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Micah found Catra staring at the guarded door of Shadow Weaver’s room.
“I shouldn’t ever want to see her again, but I do,” she said to acknowledge his presence.
He stood next to her, facing the door as well. “When she was known as Light Spinner, she had a way of making me feel like pleasing her was the most important thing in the world. I can only imagine what being raised by her felt like.”
“I don’t recommend trying to imagine it unless you like nightmares.”
“It’s natural to have things you want to say to her.”
“But should I actually do it?”
“My opinion? Say your piece to her and be done with it. I’ll stand back by the door. If it gets dangerous, I’ll step in. Otherwise, it’s your show.”
Catra nodded, and Micah nodded at the guard to open the door.
Her demeanor shifted. With her shoulders pulled back, limbs loose, and a smirk on her face, Catra looked like someone eternally unbothered and amused with the absurdity of the world.
Micah had barely taken his position by the closing door when Shadow Weaver stood bolt upright, practically throwing her book aside. “What have you done?”
Catra slinked towards the edge of the circle containing the woman who raised her. “You can feel that huh?” Orange light flared from her fingers as she sketched a rune. “Anything like what you felt when you first found me as a kid?” Shadow Weaver didn’t even try to block the spell from hitting her and didn’t flinch as it did. “Just a little truth spell. I’m getting pretty good at them. If you’re going to try manipulating me again, I would like to know that you’re twisting the truth rather than using your usual tactic of outright lying.”
“You always were a prideful brat.” Shadow Weaver’s full force of venom dripped from the words.
Catra scrunched her nose. “Kinda necessary to survive being your whipping girl. You found a sorcerous child and thought I could be are tool for you to use. When my power faded as it fades for most children growing up with their feet on the surface of Etheria, you were disappointed. You then spent the rest of my childhood making me pay for that disappointment. Did I get anything wrong?”
“You want information about that family that I wiped from your memory? I thought doing that would make you easier to shape, but it may have just made things worse. Maybe it would have worked if I could have taken that mask away, but I couldn’t break its magical bond to you.”
Catra’s expression never altered. The smirk she walked in with stayed firmly on her lips. “Oh no. You’ve proven to be a terrible source of information, and I have other avenues of research for that. I’m here to be petty.” Now the smirk was a grin. “I’m done with you. Glimmer’s done with you. Seems like Adora’s done with you. Micah has been done with you for years. Even Hordak is done with you. You have made yourself an inextricable part of the stories of some of the most powerful people on Etheria. And you have made every single one of them hate you. That takes talent.”
“You place yourself in lofty company. Do you think you deserve it?”
Catra noted that it was phrased as a question. Normally Shadow Weaver would have simply said Catra did not deserve that place. Normally Shadow Weaver wasn’t forced to tell no lies.
“I have led armies that have conquered kingdoms. I masterminded a plan to escape Horde Prime, crippling his ship to buy the Rebellion much needed time and bring them vital information in the process. I spent the most tedious week of my life turning that bureaucratic mess you called a requisition system into a sane process that didn’t need the Horde’s second-in-command to constantly babysit it. You’ve put so much effort into seeming indispensable. I actually made myself useful.”
“Your usefulness has its limits.”
Catra shrugged. “Well, yeah. That’s true of everybody. I’ll give you this credit. I have learned a lot from you. Some of it consists of skills I’m not proud of, but I won’t deny they have their uses. I think the last important lesson I’m going to take away from you is this: Power is far too precarious when you have no loyalties. You never deserved my loyalty. Now I’m finding people who do.”
Catra turned towards the door, delivering a parting shot over her shoulder as she released her truth spell. “You’ve earned everything you have right now. I hope you live with your consequences for a long, long time.”
At the sound of the door latching, Catra’s shoulders rolled forward and her gaze focused somewhere around the baseboard on the other side of the hall.
Micah smiled. “I haven’t seen someone slip a persona on with that much skill since Angella.”
She rubbed the back of her neck. “Years of practice, and give Glimmer time. She can put on a good performance too.” Catra took deep breaths. Logically she knew that nothing she had said was false, but another voice in the back of her mind told her it was all bravado that would only work for so long. She had to stop listening to that voice. It sounded like Shadow Weaver.
Micah recognized the expression she was wearing. He had spent enough of his life around queens and princesses and warriors that he knew when a brave face was wearing thin. “Would you like me to escort you to your room so you can have a nice, private breakdown?”
“Please?” Catra said with a voice that reminded him of just how young she--and almost every other member of the current Alliance--was. Micah couldn’t judge them for that youth. He hadn’t been any older when he had left Mystacor to fight. In many ways he had been younger. People born into wars had to grow up quickly. Too quickly.
He put an arm around her shoulders as they walked, and she relaxed into it just a fraction. He had missed his chance to protect his daughter and her friends from the cruelty of the world, but it was never too late to support them as they continued to weather it.