A/N: This fic is an attempt to really examine Catra and Adora's relationship throughout the war, it's ending, and the aftermath. Time passes between each section. Check my tumblr (bitfibber) for a detailed timeline if you are lost.

Couple things:

- POV switches between Catra and Adora depending on the scene (context clues should guide you).
- This fic is not beta'd because I don't want to bother my excellent beta with anything but my main Adventure Time fics (which I am still working on!).
- This is not quite a redemption fic, to be honest.
- Since this is a children's show, obviously I will try to explore the realities of war.
- title adapted from LP's Lost on You.

Content warning: Graphic violence-don't read this if you get queasy easily.

Glimmer huffed when she dropped down into the puffy chair in her room. "Okay, that wasn't so bad," she said, "it wasn't the most tiring mission we've been on."

Bow plopped down next to her. His cheek had a messily done up bandage covering a shallow scratch on his cheek. The rest of his face and the exterior of the bandage was streaked with dirt. In fact, they were all covered in a layer of dust and grime, sometimes streaked in places where it had mixed with sweat and been wiped at.

Adora dragged the Sword of Protection behind her along the ground, making a long scraping noise, before flopping down face first into the final feather bag. She mumbled something into it, and Bow made a 'hmm?' noise in response.

"I said," Adora lifted her face from the soft fabric, her voice dark, "are you kidding me? That mission was exhausting."

On its own, a five-day supply wagon escort was nothing to sneeze at. Even if the caravan of supplies running from the Kingdom of Snows to Brightmoon had gone without a hitch, it would have been tiring. However, they had been plagued with attacks all along the journey as soon as they left the snow behind. Forced to fight or abandon the wagons, the team spent nearly the entire trip harried by Horde soldiers and therefore unable to sleep or even eat with any regularity.

Glimmer made a noncommittal noise in her throat, whereas Bow gave Adora a concerned look. "It was long, sure," he reasoned, "but this time we weren't constantly worried that we were gonna die. The Horde seemed to only send small strike teams. It's not like it was the Battle for Brightmoon part two."

Everyone grimaced at the mention of the Battle. Nearly year ago now, that narrow victory had barely secured the Princess Alliance and cost Castle Brightmoon many lives, even if all the Princesses themselves had made it out mostly unscathed. The victory wasn't nearly the end of their problems, though, as keeping the Princess Alliance together turned out to be an ongoing chore. Apparently, no one besides Queen Angella had considered that not everyone would agree with one another all the time, and the Princess Alliances response to the Horde's aggression over the last year frequently became bogged down in what could only be called 'political growing pains'.

Often, the only solution that everyone seemed to agree on was 'send She-ra', and so Adora gladly shouldered the burden for the sake of reaching a course of action. Privately, she hoped that the Alliance could grow out their total dependence on She-ra in time, but for now she wore closer and closer to the bone. Perhaps if that burden just involved taking out some tanks, tossing some boulders to break enemy lines, or personally sending entire squadrons of Horde peons packing with their tail between their legs, then Adora wouldn't feel so immensely tired.

But, there was Catra. She somehow managed to show up at every other skirmish, mission, or town defense that Adora attended. She somehow managed to corner Adora alone, usually. They walked through the same tired fight: Catra taunts Adora, Adora rises to the bait, Adora strikes a nerve, Catra strikes back, Adora feels guilty, and it finally ends when one of them either saves the others life or attempts to end it, depending on the day.

And Adora was tired, so tired, of carrying the incrementally increasing weight of her guilt. She was tired of halfheartedly trying to slice a woman she still has some kind of bond with in half. She was tired of trying to guess at what Catra was feeling and coming up with explanations for how she might have missed all of Catra's torment during their time in the Horde. She was tired of getting all her attempts to help Catra now rejected as 'too little, too late'. She was tired of compulsively trying to put their friendship back together. She was tired of being sorry.

"Yeah well you two don't have to deal with Catra," Adora spat irritably, dropping the hilt of the sword to let it clatter on the ground and flipping over to grind the heels of her palms into her eyes, heaving a large sigh.

Of the four days they spent harassed by the Horde strike teams, Catra showed up to lead the teams for the last two. Two straight days of fending off Catra physically and emotionally.

"What, it's not like she's that bad, Adora," Glimmer dismissed and Adora could practically see her waving her hand in the dark of her mind, "She's just one person; you can't tell me it's more tiring to fight with her than it is to take out a whole squad like I've seen you do."

"You don't get it, Glimmer," Adora snapped, removing her hands from her eyes to glare at her, "every time we fight, we argue about-" Adora struggled to find the right words, gesturing wildly, "-about us! About me leaving the Horde! About our friendship! About our- our feelings, or whatever!"

