Chapter Text
Catra stared out of the window into the land passing them by as the bus proceeded along largely empty roads. She wondered what words would be fitting to describe it. It was too green to be desolate or barren and wasteland also didn’t land because the occasional small settlement still existed, even if generally half the houses looked abandoned. It was always such a weird experience: A few kilometers behind the capital civilization just seemed to end. There was precious little here but trees and sandy soil for a good long while until the marshlands near the coast began. She knew from the few journeys she had been allowed to take by train that further east and south of the capital there were long stretches of farmlands, solar generators and windmills, but here there was almost nothing. The Emperor’s sand pit, she had been taught in history class, had been a nickname for almost a thousand years. It sounded playful, but again, there was precious little to look at. Except, of course, she thought as it came into few at last, a former summer residence, surrounded by well maintained grounds and an abandoned hamlet.
Catra turned off her music and pulled out her headphones. Instantly the noise of a bus full of children and older teens returned, making her flinch. The bus was buzzing. Everyone was excited to be back at the manor again. A weekend of fun and music lay ahead of them. Or of bitching and aching fingers, depending on your point of view.
“Back in the world, wildcat?” Catra turned to glare up at Scorpia. Well, Linda. But Catra would be damned if she called her by her given name except as a punishment. She was a year older than her and for some reason had decided to be her friend when they had first been on this trip together five years ago. Catra hadn’t had any say in the matter, but eventually had warmed up to the big girl. Scorpia was loyal, strong and very kind, but also bumbling, distracted and with no regard for what Catra had been taught was called personal space. Catra was glad of their friendship and almost immediately annoyed at her. That’s just how it went sometimes. The bus circled the topiary at the rotunda and came to a stop.
“Regrettably so, Scorp. But could you move?”
Scorpia turned away to leave. Catra exhaled as the tall girl no longer loomed over her. Especially when sitting down it was kind of frightening and the big red scorpion on black on the basketball jersey the girl always wore didn’t help. Neither did the fact that Scorpia wasn’t just broad and buff but had also grown busty somewhere between sixteen and seventeen and Catra really didn’t need to thirst after her friend. That ship had, as they said, sailed. In fact, it had sunk somewhere on the queer seas before reaching the harbor of Lesbos. Even with that sweet undercut she now sported.
“You coming?” Scorpia had turned back.
Catra blinked. The noise and light of the real world returned. What had she been thinking about? Right.
“Yes, yes, I’m moving.”
She shook herself and followed Scorpia. There was a strained, awkward laugh from the front of the bus. Without thinking Catra walked on tiptoes to see. There was indeed a blonde ponytail further ahead, bouncing over a backpack shaped like a unicorn. Catra sighed. It had been too much to hope she wouldn’t be here this year. But of course she was, following the purple haired menace she called a friend and whom Catra considered to be even more infuriating than the blonde. Which was quite a feat, because Catra had a sheer infinite capacity for being annoyed by Adora. It was just barely higher than her capacity to be enchanted or even enthralled by this blonde idiot. It was really quite embarrassing and had been so for many years, but especially since she had woken up one morning and was suddenly a teenager. As they filed out of the bus, Catra caught a full glimpse of Adora’s back and backside, silly backpack be damned. Small mercies.
The palace, manor house, no, residence, was a broadly rectangular brick of a building clad in pale yellow sandstone. Fifteen enormous steps, broad enough to seat the entire group for a cheesy photo, led up to an ornate entryway. It ran above a slight channel in the ground that looked like the remnants of a moat from a distance but was merely the old servant’s entrance to the kitchens.
Windows were arranged in an orderly and symmetrical fashion with a little triangular crown on top. Every corner cutted outwards to accommodate a tower that featured a roof of black shale that stabbed upwards like a spike. It gave Catra the feeling of barely contained whimsey, as if the architect had struggled against the tight bounds of their instructions.
The thirty-odd children and teens assembled at the bus’s cargo hold and the laborious process of extracting and distributing all the guitars began. Some had added ribbons or stickers to the bags and cases to make identifying easier, others were arguing loudly because they had identically branded bags.
Catra spotted hers easily. No one else had the little rainbow ribbon tied to the left back strap. She bent over and hauled it out but hadn't quite taken two steps before a voice behind her said. “Excuse me, I think that’s my guitar?”
Catra spun around and glared - right into open grey-blue eyes framed by light blonde hair, almost with a golden sheen in the bright sunshine and capped with something approaching a hair poof. It looked ridiculous. Adora was ridiculous, but Catra felt her heart speed up anyway as the blonde stuck her hands into her hips. Of course the idiot was wearing a shirt that was several centimeters too short. Catra couldn't even look down because that would mean looking at these abs that she knew Adora had and rather not think about again. A blush crept up her neck and made her wish she was wearing her kufiya.
