Out of the Frying Pan

Razz Part 2

It all happens very fast.

The woman is running toward Catra. Adora is running after the woman. The woman raises her sword.

Adora raises her sword.

Adora hits first, hammering the sword's hilt into the back of the woman's head. The woman just crumbles, without even a gasp, and behind Adora someone screams so loudly she thinks her own head will split.

Adora grabs Catra and tries to pull her up. Other people grab at her and she swings the sword and it hits and they let go but someone is still hanging on her and Adora tries to pull away and everyone keeps screaming.

Something rams her in the side and they go flying.

Landing hurts even more than getting hit.

But there's no one holding her down now and Catra is coming to, starting to support Adora's weight instead of the other way around.

"We have to run," Adora says.

And then she runs them blindly off a cliff.

They land in water. The people above don't follow them down. Instead, there's a sharp pain down the side of Adora's leg that stands out amid the aches and she sees red spooling away in the stream beside the shaft of an arrow.

Who even uses arrows?

"Adora, come on!" Catra screams, dragging her forward, and she stumbles out of the stream and toward the cover of the trees.

Maybe the people are satisfied that they've left. Maybe they just didn't hate her enough to jump off a cliff. Maybe they did but Catra and Adora lost them in the Whispering Woods, since it didn't seem like Bow or Glimmer were that good at navigating the maze of trees and vines either.

For whatever reason, they find when they've stopped running that there's no sign of pursuit.

She sits on a fallen tree and stares at the sword in her lap. "Stupid. I'm so stupid," Adora says.

"You think?!"

"Bow told me this would happen." She can hear the weakness in her voice. She tries to focus on the anger, on how it didn't have to be this way, how none of this had to happen if she didn't screw everything up. "But I wanted to go out. And then I scared Horsey, and got you hurt, and made everything worse because I panicked. I should've turned into She-Ra when they attacked you instead. Then they wouldn't-"

"You don't get it!" Catra shouts at her. "It doesn't matter! You want everyone to like you but this time they don't and you can't fix it!"

"I have to fix it!" Adora's voice cracks and she presses her hands against her eyes and tries to breathe.

Catra doesn't answer. Adora hears the leaves shuffle as Catra paces, and then Catra flops down next to her and leans against her side.

"This has to work," Adora tells Catra, managing to steady her voice. "What else are we supposed to do? We can't go back to the Horde."

"You could, though," Catra says. "Nobody but me saw the princess turn into you. You could leave the sword and go back home and Shadow Weaver would be so happy to see you she wouldn't even ask what happened."

"But even if we could we can't!" Adora shouts. "You don't know because Shadow Weaver only told me about it, right when she gave me my badge. Thaymor was supposed to be a rebel fortress and our attack would be my first mission as a force captain. It wasn't because they thought the people there captured me, it was already decided. If I hadn't left that night with you, if I hadn't see the sword and gone back for it, it would have been me there in the tank instead!"