Long Nights (Adora)

Long Nights (Adora)
Date of Cutscene:	13 October 2023
Location:	Adora's Dorm Room
Synopsis:	Returning from a brutal fight, Adora deals with her wounds, both emotionally and physically. TRIGGER WARNING: Blood, emotional trauma.
Cast of Characters:	Adora Rainbowfist

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Even as She-Ra, the girl hurt. She hurt from head to toe. Nothing ached more then her heart tonight, though.

She'd returned to the School as She-Ra, the normal folks turning a blind eye and ignoring the eight foot blonde in their midst. She could have flown, sure. Instead, she walked back from Shinjuku Crossing, letting the night marinate. Letting her thoughts flow. She needed to think.

She ducked through the doorway to her dorm. Thankfully, her dorm mate was out at the moment, and her bed lay made and empty in the far corner of the room. Her side of the room was decorated with the sorts of things she enjoys. Normal Japanese schoolgirl interests. Adora's side had begun to take on aspects from her own interests now that she'd gotten a little bit of Yen in her pocket and had done a bit of shopping with her new friends.

Above her bed were a few posters. One was for the San Diego Padre's, her Champions of choice. Another was an anime wallscroll of a tough, but cute looking neko girl. She refused to elaborate anytime someone mentioned it. The last poster was for the Mountain Goats, an American band that had become her newest micro obsession. A cute little horse figurine sat at her bedside.

She closed the door carefully and crossed the room to her bed, unslinging the massive sword from across her back, and propping it up against her nightstand. She sat on her bed, the weight displacing her pillows and making them roll over towards her. She picked them up and threw them across the room, the force of the throw and the frustration behind it briefly surprising her.

The enormous girl opened the drawer on her nightstand and withdrew her new phone and her earbuds. She popped them in and spent a brief moment thumbing through to a song. A song she often listened to.

'On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time,

I felt free, and I felt lonely, and I felt scared,

And I began to talk to myself almost immediately,

Not being used to being the only person there.'

The next thing her hand removed from the drawer was a medical kit. Sure, the school had a nurse on hand, but she'd gotten used to taking care of herself and Catra at a young age. The Horde medical team could care less if another recruit died. She set it beside her on the comforter and unzipped it, staring down at the needle and thread. Slowly, as if on autopilot, the enormous blonde began to thread the needle, and spool out a long bit of the medical grade thread.

Next, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She let the magic in her drift from her and flow back into the leaning blade. Nobody was around to see the flood of power and colors, or see the blood-stained, broken sixteen year old left behind in it's wake. Her white v-neck shirt was stuck to her body and soaked through with blood, and immediately the pain and wear from her wounds bore into her. She felt woozy and turned, raising a hand to her mouth to stop herself from losing her hastily devoured dinner. Tears flowed from the intense pain, and she peeled the shirt from her form, tossing it into the waste bin.

'The first time I made coffee for just myself,

I made too much of it, but I drank it all.

Just cause you hate it when I let things go to waste,

And I wandered through the house, like a little boy lost at the mall,

And an astronaut could've seen the hunger in my eyes from space.'

She'd been clawed open pretty badly the night before, thanks to a rain-soaked battle outside of a dingy ramen shop. The wounds vanished when she was She-Ra, but they all returned now. She'd come home and carefully sewn them up. In time she knew they'd become like the claw marks running down her back, or the one across her eyebrow, or the ones on her forearms. They'd fade into puffed white lines and transform into a memory of pain, instead. But she'd torn her stitches chasing the girl she loved tonight, and then that same girl had delivered a kick right to the wound. She was a mess.

Adora set to work through the haze of pain, carefully washing and sterilizing the wounds with water from the sink, and then the alcohol in the kit. Then, with a slightly shaking hand, she set to sewing herself back up again.

Adora had told Catra about the future tonight, amidst the violence and chaos of combat. She came from several years into the beastgirl's future, and she knew so many things that her Applesauce did not. But she didn't expect her to believe her. And then that stupid labcoat wearing Shadow Weaver-wannabe had called it all 'fan fiction'. He'd called their future and her appeal to Catra 'disgusting'.

'And I sang oh

What do I do?

What do I do?

What do I do?

What do I do without you?'

Music blared in her ears as she sprawled back on the bed. She'd need to do her laundry now, since her blankets and sheets were ruined with fresh red. She didn't care right now. She stared at the ceiling of her room, cheeks wet. The tears weren't from pain now, even though that physical wound wouldn't stop hurting for a good while.

Catra once shared her bed, back in the Fright Zone. It was innocent, of course. Sure, Catra's own bunk remained empty night after night, but it was pure. It started with neither of them feeling safe sleeping alone, and then grew into a sense of intense comfort that nobody else in the cruel world they knew could provide. There was an empty space in her bed now, and she hated it. She hated it more then she ever hated Hordak, or Shadow Weaver, or Prime or...any of them.

She brought a shaking hand to her face and covered her mouth, making sure she didn't wake up her dorm neighbors with the intense, chest-heaving sobs. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel, even as the sobs made her fresh stitches ache. When she closed her eyes all she could see was that screaming, sobbing Catra with the sword gash from shoulder to hip.

'On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time,

I was cold, so I put on a sweater,

And I turned up the heat,

And the walls began to close in,

And I felt so sad and frightened.'

Nobody in this world lived the years she lived. Nobody saw Catra change and question and come into herself. She was so, so beautiful when she finally felt confidence in something other then violence for the first time. When she cradled the back of her head and told her she loved her for the first time. When Catra begged her not to leave, just this once. When that laugh was finally unhindered with sarcasm or hate. She had such a beautiful laugh.

'I practically ran from the living room out into the street,

And the wind began to blow and all the trees began to bend,

And the world in its cold way started coming alive,

And I stood there like a businessman waiting for a train,

And I got ready for the future to arrive.'

Adora Happysmile Rainbowfist cried until there were no more tears in her head. Until her throat was raw and her chest and stomach hurt so badly she thought she would die. But she wouldn't die. She refused to die, just like she refused to give up.

The girl curled to her side and brought her knees up. She had no idea that across the city, a certain girl was sleeping in the same lonely posture.

She was going to get her back. She was going to show her that she was worth all the hardship and anger. She needed her Wildcat to KNOW that she was more then her mistakes.

Above all, she needed her to know that she never meant to hurt her, and that she was sorry. She was so, unimaginably sorry.

Adora didn't sleep that night. She never slept after a fight with Catra, which meant she rarely slept. But she knew, one night in the future, that empty space in her bed would be full again. Even if nobody around her believed her. Because she'd been there.

She'd seen it. It had been real.