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Catra always knew she was different.
Socially, she was a recluse. She preferred her own company over others’. She didn’t trust easily. She often lashed out even without meaning to. However, she felt there was something deeper than that. When she looked in the mirror, a stranger looked back. She didn’t know her people or where she came from. Everyone around her looked so different from her.
Sometimes, when she was alone, she'd pin her ears back and tuck her tail into her pants and pretend she was like Adora. She’d smile, her fangs flashing from her lips, and she’d hiss in anger and smash the mirror with an awful crash and shatter. It always left her knuckles bruised and bloody. Eventually, Shadow Weaver stopped replacing the mirror.
Adora always took her as she was, even then. It amazed Catra every time Adora looked at her with pure, unabashed love and adoration. Still…part of her wouldn’t let her believe it was true. Especially now.
Part of being an orphan is not having the luxury of knowing your medical history, innate magical affinity, predisposition to certain habits, or…what certain ages will apparently unlock. On the first full moon after Catra’s twenty-first birthday, she experienced an inexplicable change. She woke up in a cold sweat beside Adora in their bed. Adora was spread eagle and snoring. Now wanting to disturb her, Catra got up and took a walk through the halls.
Her skin itched. When she scratched her arm, her hand pulled away bloody. She looked down and saw that her claws were sharper than normal. They scored her arm with four deep cuts. She flattened her ears and narrowed her eyes, an uneasy growl rising from deep within her throat.
“What the hell?” she grumbled.
Catra slipped into one of the bathrooms and looked in the mirror. A shiver rippled down her spine. Her eyes glowed, her pupils slitted into thin, primal slivers. Her fangs protruded from her upper lip. The fine hair across her body seemed to lengthen. She had the urge to run, to call out for Adora or a guard, but it was like she was trapped in a cage. She stared, fear stricken, into the mirror while something else looked back. Just as she had always feared. A monster lurking deep inside her very being waiting for its chance to replace her and lock her away.
“Please,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Please. I’m good. I’ve changed.”
Catra felt her muscles tighten and her bones contort. She watched in horror as her face lengthened. Whiskers sprouted from her cheeks and her nose receded, replaced by a pink feline nose. She remained upright, but was markedly changed. Her hands had become paws with claws like razors. She could feel the power that rippled through her very being, coiled like a spring. Her mind swam within a thick haze. She couldn’t form coherent thought, she could only feel a deep primal tug of the urge to hunt and to kill.
Before she lost consciousness she cried out in a voice that was not her own.
“Please. I’m not a monster.”
-
When Catra woke she was back in bed with Adora. The blonde was cuddled close to her with one arm slung around her waist. Catra’s breath quickened as she leapt from bed to stand in front of their mirror. Adora groaned and grumbled something about it being too early, but didn’t rouse from the bed.
Catra felt her face and her arm. She turned circles in front of the mirror. Nothing out of the ordinary. No accentuated feline features. Bo glowing eyes or gnashing teeth. It was her. Just her.
“Must have been a dream,” Catra said under her breath. She scrubbed a hand through her hair and sighed. “Just a bad dream.”
She’d had plenty of night terrors in the Horde. They had lessened since she’d defected, but didn’t disappear. Trauma never went away. She just grew around it. Usually, her nightmares were about Shadow Weaver, or Hordak, or betraying Adora. She let out a huff and shook her head as she returned to bed. This was different. This felt so real.
If she closed her eyes and focused she could feel the night breeze through her fur and the dirt beneath her paws. She could taste the blood in her mouth. She shook her head again to banish the thought. She settled back into the covers beside Adora. She spent several long minutes watching her girlfriend sleep. She loved the way Adora’s mouth hung slightly agape and the small snores that sometimes escaped. Adora, sensing Catra’s presence, instinctually puckered her lips for a kiss. Catra chuckled and rolled her eyes, leaning down to give her a quick peck.
“Mmph, why are you up so early?” Adora groaned in a husky voice heavy with sleep.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Catra said. The lie slipped too easily from her lips. She didn’t meet Adora’s curious gaze.
“Bad dreams again?” Adora asked as she sat up.
“Yea. Real bad,” Catra said. She swung her legs back out of bed, preparing to get up.
