Out of the Frying Pan

Razz Part 1

"Hey, we made it," Bow says as they pass through the last of the trees. There's a glittering expanse before them.

"Welcome to Bright Moon," Glimmer says, with more energy than Adora's heard from her in hours.

Bright Moon is indescribable, a riot of glowing and water and gold and green. "It's so beautiful," Adora breathes.

"It's so bright," Catra says, putting a hand out to shade her eyes.

Glimmer's straightened up on the horse's back. At the reminder Adora double-checks her own posture - correct - and Catra's - less bad than usual! "I just need to go in there, recharge, and deal with my mom." She sighs. "This will be fun." Then Glimmer pauses and looks to Bow. "Uh, Bow? Maybe you should take them in the back way?"

"Oh. Yeah. Good call."

"What's the back way?" Adora asks.

Adora always tries to look at things positively. Like right now, Catra's keeping one hand stuffed in her mouth to muffle her shrieks of laughter as Adora struggles up the rope, which is great because Adora's starting to think anyone hearing them climb up a sheer palace wall like they're an assault force would be bad.

Catra's really taking this way more seriously than usual, probably because it's real for once, and Adora realizes she's still cataloguing all this to report back to Shadow Weaver, how Catra could be a real asset in the field and her scores don't reflect what a good job she'd do when it counts and it's a waste to keep giving her more training she doesn't need when she's ready to start paying it back serving the Horde.

Only she'll never talk to Shadow Weaver again. It's just like Catra said, what they've done is unforgivable. Betraying the Horde...Shadow Weaver would kill them if she ever sees them again.

And...maybe she won't need to argue about Catra either. If they can just make a good first impression this time, then everything will be okay.

"How are you so bad at this?" Catra hisses between bursts of laughter. "Didn't I give you enough practice?"

This is completely different than climbing up to wherever Catra's decided to wedge herself. Back home there's all sorts of juts and protrusions to use as footholds, and the walls themselves are rough enough that she can keep her feet on them most of the time. Clinging to a rope with her feet dangling over an abyss is completely different.

"It might seem weird, but we totally come in this way all the time," Bow tells her, putting out his hand and pulling her up the last foot.

"Oh, here, robes! For you guys! No reason!"

Adora barely has time to take in the room, which is more glittering but now with purple, before some sort of drape covers her head. From the yowl to her left, Catra's experiencing something similar.

"You're trying to hide me," Adora says, getting it clear of her eyes in time to catch Catra rolling her own.

"What?" Bow squeaks. "Nooo."

"You have some plan," Catra tells him. All the humor's gone from her like it never was and her voice is tightening up the way it always does before - before something goes wrong. "You didn't lie to Adora about Sparkle-Mom knowing about the sword just so we'd both follow you here to be killed because we could've gone in the front way for that."

Bow laughs anxiously in a way that really isn't reassuring. "Haha no one's getting killed who said anything about getting killed?"

"Me!" Catra hops down from the seat by the window and stalks toward him. "And it's going to be YOU if you don't tell me what the plan is right now!"