Adora's face flushed red and she couldn't figure out if it was because she's at her wits end or because she just doesn't know how to talk about this without feeling weak. Bow and Glimmer are staring at her now, looking shocked. Adora leaned forward to put her elbows on her thighs and rub her temples, just to escape their gaze. "I'm just so sick of it, you know?" she muttered.

A firm hand gripped her shoulder then, and Adora looked up to meet Bow's warm brown eyes. "Adora, why didn't you say anything to us?" He asked, "We had no idea that your fights with Catra were so...uh-"

"Intense," Glimmer finished, now leaning forward from her seat, brows furrowed with worry.

Adora took a quick moment to be thankful for her two best friends. When she let them in, they never failed to support her. The, she turned to look at the ground.

"I don't know," She replied honestly, "I guess I just didn't think there was anything to do about it. I guess I didn't know how to tell you."

In fact, this was the most Adora had ever told her friends about her and Catra's previous friendship. In some ways, Adora guessed that they already knew that she and Catra had been good friends; it was hard not to tell from their interactions. However, Adora had never filled them in on how close they truly used to be.

"Well, you should have told us sooner," Glimmer said haughtily, snapping her fingers as Bow started to turn to glare at her, "Because I know exactly what to do about it!"

It took Glimmer at least an hour to convince Adora to stick with the plan, but she was relentless. And now here Adora was, four months later, huddled into a small crevice on the side of the mountains near Dryl.

Earlier that day, Adora had taken Bow and some Brightmoon guards on a basic mission to explore some new First Ones ruins that Bow had picked up on his sensor. Queen Angella had asked for Glimmer to stay home and sort out some of the ongoing trade negotiations of the Alliance.

Adora wasn't sure how Catra and her squad of Horde troops showed up so quickly after their group skirted around Dryl, but it would have to be a question for another day. A rumble heralded her arrival: Catra perched smugly atop a large ball droid cresting the side of the mountain above them. Adora was fairly certain that Catra spotted her, but that had happened before.

Instead of drawing the sword, transforming into She-ra, and joining the fray, Adora exchanged a quick look with Bow and turned to run.

She swung herself over the edge of the road and went scrabbling down the scree downhill, searching for a hiding place before Catra caught up to her. She managed to find the crevice in a larger rock pile gathered adjacent to an old gnarled tree. It was just wide enough for her to squeeze into but deep enough to hide her completely in the dark. The entrance was partially obscured by another boulder, enough of a space to just barely get a clear picture of the tree.

Adora blew air up at the tendrils of hair hanging in her face. I feel like a coward, She thought, running her finger over a sharp stone edge in the wall of the broken boulder.

The sound of a few small pieces of rocks sliding off one another whispered outside, barely audible. Adora stilled, training her breath to go even and steady. Nothing happened for a long moment, and just when Adora thought that she was imagining the previous noise, Catra leapt down into view from the top of the rock pile. She barely made a sound because of the black pads that covered the balls of her feet and her legs folded to absorb the shock of the drop. She straightened partially, maintaining a half-crouch as her mismatched eyes combed over the area. Even from her hideaway, Adora could see her ears twitching to pick up any sound. She held her breath, not daring to move.

At last, Catra's shoulders slumped and her ears flattened against her head. Adora let out the breath she held, knowing that Catra had given up. Still, though, Catra stood there, long enough for Adora to wonder what, exactly, she was doing.

Suddenly, a deep snarl ripped out of Catra's throat and she lunged forward at the old tree, slashing it with her claws. Startled by the vicious attack, Adora shrank back slightly. Catra carried on, mauling the tree again and again, pieces of bark and splinters flying whenever she struck.

Finally, she stilled, chest heaving from exertion. In front of her, the bark was stripped from roughly eight-inch square section; deep gashes marred the denser wood below. The scars on Adora's back itched, but she ignored the feeling. She knew firsthand how it felt to be on the receiving end of Catra's claws.

Catra scrubbed the back of her hand on her cheek, but she stalked off before Adora could see if it was because she was upset or if an errant splinter had scratched her cheek.

Adora waited in the crevice for a long time after that, just to make sure that Catra and the rest of the Horde would be gone. Finally, after half an hour, Adora pulled herself free, wiggling her limbs and toes to shake off the tingling numbness. There was no rush; Bow and the other Brightmoon guards had been informed of this routine. They would head back to Brightmoon without her and Adora would make it back later. Adora reached out and touched the furrows in the tree. Over the last four months, she had ducked and run and hid at the first sniff of Catra's presence. She still hated the plan, as the idea of running like a coward set her teeth on edge, but Adora had to admit that she felt a lot better emotionally without fielding Catra's ire every other fight. She had occasionally gotten the chance to observe Catra from her hiding spots, her face usually flickering between perplexed and frustrated at Adora's disappearance. This was the first time she had shown such an explosive reaction to their prolonged separation.