“I don’t think so,” Catra hissed back.
“I do,” Adora said, rather lamely, but she also raised a hand and poked at the back strap, “Wrong rainbow. And yours is on the other side.”
Catra’s eyes flickered down. Fuck. The ribbon was tied around the left strap and it was… her bones seemed to freeze and her guts erupted in sudden rebellion. Red, oranges, white. Very slowly she brought the guitar between her and Adora, shielding her from the bright eyes. She felt Adora take over the weight. Their hands did not touch. Small mercies.
“Thank you,” Adora huffed and swiftly walked past Catra. As if on auto-pilot she turned to the cargo hold again to spot her own bag. In vain she tried to ignore the chorus of voices reminding her that Adora “First Guitar Forever” and Miss “My Mother is Literally The Vicar” now had a lesbian flag tied to her instrument bag. No one else here could possibly know what those colors meant. No one had ever even asked about her little rainbow.
This changed everything.
This changed nothing.
This weekend would be torture.
But as Catra trudged towards the manor with her own bag now on her back, something else interrupted her blonde musings.
Someone was waiting for the group at the large steps leading up to the manor front. A tall woman in an elegant pastel shaded coat and a severe look on her face. Catra recognized Mrs. Moon of course. She wasn’t just Glimmer’s mother, the aforementioned purple haired menace, but also some political big wig in the capital. Catra aggressively took no interest in other people’s parents. She had her own now, thank you very much, and tried not to think about it more than that.
Both Moons were throwing, there was no other word for it, a fit. Catra stuffed her headphones back into her ears but she caught a snatch of GLIMMAH! And MOOOM! before an altogether more pleasant kind of scream drowned it out. The flow of children wound around the arguing mother and daughter up towards the manor. Catra saw Josef, the head teacher and main adult for this weekend standing a discreet distance away, clearly waiting for whatever was going on between them to pass. Catra shook her head and turned the music up. This wasn’t her problem, and the purple sparkle girl being in trouble was fine by her.
The doors were blocked by another teacher so the flow of children parted and spread out on the steps. In a few moments the two arguing Moons below had an audience sitting on carved stone steps as if they were in a theater.
Catra couldn’t hear anything above the sound of distorted guitars in her years. When the argument had ended and Angella had pointed, severely, towards her waiting car, Catra pulled out her headphones.
“I can’t believe it,” Scorpia muttered next to her, which meant all children in a two meter radius heard it.
“Believe what?” Catra asked, staring at the purple mess of Glimmer’s hair.
“Angella is taking her home. Something about a fight.”
Catra snorted. And indeed with resentment oozing from every pore, Glimmer trudged after her mother.
“My weekend’s just got better,” she murmured.
“What was that, wildcat?”
“Nothing.”
Josef clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Welcome, everyone! We’ll start practicing as soon as you’re settled in. In good news, we have the full run of the house this weekend and so no one needs to stay in the guest building!”
There were some cheers for that. The guest building off to the right side of the manor was an unlovely, partially hidden construction of concrete, glass and steel that ruined the mood for everyone staying inside it. Catra was sure that’s why it was situated like that, out of sight and out of mind.
“Lenka will hand out the agendas and then you’ll just sort yourself into rooms. We’ll meet at the big room in twenty minutes!”
Catra smiled and made herself lift her head to meet Lenka’s eyes when the teacher came to her spot. She hailed from some country further east and spoke with a hard, rolling accent, but Catra had been under her tutelage when she had been a child/kitten and she had only been an undergraduate and liked her a lot. She was happy and bouncy and somehow had managed not to age a day in six years.
“Good to see you, Catra,” Lenka said in greeting and handed her a sheet, “I’ll see you later.”
“Nice to see you too,” Catra replied and picked up her bag and guitar.
They managed to find their room. Contrary to the outer splendour of the residence the rooms were neat but simple. This one held three two-story bunk beds, two tables and several locker-style wardrobes. But they were bright and airy because of the high ceilings. There was nothing to do but hurry up, dump their bags and get back down to the big room on the first floor.
***
As they walked in, Catra wondered what purpose it had served before. It wasn’t the ballroom, it was on the ground floor directly across from the main entrance. Now there were many chairs arranged in a semi circle with a multitude of tables folded away at the back. A small piano stood at the far corner, boxed in by everything that wasn’t needed. The floor was carpeted and the walls were hung with heavy drapes. Sunlight streamed in from large, slatted windows. Catra flinched. The noise was intense.
