Come Hope From the Past

4. Loss

What followed Entrapta's remark had been indescribable. Both because they did not have the words to do so, and because neither Catra nor Adora were conscious to register the events. Melog had wrapped tightly around them in hopes of taking the worst of the impact. Melog could feel every atom of their body aching as the internal forces of gravity tried to pull them apart into nothingness, but it suddenly just stopped.

Adora woke up coughing up smoke in the little space shuttle. Both Catra and Melog lay unconscious, the latter seemed to be bleeding profusely from a cut in their side. As she looked up, she could see that the windshield had splintered, but aside from that and the smoke, the shuttle seemed to have held up nicely to whatever had happened. She opened the door after making sure her spacesuit was intact, and around her lay a scorched piece of land. The devices installed on her suit indicated that the atmosphere was safe, so she ditched the suit and went back for the pair still in the shuttle.

"Melog? Are you awake?" she called as she felt the creature stir. There was no answer, so she tried to drag them outside. They were too heavy though, and a groan of pain escaped their snout as Adora tried picking them up. "For the Honor of Greyskull!" she proclaimed and extended her arm, expecting her sword. Nothing happened.

She tried again. Still nothing. She did not dare try a third time. Melog needed her help. She quickly got the first aid pack and approached Melog.

"It's okay, I'm just trying to help," she told the alien, now in the form of a big panther. She carefully caressed their snout and made soothing noises as they purred, clearly in pain. They stayed still as Adora extracted some shards of glass from their side, disinfected, and bandaged the wound. She then proceeded to help Melog out so she would have more space to maneuver while extracting her girlfriend from the ship as well. They did not know if the vessel had been too damaged to turn back on, but Adora thought it safer to evacuate it until she knew it was not going to blow up at least.

As soon as she had gotten Catra and Melog safe within the treeline of the wooded area nearby, she sent out a distress signal to everyone. She doubted anyone would get it, but she had to push the thought away as her priority now was to keep them all alive.

She had Catra's head on her lap as she rested after the incredible effort of carrying her and the rations to their new hiding space. Slowly but surely she began to stir and open her eyes. Adora could see her pupils were dilated almost all the way, but then contracted to tiny slits. "Adora?" Catra mumbled, very confused. Something about her voice seemed off. "Is it really you?" she said as she struggled to a sitting position.

"Yeah" answered Adora softly. "I'm here."

But Catra was not looking at the blonde anymore. She had fixated her gaze on Melog. "What is that thing?" Her voice made Melog raise their head a weakly meow. "Why is it talking to me like that, Adora? What is this place?" She carefully got up and started backing away from them.

"Catra, it's okay, that's Melog. They're our friend" she said as she carefully walked towards Catra. "I... I don't know where we are... our shuttle crashed here, and it had been smoking a few hours ago. I got you out and was going to go back to find out if it's safe to go back. Maybe find out if we can still access the ship's location through the interface and contact Bow or Entrapta-"

"Entrapta? But she's in Beast Island that can't be- Wait, where's the Horde? Why aren't you with the Rebellion?" She had started to back away faster now, but stopped all of a sudden. Adora could see her muscles tense as her tail violently swinged from side to side. Catra was going to run away.