When she arrived back at Brightmoon, the sky now streaked with pinks as the sun began to set, Adora immediately told Glimmer and Bow what she had seen.

Bow raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Wow," he said, rubbing his chin, "it's like she's- she's mourning the loss of your friendship or something."

"That doesn't make any sense; we haven't been friends since I left the Horde!" Adora responded, skeptical.

Bow shrugged. "Maybe it's the loss of your presence in her life, even if it was an antagonistic one."

"I knew it!" Glimmer crowed in triumph, "I knew this would get to her! HA!"

Adora gave her a confused look. Glimmer looked incredibly smug.

"Okay so obviously, this plan was to help you mostly, Adora," Glimmer began, speaking rapidly, "But something that my mom said to me before I suggested it made me think this might happen. When I was complaining about having to spend so much time reassuring the Princesses in the Alliance, she told me that it was in our best interest to placate them because the more emotionally off-balance they were, the more likely they were to make mistakes that could endanger us all."

She met Adora's gaze, a gleam in her eyes. "So when you told me about Catra, at first I thought, 'maybe that's what Catra has been doing to you' but then I figured, no, she's not that deep."

At this, Adora felt a bizarre impulse to defend her old friend rise in her chest, but she quelled it as Glimmer barreled on, "Then I figured, 'maybe this is a good way to do this to Catra instead' and I was totally right!" Glimmer set her fists on her hips, "she's totally losing it and soon she's going to make a big mistake and it's gonna be great for us!"

Bow seemed genuinely impressed. "Damn, Glimmer, that's a really good plan," he said, nodding slowly, "an ice cold plan, but definitely a good one nonetheless."

Adora swallowed, silent. She liked this plan even less now that she knew it was designed to hurt Catra too. But even as she thought it, Adora felt her frustration rise with herself as the target. How long would she keep acting on her knee-jerk reaction to protect Catra's feelings when Catra clearly had no regard for hers? She hated the idea of being weaponized against Catra, but isn't that what you did to enemies in a time of war? Besides, maybe the faster Catra messed up, the faster this war would end.

Catra slammed into the inside wall of the tank with snarl. "If you can't drive this thing any better than a child, soldier, then I will find a child to replace you!" she snapped at the soldier in the driver's seat. He started, jerking to attention before saluting. She ground her teeth while the turret operators tried to look busy. Truthfully, it wasn't his fault, she knew that the giant roots of the Whispering Woods made driving a tank a nightmare. However, stewing in the cramped heat of a tank's cockpit was not Catra's ideal way to enter a battle. She preferred to ride balanced on the top of a mecha bot, calling out orders and looking the vision of a Commander.

After five months of getting ghosted by Adora, however, Catra had been reduced to sharing a sweaty cockpit with a bunch of lackeys.

From mountains to woods, snows to the sea, Adora turned tail and ran like a damn coward every time Catra even showed a hair. Catra assumed that she was ducking her responsibility for ruining their friendship, which only frustrated Catra even more. Scorpia had a different take, treating it like a victory: proof that Adora truly feared Catra and her strength. So why did it feel like a punishment?

She spent the last five months building up a greater and greater dissatisfaction until finally Hordak approved an all-around silly plan of hers: test the recovery of the Whispering Woods to see if their damage had permanently weakened it. If the Horde made it through, excellent! It would become the Second Battle of Brightmoon. If not, then they would reprioritize destroying the woods. Overall, Hordak didn't seem very interested with the outcome, but Catra figured that he was busy supervising the resource acquisition and control of the less organized kingdoms on the other side of the Fright Zone away from Brightmoon's sphere of influence. The influx of resources and freshly "recruited" soldiers made Hordak quite agreeable to Catra's tastes.

The attack was simple: march on Brightmoon through the Whispering Woods with a large force heavily fortified with mechabots and artillery. The Princesses had already been spotted, including She-ra, and now Catra was being ferried directly to her main target: Adora.

The tank began to shake more as the very ground began to tremble under the might of the Princesses powers. "Commander, we will arrive at the last spotted location of She-ra in thirty seconds," the driver reported, a hint of fear that he couldn't quite scrub out still left in his voice.