Tutti Rehearsals as Josef insisted on calling them, always started the same way. Catra grabbed a music stand from one of the boxes and hurried over to where Scorpia and Kyle were already struggling with theirs. Kyle and Catra had lived in the same group home and still went to the same school. They had stuck together like something left over in a pan. He was as scrawny as ever, but had finally gained some colour under that mess of dirty blonde hair, Catra was pleased to note.
“Is that the right place? Is it right to left or left to right?” She asked, glancing over to the other side of the room where Adora and Lonnie were sitting. Suddenly Adora turned her head towards her and Catra almost dropped her stand.
“Uh, yes. We start from the bottom, as it were.”
Other, younger children joined them in fourth and third guitar, as they struggled to unfold the stands. You had to know what you were doing or the thin metal would bend in a way that it would never recover from.
“She’s so cool!” someone whispered behind her. Probably means Adora, Catra thought, gritting her teeth. Then she felt embarrassed. The girl was only about seven and was just being nice.
If you have never been in a room where thirty children were trying to tune their guitars at the same time, Catra thought, you haven’t lived. In any other circumstances or indeed with any other instruments it would have been hell, but Catra had a strange fondness for the twangy cacophony.
After everyone had done their individual tuning to the best of their ability, the teachers let groups of four or five pupils play their empty strings together, listening for discords until they were close enough attuned. Finally, and gloriously, there came the moment where everyone played the six strings one after the other, in tune, if only for a little while. Catra never ceased to be impressed how well the teachers could pick out the one guitar that still needed tuning. Her ears were sensitive, but not that good. The final step of the preparation was upon them.
Andre, not to be confused with the teacher for the youngest, Andrej, led them in a chant that turned into a round. It was stupid and embarrassing, but you had to do it and not even Catra could resist his odd kind of charme. He was from a tiny village at the southernmost tip of the country and his accent denoted mountains and unreasonably happy cows.
Today my Hans comes around, just for our Liz… will he travel via Oberammergau, or will he maybe via Unterammergau, or will he even ever come at all, we just don’t knooooow!
They repeated the happy chant a few more times before Andre made them stop with a deft movement of both arms.
“Alright everyone, let’s take the plunge. We’ll start with Minuet number one and play until the first double dots.”
Thirty-two pairs of eyes watched and held their breath. For this there the group was split into just three voices: lead melody, harmony and bass.
Bold to start with a three fourths measure piece. The first five notes strode ahead, everyone paused for the pause on the sixths count and then everyone tumbled into the first run.
Andre grinned and waved his arms.
“Alright, alright, first guitar, let’s start again, just you, one, two, three - da -da - dada- daaa!”
And so it went, first one voice, then with the bass added, then the second alone, with the bass and then everyone together. Catra kept one eye on Andre and the other into the middle distance. For the first and second Minuet they were playing she didn’t even need her sheet music. They were both old staples and in the past six years she had played every voice at least once. She liked playing bass. She could play a lot better, but really it was just nice to be part of it and not having to put too much effort into it. But as the tutti practice went on and the younger children (or those who put less effort into practise) needed more repetitions of the same measures, Catra’s eyes started to wander. And they wandered to the other side of the semi circle.
Adora’s stare was intense. Her posture was upright, but her arms were relaxed, moving across the strings and frets with absolute precision. It was a show of technique to be immortalized in poetry. No one should look like that aged sixteen and while playing baby’s first Händel Minuet in a casual weekend retreat for children. Catra slowly dragged her eyes across the lines of Adora’s arms as she watched her play, how every movement of her fingers made a different tendon stand out for a moment, how the curve of her bicep vanished under the sleeve of her tight fitting shirt. Taking her eyes off Adora's arms wasn’t safe for Catra either. Her jaw had filled out over the last year and stood out sharp against her neck, framing her reddened face around those bright, intense blue eyes, topped by this *mess* of a poofy ponytail that always seemed on the edge of unravelling itself…
Someone nudged her. Catra flinched and looked about.
“Stop daydreaming and play!” Scorpia hissed. Catra’s eyes flickered sideways. Andre was indeed watching her, a look of faint amusement on his face. Blushing, Catra made eye contact with the teacher and nodded. The practice resumed, but her face kept burning.
***
The bell downstairs announcing lunch was a relief. Catra hadn’t dared to look over to Adora again, because at some point even the blonde fool would notice and Catra would never survive that. There was such a thing as pride.