Before Catra could heft herself off the bed, Adora looped her arms around her waist to anchor her in place. Adora looked up at Catra with wide, puppy dog eyes and a pouted lip. Catra gave in and stayed in bed a moment longer.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Adora asked.
“No,” Catra said. She winced at how quick her reply was. She tried to ignore the crestfallen expression on her girlfriend’s face. She ran a hand over Adora’s cheek. Adora pressed into the touch. “Not right now, at least. Maybe soon.”
She did want to tell Adora. She had come leaps and bounds in sharing her feelings. This…this was different. She didn’t know if it was real. She couldn’t even put the experience into words. And if she could, would Adora believe her? And if she did, what would she do? Catra pictured the all-too-familiar scene of She-Ra wielding the Sword of Power and pointing it right at her chest. She was something to be put down. She could hear the calls for her blood. The thrumming of the sword’s power as it sliced through the air to-
“Catra?” Adora asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Catra said. Her voice was sharper than she intended. “I just need to eat.”
Adora nodded and smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Catra knew she had hurt her feelings. She watched as Adora climbed out of bed and slunk out of the room. A hundred thousand words were on the tip of Catra’s tongue, but she couldn’t say any of them.
A monster, indeed.
–
It was a full month of routine and familiarity. It was so normal and unassuming that Catra signed off her experience as a hallucination. It was a lucid dream conjured by her overactive mind that fed off her insecurities. She hand waved it away as a one off thing that would probably never happen again. She didn’t tell Adora because it wasn’t an issue. Adora didn’t have to know because there wasn’t anything to know.
Still, Catra couldn’t help the creeping curl of dread that inched its way through her body as the calendar crept closer to the next full moon.
“I think we need to sleep separately tonight,” Catra said over dinner.
Adora stopped mid-bite to stare wide eyed at Catra. She swallowed hard and sat her fork down. Catra stared down at her own meal, unable to look at Adora’s reaction. It was punishment enough bringing it up, she didn’t want to twist the knife deeper seeing just how thoroughly the suggestion upset Adora.
“Why?” Adora asked. “Is something wrong?” Her voice was pitched higher than usual. It made Catra’s ears flatten to her head.
“I just need some time alone,” Catra said. “Tomorrow we can sleep together again. I’ll use one of the guest rooms. You can keep the bed.”
“If you’re mad at me you can say so,” Adora said. “We’ve worked so hard on communication.”
“I promise I’m not mad,” Catra said. She looked up to meet Adora’s gaze earnestly. “I swear. Just trust me.”
“I do,” Adora said. She let out a heavy sigh and sat back in her chair so heavily that the legs scooted back several inches with a loud creak. “I don’t like it, but I trust that you have your reasons. I want extra cuddles tomorrow night, though.”
“I think that’s fair,” Catra said with a nod. “I’ll make up for it. I promise.”
As long as I’m not a rabid, crazed beast, Catra thought to herself.
After dinner, Adora gave Catra an engulfing hug, squeezing her tightly and lifting her off the ground. Catra let out a laugh, lashing her tail and squirming in Adora’s arms. When she was released she gave Adora a long kiss. She rested her forehead against Adora’s and took a moment to exist with her girlfriend. She matched Adora’s breathing and closed her eyes, almost overcome with emotion. She hoped that whatever the night brought that she would be able to return to Adora’s arms unchanged.
They parted ways as Catra slunk down the hallway to the guest room. It felt like an exile even though it was her idea. She locked the door behind her and pulled up a chair to jam under the door handle. She wasn’t sure who she was protecting, the others in the castle or herself. She sat cross legged in the center of the bed facing the mirror on the wall.
She wanted to be prepared for whatever might come. It wasn’t going to catch her off guard this time. If it wasn’t a one-off bad dream and something more sinister, she was going to take charge of it. She needed to take charge of it. Catra scrunched her eyes shut and balled her hands into fists. Her nails bit into the soft skin of her palm. She repeated the same phrase under her breath over and over, like a mantra.
“I am not a monster.”
“I am not a monster.”
“I am not a monster.”
When she opened her eyes she was met with the haunting glow and slitted pupils that had harkened the transformation in the bathroom. A primal energy rippled beneath her skin. It was heady and thick, like she had just drank alcohol on an empty stomach. It made her lightheaded, but she was determined to remain lucid. She continued her mantra, louder to mask the sounds of cracking bones and straining muscle.