Catra managed to wait a full fifteen seconds before she popped the top hatch and swung up and out, landing on the top of the tank in a crouch. Immediately, the noise and chaos of the battle berated her senses. The scent of blood and burnt flesh filled her nose, courtesy of the nasty halberds carried by the Brightmoon guards and the electric batons and blasters from the Horde. She flattened her ears against her head to block out some of the noise of battle and artillery fire. Fortunately, she didn't need to look or listen hard to find Adora; the form of She-ra was a beacon in the crowd.

The battle raged on around them, but there was no mistaking that She-ra saw her. Catra caught her eye and held it, the noise of carnage dying out for a sweet moment when Adora's eyes widen in recognition and she stills. Then, she turned to run, escaping to some other part of the battle while Catra gets tangled up in the chaos.

"Not this time," Catra grates out under her breath, and she leapt off the tank and into the fray after Adora.

Adora is a phenomenal warrior and more than skilled at weaving through a crowd, but She-ra is an eight foot tall glowing target for Horde soldiers and tanks. She moved fast, but not fast enough to outrun Catra while avoiding the ire of every single Horder soldier along the way. On second thought, Catra thought, she has never been faster than me, no matter the context.

When the larger woman ducked a tank blast, Catra smashed into Adora's side, shoulder first, as, sprawling Adora in the dust.

She was up in record time, already turning to run again, but Catra expected that. She leapt over Adora, landing in front of her just as Adora got her feet under her. Catra lashed out at her face, claws fully unsheathed. Adora's sword radiated light briefly, changing into a shield that obscured Adora's face just in time. Catra's black claws screeched as they passed over the metal.

Catra followed up with a vicious kick to the shield, hoping to knock Adora off balance again. It was a mistake, as She-ra had her feet under her now and the rock steady stance meant that Catra's kick unbalanced herself more than Adora.

She stumbled back slightly, quickly crouching into a ready stance with her hands up. She ignored the throbbing in her foot where it connected with the metal of the shield.

"Hey Adora," Catra drawled, "long time, no see. Feels like you've been avoiding me."

Adora straightened with a sigh, the shield transforming back into the sword as she lowered it to her side. Her eyes no longer darted around for an escape, and Catra wondered if perhaps she was resigned to this fight for the first time in nearly half a year.

"Catra-" she started, her voice tired.

Whatever she was going to say, it was cut off by the distinct sound of magical apparition. Suddenly, Catra's legs were swept out from under her at her knees. She thumped onto her back, but harnessed the momentum in her legs to propel her into a backwards somersault.

Now crouched on all fours, Catra snarled up to see who had taken such a cheap shot. The Brightmoon Princess now stood between her and Adora, arm outstretched with her scepter at the ready. Presumably, she had used the scepter to sweep Catra.

"She-ra! You're needed at the front," the Princess' tone was formal and commanding, "I'll take over here for you."

Catra was shocked. She may not have gotten the confirmation that she craved from Adora that she was being avoided, but this would suffice. If Adora's new replacement friends were at the ready to intervene, then this must be a long term plan. Adora looked startled too and almost seemed like she might protest, but then she nodded grimly and turned to charge off in the other direction, back to a more populated part of the battle.

Catra growled and easily dodged past the Princess (was it Glimmer? Shimmer?) to pursue Adora, faster than some sparkle princess could ever be. She was gaining quickly when she heard that pop again and felt a hand on her back. Suddenly she was 8 feet above the ground, still mid bound. Catra flailed her arms and tail to right herself and landed neatly on her feet. Glimmer popped back into existence in front of her again.

Catra looked around. She was even farther away from where she had started, and now Adora was nowhere in sight, having disappeared into the surrounding forest. Catra hissed at Glimmers smug face. She had forgotten about the teleportation.

"You want Adora? You'll have to go through me first." Glimmer had a commanding tone. Catra hated it.

"Fine, you want to play instead?" Catra hissed at her, "Your funeral."

She lunged for the girl, but she closed on empty air. Instead, she felt that cursed scepter hook her leg and send her rolling. Glimmer reappeared in front of her once again, just out of reach. Several more tries to catch Glimmer left her dirty and bruised with only a few scraps of fabric to show for it.

Catra growled in frustration. 'How am I supposed to land more than one or two hits on a disappearing enemy?' Then, her eyes widened. 'Her hand on my back.. If she's touching you, then you go with her. I don't have to worry about landing any hits if I can just catch her once.'

She sprang after Glimmer haphazardly several more times, occasionally getting close and taking several jabs from the end of the scepter in the ribs and back for it. However, it was more than enough to get a read on where Glimmer generally teleported to: the back right or left of Catra, and usually a little up in the air, before she teleported again to ground farther away. There was no pattern to whether Glimmer chose the left or right. Catra had a fifty-fifty shot of getting it right.