“You’ll meet in your individual groups after lunch,” Andre announced and everyone started to get up and negotiate their way out of the forest of chairs, music stands and instruments. Half of them heading straight towards the stairs and the lunchroom in the basement, while the other half ran for the nearest toilet. It grew hot inside the practise rooms but–
“Catra, a word please!”
It wasn’t, to her intense relief, Andre about to ask questions about her retreat into a dreamworld, but rather Lenka and Josef.
“Yes?” She asked, making way for Kyle and Scorpia to pass by her.
“You’ll have, uh, witnessed that Glimmer was escorted home by her mother,” said Josef as a preamble. Catra nodded, unsure where that could possibly lead. By choice, she hadn’t been involved in anything connected to Glimmer Moon in quite some time.
“I’m one player short,” Lenka cut in, “I need someone for my group, someone good, and I think that’s you.”
Catra bristled. She was flattered, sure, but… she had looked forward to her time with Josef’s group, chilling in her support role. In addition to the pieces played with everyone, every guitar teacher also had their own little group that played pieces fitted to the students' prowess rather than having the pieces split up into a scale of difficult voices.
“But... But...” she faltered and then rallied, “I have practised your choices for weeks,” she protested, pointing at Josef, “I haven’t even seen what the others play.”
Lenka, on queue, produced a stack of sheet music.
“I have full confidence in you, Catra. You can shine with me. Frankly, you deserve to shine.”
Catra noticed that Adora was standing a few meters away, watching this exchange. The expression on her face was impossible for Catra to read, but she stood there like a living dichotomy, looking both upright and proud, almost regal, and unfathomably dorky. Perhaps it was the shirt, or the nervous movement of one hand that betrayed the mask of a face. Grim resolve flooded through Catra. She could take up a place next to Adora and outshine the blonde and her stupid golden hair!
“I’ll do it,” she said and grabbed the sheets from Lenka’s hands and stalked off towards the door, barely paying attention to Lenka’s shout of “It’s room two hundred and seven!”. Instead she headed to a bathroom for some splashes of water on her scarlet face and a short, one minute breakdown.
“I can do this,” Catra whispered to the mirror in the bathroom, speedrunning her breakdown in case Becky from second voice or, even worse, one of the young children came in, “I can play by sight. I can do this. Lonnie ain’t got shit on me!”
She didn’t say Adora’s name out loud. That would only bring bad luck.
***
As she descended to the basement level the smell of hot food became stronger. There was something in the smell that all youth hostels, cheap hotels and company cafeterias shared and Catra felt her stomach growl. It was amazing how hungry just moving your fingers and paying attention could make you.
Scorpia waved to her and Catra headed to her after she had grabbed her share of lunch. For all the luxuriousness of the residence this part was very utilitarian. It put her in mind more of these American high school movies where the students ate unidentifiable food doled out to them by workers who looked as if it was served by people on leave from prison. But a lot nicer. And cleaner.
“Whatever this is, it’s delicious!” Kyle said between bites. He had materialized next to them as was his habit.
“I think that’s what they call white fish,” Catra speculated. Kyle was right, it was delicious.
“White. Fish.” Repeated Scorpia and stared at the, indeed white, fish peaking out between the vivid orange breading.
Catra shrugged and rammed half of it into her mouth.
“It’s great!” she tried to say around a mouthful of fish, when a shadow fell upon their table. Catra looked up, cheeks still bulging with fish. It was Adora. She looked down at Catra, but did not look at her, rather her eyes went a little past her, as if she was addressing something sitting on Catra’s left shoulder.
“I heard we’re going to be playing together,” Adora explained, her voice wavering a little, “and… and I’d like to say I’m looking forward to it.”
Catra didn’t reply. She couldn’t, her mouth was full of fish. She swallowed some, carefully, so she no longer looked like a hamster caught stealing food. Then she nodded, trying to look at Adora. She failed and Adora stood there, in the silence, for a few more seconds. A blush crept up Catra’s neck, sending heat into her cheeks and all the way down to her hands. She could see how Adora’s eyes lingered on her mouth. Then the spell broke and the blonde raised her arms, flailed a bit and said, “Anyway, see you soon!”, turned and ran back to her own table. Catra finally got the rest of the fish down.
“That was weird,” Kyle observed, staring after Adora.
“Kill me,” Catra muttered and put her head on the table.
Kyle whispered something to Scorpia and the big girl giggled.
“What’s that?” Catra asked, pushing herself up and glaring at her friends. Scorpia put her hands behind her head and Kyle drummed his fingers together while looking away.