Catra realized that it only sounded worse than it looked. The longer she watched in the mirror, the more it seemed like a shimmer overtook her body as it shifted. It was like watching her reflection in the water get displaced only to settle back into a different image. Her mane of hair turned into a mane down her back, almost like a mohawk, and she recognized the stripes on her arms translated into stripes in her fur. She pressed her hand - no, paw - to the mirror. Her face shifted away to something entirely feline, yet it was her eyes that stared back.
The cloying energy was hard to fight off. It wanted her to slip into it, to forget herself, if just for a moment. She stared at that reflection in the mirror and focused on what she knew about herself. She replaced her mantra with things that she knew and loved.
“I love Adora. Adora loves me,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“I am a good person. I’ve worked hard to get here.” Her voice grew stronger, but was deeper than normal.
“I have friends who love me, too.” The shimmering energy surrounding her dissipated. She stood fully transformed in front of the mirror. Her voice sounded rough and gravely, but was still recognizable as her own.
“I am not a monster.”
Catra stepped back from the mirror. Her mind was clear, but it felt like there was something pacing at the back of her mind, something eager and ready to be released. She mentally threw away the key to that cage. She surveyed the full extent of the transformation in the mirror and let out a grunt.
“I’m a cat,” Catra said and rolled her eyes. “That’s original.”
Catra admitted to herself that she was more like a panther or other large feline. She was sleek with rippling muscles and fierce claws and teeth. She had whiskers and a pink nose, fur and paws. She had an unmistakable urge to stalk and hunt. Whatever it was inside her wanted to be out in the moonlight. She didn’t know if she could risk it.
Catra stood by the window looking out at the woods and the night sky when a knock came at the door. Catra jumped several feet in the air, her tail proofing out to twice its size. She swung around to stare wide eyed at the door. She held her breath, hoping that whoever it was would figure she was asleep and go away.
“Catra?” Adora called from the other side of the door.
Shit, Catra thought. Of course it had to be Adora.
“Catra, I’m sorry. I know you said you needed alone time, but I can’t sleep, and I keep thinking that I might have done something to make you mad, and I just want to-“
“Adora, I’m trying to sleep in here,” Catra said. She tried to pitch her voice higher to its usual octave. It came out sounding like she was trying not to sneeze.
“Are you okay? You sound sick,” Adora said. “Can I come in?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Catra said. Her eyes flew around the room, trying to find something to get her out of this mess. Unless she wanted to make a rope out of bed sheets and rappel out of the window, she was out of luck. “I might have something super contagious.” She let out several hacking coughs to accentuate her claim.
The door knob jiggled as Adora tried to open it. Catra heard her frustrated sigh and a thump that must be Adora knocking her forehead against the door in defeat. Catra wanted to pace circles around the room and tear the bed to shreds. She wanted to smash the mirror and throw a fit like when she was a kid. It wasn’t fair. Why was it always her? Why did she always have to hurt the ones she loved? Why did she have to be the antagonist?
Catra took several deep breaths. She moved the chair out of the way of the door. She pressed her back against the door and slid down it until she was sitting with her knees tucked to her chest. Catra slid her tail out from underneath the door. She slapped it lightly against Adora’s ankles. She felt Adora’s hand clasp lightly over the middle and run up to the tip.
“Are you sure I can’t come in?” Adora asked.
“Adora…” Catra said, trailing off. A hundred scenes of She-Ra striking her down crossed her mind. She shook her head, banishing the thoughts, instead thinking of Adora in the barracks. Adora squatting down and talking to Catra in her bunk bed. Reaching out and pleading Catra to come and play, reassuring her that it was okay. Of Adora kissing her bloodied knuckles from yet another shattered mirror, using the gauze in the first aid kit to patch her up. Of Adora- sweet, loving, accepting Adora- reaching out her hand to Catra time and time again, even when she didn’t deserve it.
“Yes,” Catra said. “You can come in.”
“Okay! Can you unlock the door?” Adora asked.
“There’s something you should know first,” Catra said. “I’m…different. Something happened. Things have changed.”
“What? Like you got a haircut? Is it bad? Did you do it yourself?” Adora asked. Catra could hear shuffling at the bottom of the door. She could see the shadow of Adora pressing her face to the gap between the door and the floor. “I promise I won’t make fun of you.”