She feinted at Glimmer, but as soon as the girl saw her attack and she disappeared, Catra pivoted and lunged to the back left.

Catra guessed correctly. Her claws dug deeply into the flesh of the girl's calves and Glimmer screamed in pain. They started to fall in a tangle of limbs, but then the pull of teleportation saved them from the ground. Catra tightened her grip on reflex.

They winked back into the world high above the battle field and began to drop, Catra's stomach flipping. Suddenly Catra realized that she hadn't actually considered what might happen if she actually did catch Glimmer. Now she clung to Glimmers legs in a panic, trying pull herself closer in order to make sure the girl didn't dislodge her and teleport away to leave to to fall to her death. Glimmer thrashed her legs in an effort to shake Catra off.

Glimmer freed one of her legs and tried to kick at Catra's face and hands, anything to get her claws from where they sunk deep into the muscle of her right calf. Catra took two kicks to the face and lost the partial mask that framed her face, the other kick drawing blood from her nose. She ducked the third wild kick and hauled herself closer to Glimmers torso, above where her hands were gripping the leg, the movement turning the deep puncture wounds into large gashes and eliciting a scream from Glimmer.

Catra's ears rang from the rush of air and Glimmers shrieks as the ground came up to meet them. But just as Catra was sure that Glimmer was planning to kill them both, they teleported far above again. She swung the scepter at Catra in an arch that caught her cheek on one of the points, slicing it open. Catra yowled into the wind as blood from Glimmers legs spattered up onto her chest and face as they fell, mixing with her own blood from her cheek and nose.

She could feel herself being shaken loose now, and a great fury rose in her chest. First Adora left her and now she couldn't even deign to fight Catra herself? She had been relegated to to fighting some half-pint lackey instead, unworthy of Adora's attention even in battle. Catra was furious; she rejected this. She would not be treated as less than a worthy enemy and she refused to be left in the air to die.

One of her hands let go of Glimmers calf and wrapped around her thigh, claws digging in new holes just above her knee. Her grip secure, Catra opened her mouth and slammed her fangs deep into the flesh just behind Glimmers knee. Then, she clenched her jaw and bit down hard, fighting a gag as hot blood filled her mouth and her teeth caught on the tough tendons connecting the muscles of the back of the thigh to the knee.

Glimmer's shrieks turned from a high pitched scream to the low, guttural yell of pure agony and her body stiffened in Catra's grasp, no longer kicking at her face.

The fall abruptly stopped when they teleported onto a tank, landing with a clang. The boy with the bow jumped in surprise and horror as he caught a glimpse of their fight. Then, he was gone and now they were tangled in the dirt in front of She-ra, who stumbled to avoid trampling them both. Glimmer might have screamed something to Adora, but Catra couldn't hear anything but the blood rushing in her ears anymore.

"Glimmer!" Adora gasped, shocked at the sight.

With only a moment before Adora intervened, Catra took advantage of their brief respite from falling. She loosened her jaw and then bit down again, lifting her right hand to further savage glimmers upper calf.

Adora lunged for Catra as Glimmer let loose another strangled cry and teleported repeatedly. Catra felt dizzy as they rapidly changed location, sometimes in the air, sometimes on the ground. Glimmer started desperately clawing at Catra's head and face with her own much more blunt nails, catching Catra in the eye on more than one occasion.

The teleportations got more and more wild, now causing them to fall directly on soldiers and once, even appearing inside a tank, the soldiers screaming in fear along with Glimmer. Finally, they winked into existence just above a large tree branch in the Whispering Wood, away from the main combat area. As they dropped, the branch caught Catra in the solar plexus. All the air rushed from her lungs and she went limp. Glimmer fell past her, finally free of Catra's grasp. She disappeared immediately before she hit another branch.

Catra slid off the large branch, the drop sending her limp body tumbling between branches large and small like a rag doll, slamming her head hard enough to see stars. One caught her where her neck met her shoulder and she felt a sickening snap as her collarbone broke. The tree canopy finally released her and she fell to the ground like a sack of grain. Her breath was ragged.

Her mouth was still coated in Glimmers blood. 'Maybe Adora will think twice about letting her replacement friends fight her battles from now on.' Disgusted by this thought and by herself, Catra rolled over and vomited, trying to empty herself of her actions. Then, she was still.

Catra doesn't know how long she lay there before Scorpia found her.

A/N: This was supposed to be a oneshot, but you can thank my girlfriend and Trashibesensei for encouraging me to split it up and post it in 5 parts (hopefully).

You can follow me on tumblr as bitfibber if you'd like to ask me questions about my writing, this fic, other fics, see my writing notes, or just see me reblog gay stuff.