“Guys?” Catra growled, dragging her knife across her plate with a sound that could set teeth on edge.
Kyle looked down and, the cheeky bastard, grinned.
“I think she likes you,” he stated and even, oh Catra would murder him if they played soccer this weekend, waggling his eyebrows.
Catra stared at her friends and then, for a second, stole a glance towards Adora’s table. The blonde was intently staring at something in her hands that Catra couldn’t quite make out. Her friends looked smug.
“Kill me,” she said again, but without much hope. They never did, curse and bless them.
***
Room 207 was small, well lit and wood panelled. The residence seemed to have an almost inexhaustible number of similar rooms whose original purpose was impossible to guess but now served as rooms for group activities. As if on que Catra and Adora took seats on the edge, leaving Lonnie to take the middle one.
“For fucks sake,” the third girl muttered and shook her dreads in disbelief.
“What?” Adora hissed, looking up from where she was carefully adjusting her foot stand.
“Nothing,” Lonnie replied, rolling her eyes in a manner of someone who has endured great trials. They hadn’t even started!
“Get seated, girls,” Lenka announced, bustling in and closing the door behind her. “Get tuned and then we’ll start with the Pavane!”
They did.
“Catra, I’ll play your part, listen to me and read along, then you’ll join in bit by bit.”
Catra swallowed. She could do this. She gripped her guitar and stared at the sheet music in front of her. Slow, procession-like, she recalled from her music lessons. Duple meter. Accent on one or possibly three. It all came down, as Josef always said, to expression here. She tried to picture people in absurdly overwrought outfits slowly dancing in a circle while someone in a funny hat played the tambour. I can do this.
She could. But it was only the beginning.
“You need to listen to one another,” Lenka said, her voice barely wavering, after at least the dozenth attempt to play the Telemann quartet. She was sitting across from the three girls, her own immaculate guitar balanced on her thigh as she played the bass voice from memory.
“The whole point is that you trade the melody seamlessly,” she added, frowning at them, “the actual playing during the runs is pretty good, but if you can’t stick to the count, stick to one another! And Adora, that part there is piano. I know you can play piano, remember it!”
Catra tried not to look smug. It was amusing to see how the blonde’s playing grew louder the more frustrated she got, as if the strings could be forced by brute force into vibrating the right way. But it wasn’t like Catra had much of a moral highground. They were all struggling.
“Let’s take a break.”
The three girls filed out in silence and by habit and by lack of alternatives, they found themselves outside at the front steps. The sun was up and the late spring was warm. There was no sound apart from the faintest twanging of guitar strings as the other groups practised and the many voices of birds in the trees. Even the ever-present lawnmower was silent.
Catra and Adora sat on opposite sides of the stairs, looking off into the manicured landscape. Eventually the lawn faded into denser clumps of trees. At their edge you could just about make out the church, looking tiny but grim. Catra avoided even turning her head. Lonnie sat in the middle, again. It took about two minutes until she snapped.
“Do you have to do this?” Lonnie demanded, clambering to her feet.
“Do what?” Catra and Adora asked more or less simultaneously and turned. They tried to look at the third girl without, as it were, seeing one another. Lonnie looked, Catra thought, like she had spent half a school day with wet socks and had just ripped the zipper on her backpack with tampons dropping all over the floor while everyone was watching.
“THIS!” She barked and pointed first at Catra, then at Adora, who, Catra just happened to notice, looked caught between anger and embarrassment.
“What do you…-” Catra started to say, but Lonnie turned so abruptly towards her that her dreads were sent flying like cords on a whip. She came very close to her face, her brown eyes blazing.
“You can do better,” she hissed, “you can goddamn count. Do it! And don’t think I didn’t notice all of your little glances, it’s like being caught in some sort of glare warezone.”
She turned around to Adora and pointed a finger at her.
“And don’t think I don’t see what you are doing either. I know you. So if you both could, dunno, slap one another around a bit or whatever you need to do, while I’m somewhere else, that would be great.”
Lonnie turned her head back to Catra.
“I’m going to get a soda.”
She turned her back on both of them and stomped back up the stairs.
“Could you -”
“No!”
And she was gone, leaving Catra and Adora on the stairs.
“What was that all about?” Adora asked, looking at Catra for the first time.
That struck Catra as absurd. Righteous annoyance flared through her. She folded her arms and glared, in a reasonable imitation of Lonnie.
“Oh, like you don’t know!” She hissed, “you’re just upset your friend with the stupid name isn’t here and you have to play with me!”
She threw up her hands and turned away, because that was it, wasn’t it? Adora would rather they’d not play together and that was dragging everybody down.
