adora’s tongue stroking the inside of Cat’s mouth and Cat followed her lead, feeling like a rube, no finesse and all desire. To please—she wanted to please Adora so badly her body shook; her fingers trembled as they sought more places to touch. When Adora’s hand covered her breast, Cat gasped into her mouth, rubbed herself against Adora like a beggar. An expletive rolled off her tongue and she had to bite her lip to keep from saying more when Adora’s knee wedged itself between her legs and pressed up. This was too much, and not enough.
Something inside her burst—a ball of want, anger, longing—burning her from the inside out. She rolled Adora onto her back and gripped her wrists, pulling them over her head. Cat didn’t know what she would do as she hovered over Adora, but Adora was so willing, her body so pliant, that she felt like she could do anything. In Adora’s eyes she saw no hint of doubt, just an unmistakable yes that left Cat aching.
She sank heavily onto Adora’s body as they kissed—a wild, fumbling embrace that made Cat’s heart beat painfully in her chest. She dropped her head and exhaled, “Need you” against Adora’s throat. Thought that maybe she’d said too much, but then Adora just grunted and palmed Cat’s breast in an act that smacked of possession. Cat couldn’t help the whimper that tripped from her mouth any more than she could help feeling like she’d just been slapped when she heard a knock at her door. Almost ignored it, but then it came again and she pushed back and sat awkwardly on her heels—back of her hand over her mouth, she was breathing so hard.
At first, Adora looked flustered, completely dazed. But she shook it off and sat slowly, started rearranging her clothes as Cat watched.
More knocking: “Hey, Cat?”
Cat swallowed hard and tried not to sound too unsteady when she replied. “What?”
“Have you seen the captain? Major’s looking for her ‘bout what went down in the raids.”
About to reply that no, she hadn’t seen the captain, Cat was surprised when Adora interrupted and said, calmly (too calmly), “I’m here, Lieutenant. Tell him I’ll be right there.”
The woman on the other side of the door seemed to hesitate before responding. “Oh. All right.”
Cat leaned against the wall that buffeted the bed, deflated.
“Sorry,” Adora murmured as she stood, tucking her shirt in more carefully. She looked…untouched.
“For what?” Cat replied, not quite looking her in the eye. “The entire Sector’s going to know by daybreak.”
“I’ve been in your bunk before, Cat.”
Cat felt childish for pouting, for feeling petulant and out of sorts. “I guess now it feels like there’s something for them to talk about.”
They gazed at each other for a moment, Adora’s expression unreadable. Cat waited, arms crossed, staring back defiantly. Finally, Adora leaned in and placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
Cat remained silent as she watched Adora leave. She thought about rolling over, curling up and going to sleep. Thought about picking up the book she’d only end up tossing away a few minutes later.
Instead, she slipped into a jacket, grabbed her gear and headed for the shooting range.
--
The Death of Myth-Making, Part 2