“What? No!” Catra said. “Just…can you promise you won’t freak out?”
“I…I promise,” Adora said.
“Okay. I’m opening the door now,” Catra said as she flipped the lock.
Catra turned the knob and slowly opened the door. Adora was right there, face pressed up to the gap. She nearly tumbled into the room as Catra opened the door inward. Catra flattened her ears to her head and curled her tail close. Her eyes flitted from Adora’s face to the mirror against the wall. Adora stopped short, her mouth falling open. Catra watched as her hand instinctively went to her gauntlet, but she had taken it off to sleep. When Adora realized where her hand rested, her eyes widened and she let her arm fall to her side.
“Catra…is this really you?” Adora asked.
“Yes,” Catra said. She gave Adora an awkward, sheepish smile that was all razor sharp teeth. “It’s me. I checked.”
“What happened to you?” Adora asked. She closed the door behind her and circled around Catra. Her mouth was still slightly agape in awe.
To Catra’s surprise, the only look on Adora’s face was unabashed curiosity and wonder. It was only the initial brief wave of shock and fear before it dissolved into amazement and slight concern. Adora reached out a hand tentatively to touch Catra’s skin. Catra stepped forward to press into the touch. Adora pinched her skin lightly, tugged at her ears and her cheeks and whiskers. She booped her soft pink nose and turned Catra’s paw over in her hand to reveal large, pink toe beans.
“I don’t know,” Catra admitted as Adora poked her paw pad. “Last month on the full moon this happened. I don’t have an explanation.”
“Wait,” Adora said as her eyes narrowed. “This happened last month and you didn’t tell me?”
“Uh,” Catra said as her ears flattened to her head. She looked to the floor in shame. “Yes. I wasn’t sure how to tell you. I thought it was a dream, honestly.”
Adora pressed her lips together and let out a long breath through her nose. She closed her eyes and nodded. When she opened them, she had a look of determination on her face. She placed two fingers under Catra’s chin and tipped her face up to look her in the eye.
“I’m sorry that you felt you couldn’t tell me,” Adora said. “Thank you for sharing this with me now.”
Tears welled in Catra’s eyes. There was a fire and earnestness in Adora’s gaze. Catra head-butted against Adora’s chest. Adora laughed and rubbed Catra between the ears. Catra let out a purr from deep in her chest.
“I was scared that you’d think I was a monster,” Catra admitted. “I didn’t have any control the first time. I don’t know what happened. It was like I was in a cage.”
“I would never think you were a monster,” Adora said. “I’ve never thought that. Ever. Because it’s not true.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” Catra said. She pressed her soft pink nose into the crook of Adora’s neck. Adora stifled a chuckle as Catra’s whiskers tickled the soft flesh there. “This feels like what I was always meant to be. A monster.”
“I don’t see that at all,” Adora said. She wrapped her strong arms around Catra and held her close, even though she was several inches taller while she was shifted. “You look cool as hell. I bet you’re even faster, and stronger, and have better senses. You’ve always been those things. This is just…something different. Something new. It doesn’t have to be a reflection of who you think you are.”
Catra grunted against Adora’s neck. She supposed that this form did feel familiar, in a way, and not particularly monstrous. She didn’t think that Double Trouble was a monster, and they had similar features in terms of claws and fangs. It was new, and new things were scary, but if she could hone this power…she could really reach new heights.
“You would still love me even if I’m like this forever?” Catra asked, her voice small.
“I will love you forever, even if you were a worm,” Adora said. “Which is way worse than whatever this is.”
Catra punched Adora lightly in the arm. “I’m trying to be serious here, you know,” she said with an eye roll.
“I know you are,” Adora said with a grin. “I’m really proud of you, Catra.”
Catra could feel a hot blush on her cheeks underneath her fur. Maybe this transformation had its perks - Adora couldn’t see it. Catra snorted and averted her eyes. “Thanks. I want to be better at this. For me. For us.”
“I love you, Catra,” Adora said. She tugged her over to the bed. “Now, can we go to sleep?”
“I love you, too,” Catra said as she sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes, but on one condition.”
“What’s that?” Adora asked.
“Just don’t let me eat any mice.”
“Deal.”