“That’s not true,” Adora said, quietly. Catra blinked. The voice sounded almost choked. She turned back. Adora was standing very close to her. She had thrust out her jaw in a posture of defiance, but Catra could see something in her bright blue eyes that unsettled her first and then slowly dragged her downwards as she met and held Adora’s stare.
“It’s… not?” she replied, lost for further eloquence.
“No,” Adora gritted her teeth and looked away, “I said so at lunch.”
Catra felt unbalanced. Warming rapidly. Hot even. There was heat wholly unconnected to the sunshine on her face.
“Then why…” Catra tried, “then why are you like that?” She huffed, her breath setting the strands of hair fraying out of Adora’s ponytail in motion. She’s so close. She tried to move backwards, but only hit the back of the steps.
“Why is everything so weird with you?” Catra muttered in addition, looking at the worn stones at their feet. Adora spun around again.
“I’m weird?!” She snarled, eyes blazing, “what do you mean I’m weird? I’m trying to be nice about it and you’re all weird! I’m…” She stopped, breathing heavily. Catra could feel her breath on her face.
Several years of heated rivalry flashed in front of Catra’s eyes. Maybe they did so for Adora too.
“Why is it like this,” Adora whispered. Her face was pinched in concentration, as if she was trying to work out a complicated rhythm in her head. It was distractingly cute. Different from her normal visage of fierce commitment or dorky confusion. Another breath grazed Catra’s face. She had to get away. She took a step back. The stairs hadn’t vanished and she tripped. Adora’s arm shot up and caught her, sliding down from her forearm to her upper back to keep her from falling. Adora was even closer now, staring right at her while she could do nothing but stare back. Catra found she could blush even more. She was literally on fire as the blonde girl held her - effortlessly with one arm - and was looking at her with an expression of shock, worry and something else that Catra could not place. And she was blushing too. Adora was holding her and blushing! She was so fast and so strong!
“You ok?” Adora whispered. Her voice was squeaky but Catra was in no state to make fun of that or even acknowledge it.
“Yeah, yeah,” Catra whispered back, “I’m ok. You’re, uh, quick.”
Adora very gently pulled her upright and then stepped back, bringing blessed distance between them.
“Thanks,” Catra muttered and sat down. Her legs had been replaced with jelly.
“Don’t mention it,” Adora replied and sat down too, only a meter or so away. They both sat in silence.
“So… maybe we could be cool?” Adora ventured, “since, you know, were both being weird for no reason?”
For a while Catra felt too embarrassed to speak. Then she said the only thing she could: “Screw you, Grey, I’m not weird!”
Adora turned her head and looked shocked. Then she caught Catra’s eye and shoved her, making her wobble like a pendulum.
“That’s a yes then.”
“Yes, Adora, that was a yes.”
She huffed.
“Dork.”
“Says you!”
Catra covered her eyes with her hands for a moment. In the distance a car sped along an unseen road. A large bird screamed far above them.
“So,” Catra sighed, “what are we to do with Telemann?”
Adora looked at her in shock at the swerve, but rallied.
“Ok, so our problem is the handover of the runs, right, so let's see, it’s just alla breve. It’s mainly sets of four eights and then runs in sixteenths, that can’t be that hard.” She tapped the rhythm of her voice on her knee. Catra watched the moving fingers. It was a shame Adora was wearing these ripped jeans and not, not that’s not what we are thinking about! She started to count in her head and then sang her notes in response. They went back and forth several times. Adora seemed to know her voice by heart and Catra had after some ninety minutes of constant repetition a solid grasp of hers.
“I think this might work,” she conceded, after a while.
“We should go back up and try it out before Lenka calls us back, give her a surprise!” Adora said, standing up. She swayed for a second, looking like a blonde pendulum, before offering Catra her hand. She stared at the bleach white and callused hand for several seconds, before taking it. Adora hauled her to her feet. More touches.
“Let’s go.”
They went inside and up the stairs. They did not see Lonnie who had flattened herself against the wall next to the main doors, wondering if she might lose her bet with Kyle.
***
“Okay, let’s start from the top. Eyes on me.” The three girls held their breath as Lenka counted. First run, trade to Adora, second run trade to Lonnie, third run trade to Lenka, then back to Catra… they came to a halt at the end of the movement, holding their last notes and then muting their strings to Lenka’s slow nod. They sat in silence for a while, surprised at their own work and at Telemann’s baroque beauty, brought out at last.
“That was pretty good, girls,” Lenka conceded and gave them a radiant smile, “I’m glad the break did you all good. Let’s do that again. Pay attention, if you keep it at this level we can actually get to work on expression and not just on getting through.”
They sat too far apart for high fives and in any case their instruments were in the way, but the girls shared looks. Catra noted that Lonnie looked smug and vowed to tackle her if they played soccer this weekend. Or just for fun.
“Ok, ready? One, two, three, four!” Catra snapped her attention back to the music. There was still some work to do.
When they stopped for dinner Catra’s fingertips were starting to hurt and she was relieved to put her instrument away. She slung the case over her shoulder. She could never leave her precious guitar in this room overnight. When she had dropped it off in their room and was walking down the stairs towards the dining hall, she noticed that the smell of food was less intense. That didn’t bode well.
It was indeed the letdown she had feared.
“This is lame,” she announced and set down her fork, looking disheartened at her plate. It wasn’t terrible. It was just bland. But as she looked merely unenthusiastic, her fellows were downright annoyed.
“Cardboard,” said Kyle.
“Wallpaper paste,” said Scorpia.
“Tile grout,” added Lonnie, who was sitting really close to Kyle.
“Can I sit here?” asked Adora, appearing next to the table with a tray and smiling nervously. Catra didn’t choke on the bland piece of bread she was chewing and was proud of that. Her mouth, still full, twitched into a brief smile. That’s the second time this happened, her thoughts yelled, am I actually cursed?
“Knock yourself out,” Lonnie answered while Catra was still swallowing, evaluating her life choices and thinking of a cooler response than “yes”.
Adora’s smile became more genuine and she sat down. Like Catra, she didn’t look exactly thrilled at the enormous assembly of bread and varied square pieces of topping kept in place with white-yellow paste on her plate but she ate it like it was nothing.
Scorpia put her mug of reddish tea down.
“How can you eat all that?” she marvelled, despite also having eaten more than Kyle did in three days. All that bulk needed feeding, apparently.
“Huh?” Adora swallowed and set the remnant of her sandwich shaped atrocity down.
“We are all hungry, but this is not great,” she gestured at the various plates in a state of neglect, other than Catra and Adora’s.
Adora shrugged.
“Catra’s eating hers,” she pointed out. Catra felt the improbable urge to preen as if she had just received a compliment. What’s the matter with me? She pointed both thumbs at herself and smirked instead. That was cool, right? Adora gave a small laugh. Yay. Oh god, what am I doing?
“I, uh, I grew up eating worse, if I’m honest,” she explained, as she grew aware that everyone was now looking at her instead of the blonde.
“Worse?”
Kyle nodded, causing heads to turn yet again.
“That group home didn’t do good food. I think they had it delivered and warmed it up from like the cheapest company,” he speculated and shuddered, “it wasn’t good.”
Catra shrugged, a little helplessly, like she always did when that subject came up, because what could you tell all these people who didn’t know what it was like?
“I learned to eat it, unlike him and that’s why I don’t have scrawny arms.”
There was a shared glance between Scorpia, Adora, and Lonnie, who grinned in buff girl solidarity.
“What?” she hissed and crossed her arms.
“Oh, nothing,” Lonnie said and leaned back, putting her arms behind her back and a second or two later Scorpia and Adora did likewise, making their arms flex as much as their teenaged bodies could support.
“Oh, fuck you, muscle barbies, at least I won’t go to bed hungry.” Catra muttered and took another bite of bread and tile grout. She chewed her food, looking down towards her plate and ignored the others.
A finger gently touched her hand. She looked up with a start, right at Adora.
“So did I Catra, so did I,” the blonde whispered.
“What?” Catra replied, blinking, but the blonde returned to her food and didn’t answer.
Catra shook her head.
Everything’s so weird with you.
***
Catra knew she shouldn’t be there but that was half the thrill of it. Well, she was allowed to be in the corridor, even at this late hour, but she definitely wasn’t supposed to try if the door to that room was unlocked. It was. It was called the Casino on the plaque next to the door but it was more like a tap room with a bar with hobs and glasses behind it and tables that were arranged in more informal clusters rather than the rows in the dining hall. Pictures from the residence’s history and from past events that had been hosted here adorned the walls. One showed their own group a few years prior, sitting on the steps and every child hiding behind their held aloft guitar.
Catra quickly closed the door and moved behind the bar. Moving fast she tried every drawer and cupboard but they were all locked. She glanced around. No luck again, no drinks left outside, not even a crate with bottles of cola to be seen. She exhaled, but she didn’t really feel let down. It had been worth it just for the thrill of looking. She could hear steps outside and her eyes flickered to the side. The room’s sole window had been left tilted open and she could hear someone walking outside, so she ducked behind the counter. The window was very close to the ground and someone would have to deliberately look inside to spot her, but she didn’t fancy risking more.
“Glimmer?”
Adora’s voice startled Catra and she felt her heart beat faster. What is happening?
There was no audible reply to Adora’s question and Catra realized she was talking on a mobile phone. She strained to hear.
“Yes, it’s fine. Yes, of course I miss you but it’s fine. You know, I’ll manage.”
Catra rolled her eyes. Bestie talk.
“But Glim, what did you do?”
There was a long pause. Catra poked her head over the bar and saw the back of one of Adora’s legs. The blonde was clearly leaning against the outside wall. Catra crept closer to the wall next to the window, almost not daring to breathe.
“I mean, Glim,” Adora began, “it’s not like I don’t agree. Hells, I would have hit him too but… yes of course Angella would have found out, you can’t be serious! That bastard runs off to his dad as soon as you say no or fuck you so doing… what did you do?”
Adora paused as whatever information passed between them.
“Yes, breaking the electrics on his motorcycle was a bad idea! I don’t know, maybe he has like a camera? Or he just assumed that the girl who gave him a slap and screamed at him would also do something like that.”
Catra had to cover her own mouth to keep herself from giggling. Perhaps she had underestimated Sparkles. Whoever that guy was, he surely had it coming and she needed to give that hellion a high five or something.
“Yeah, what name is Lashor anyway? Creep. So, are you grounded? I thought that only happens in movies. Yes I know, but that’s different, that was a group home, that’s not like a home like yours. And Mom never grounds me.”
Catra’s brow furrowed. Group home? The little piece of what Adora had whispered to her at dinner fell into place. She closed her eyes. How much else do I have in common with Adora maybe-not-quite-the-vicars-daughter?
“No, we are three,” Adora went on outside, “it’s gonna be fine. Lenka asked Catra to play with us. She volunteered her, really.”
Catra could hear Adora starting to pace outside, making her voice wobble slightly.
“No, no, she’s good. Like, I knew she was good, but, well, we make it work. Took a bit.”
Adora seemed to stop and scratch her feet.
“I don’t know, Glimmer. She just makes me nervous now. Like, we hung out as kids and then we got into this whole rivalry thing but now… she just makes me fall apart. No, you know, the funny thing is, I feel like I want to be near her now.”
Catra’s eyes widened and she took a sharp breath. She had to get out of here before she made herself known.
“I am not doing that, Glimmer Moon!”
With more speed than caution should have allowed, Catra crept to the door and, with a quiet prayer, opened it and slipped out. The basement corridor was empty except for the glowing presence of the vending machine. Catra all but ran upstairs.
***
Catra lay in her bed, shielded from the outside world in her blanket cocoon and under her headphones.
We need some leverage/We can't seem to open up/The locks are far too tight/And the chains are far too strong/Far too strong
Catra shook her head and pressed skip. Too dramatic. It wasn’t like that. They weren’t locked in a years-long struggle, were they. Except they sort of were. Or Catra had thought they were. From playing guitar to sport events to things in school where Adora was in her year but in a different class, many, many times fate or coincidence had pitted them against one another or thrust them up right against one another. Had she misunderstood things? Had Adora grown up? Was all her annoyance and latent aggression against her misplaced? Catra felt like a foundational part of her young life was wobbling. And more pressingly, her thoughts kept returning to Adora. Not to their rivalry or their past, but to her. To the little things she had learned just today. To the way her face looked when she was concentrating hard. Her golden hair with that silly bouncing ponytail and the poof that always seemed to form - Catra refused to believe that this was deliberate, who did poof their hair like this - and the little smiles and the broad smiles and the way the muscles on her arms moved and… Catra bit her own lip to stop her thoughts and keep her breathing level. She could just about imagine Scorpia asking her if she was okay and she’d rather die than explain.
So she was crushing a bit. No big deal, Adora was pretty. And with near certainty gay, because come on. Why else did she have that ribbon? No big deal. Maybe she was just imagining things.
Are you gonna waste your time thinking/How you've grown up or how you missed out?
Catra ground her face into her pillow and regretted it. Her entire body felt so sensitive to everything, like she was aware how the blanket, mattress and her clothes surrounded her and where her body lay in space. Even the damn music was conspiring now.
This was hell.
So I might as well embrace it, she thought and ground herself deeper into her bed, listening to the chorus and thinking about Adora being close to her, one arm around her waist.