Chapter Text
Late November
Adora wiped the sweat from her brow.
She was eye level with the dirt now. Her heavy breaths rolled in and out of her. The prayers of labor were doing their best to hide what she was really doing. Who she was doing it for.
“I really don’t see the point in this.” Catra’s voice chided from ground level.
Adora’s face wound tight, she swallowed back the sting.
She kept going, “It’s such a big production just for someone dying.”
“It’s not just anyone Catra.” Adora spat.
Silence.
“She was my–...” Adora huffed from equal parts strain and emotion, “My mother…”
Silence.
Adora stuck the shovel in the ground again. Late autumn’s bite was mercy, quickly taking her extra heat away.
“She is nature’s now.” Catra said quietly, “She should be food for the forest.”
Adora’s tone sharpened, “She isn’t food! She needs to be buried so that when the second coming happens she has a place to return to.”
Catra’s voice flipped back to sting, “I thought you were against the whole vampire thing.”
Adora shoved the shovel against the wall of the pit she was digging. She shouted, “It’s not like that!”
Catra came to the edge, squatting down to heckle, “Oh is it psycho mode now?”
Adora’s look went up to Catra, that gentle lurch in her guts came to her. The girl was still shirtless, her features scowling. Her ratty skirt was still clinging to her hips. Over the weeks of living with her, Adora had started to parse out what was actual ire and what was just her natural abrasiveness.
Adora’s heart turned again in her chest under the appraising look. The thought of ever making Catra fear her again painfully dug into the sides of her throat. She could feel herself ashamedly frown and turn back to the shovel.
She heard the cat girl shift as she thrust the shovel down into the dark earth again.
Catra said, “Well, while you’ve been wasting time, I found some salt and soap. You’re gonna need it after you’re done making this hole.”
Adora kept tossing dirt up and out. She caught sight of Catra dangling her feet into the grave.
Catra was patient. Adora got ten more hefts of dirt before she said, “Why did you kill her?”
The shovel sank into the ground again. Adora wiped at her face, slicking back her sweat-drenched hair, she could feel it defiantly escaping her crown again. Adora slowly caught her breath. She could almost look at Catra with anger over the deliberately insensitive question. She thought about how all this was stalling so that she wouldn’t have to answer. She thought about lying, she thought about not answering at all.
Finally she summarized, “I’m a psycho.”
That made Catra’s feet still.
Adora took a few breaths. She caught sight of a wisp of her breath in the cold. She noticed the silence. She looked up at Catra watching her, just the end of her tail drifting back and forth. She could sense the tension building in the girl.
Adora closed her eyes, giving her the slightest shake of her head. She said, “It’s complicated.”
“Uh-huh.” Catra said. She remained rigid, silently inviting Adora to continue.
Adora wiped the sweat from her lip. If she was going to try to explain more she’d need to change modes. She asked, “Do you have a rag?”
Catra squinted suspiciously at her briefly, then hopped up from her seat.
Adora reached up to the edge of the grave, with a little struggle she pushed herself out of it. She reached for her black shirt, sitting with her calves in the hole. She ran her fingers across its finery. The fibers were comfortable, not from its maker, but from its years of service to her. She thought about her time doing chores in Whiteveil, the prayers that she was taught to meditate on while she worked. Everything seemed to be an extension of loving God, working on behalf of Eve, blindly ridding the land of the unenlightened.
A dirty white cloth landed at her right. She looked up at Catra. The girl could be deathly quiet when she wanted to be. Adora tried to imagine that the rag was from some other place than the heart of the lust demon nest. Regardless, she wiped at her face and shoulders, she was going to be bathing later anyhow.
Catra paced back to the other side of the narrow pit to sit in the spot she was in before. As she walked Adora organized her thoughts. She looked over to the crude box made out of bookshelf, table and chair that she had labored over. It was easier to look at than the sunken eyes of the woman she had killed–... she had murdered.
Adora swallowed. She told the box, “She shouldn’t have–... I’m–...” She looked up, “God help me. I… I killed her. I killed her because she made me.”
Catra waited for more. When it didn’t come, she said, “So… more twisted Eve-ling rituals? If you meet your parents you have to kill them otherwise it makes a sin?”
Adora closed her eyes, “No-no-no… She–...” There was no other way to put it. “She laid with a demon. To make me.”
Catra gripped at her knees from the other side, leaning forward. She scrutinized Adora. She finally puffed out a breath, “You’re serious. You’re really serious. That’s enough for you to kill someone?”
“Evil deserves no quarter.” she said before she could stop herself. Her gaze locked on Catra. She hadn’t meant it, but she knew she was wearing her stern lecture expression. Now that they were watching each other she couldn’t back down.
Catra broke the stare, flexing her brows up, a sarcastic frown moved across her expression as if to say, ‘Sure, whatever.’ Her gaze settled back on Adora, studying her.
She said, “So they’re going to be coming after you now?”
That made Adora break her glare.
Catra quoted, “Strike not the innocent, for this is the second great sin.”
Adora clearly still didn't understand.
Catra asked, “Are you some kind of exile because you can’t follow that?” Adora’s expression turned offended. Catra continued, gesturing at the cobbled box, “You kill your mother, you kill a score of demons, the Shriekfear, the shadow witch… The Eve-lings couldn’t change you to holy so they set you loose on us. Either way they win. Eventually you find something that kills you or you kill the forest.”
‘If only…’ Adora thought.
Adora looked down at her wrapped chest. “No.” She said, simple and soft.
Adora tossed her shirt to the side. She watched its fabric settle next to the dark red guimpe for her shoulders.
A raven hoarsely cawed distantly, the wind pushed through the nearby leaves. She looked past Catra to the destroyed church where she had killed the Shadow Witch and purged the circle.
Adora turned the inquisition back on her, “Why did you save me? Why did you save a murderer?”
“Killing happens everywhere in the Hordewood, Eve-ling.” Catra said quickly, “When something kills to kill, that is something that doesn’t live long. That is something that the Vampires cull before it gets far. They fear it.”
Adora made a dismissive huff.
Catra leaned forward, leaning on her knees again. She asked, “Why do you think I ran to the Shadow Witch? It was to scare you away. I could trade–...”
The girl’s eyes widened, she looked to the side. Adora could tell that she was hiding something.
Catra said, “She could make me safe, because she was strong.”
Adora pressed, “Trade what?”
Catra glared at her. She went back to the tender question that Adora still hadn’t answered, “Why did you kill the Eve-ling?”
Adora stared at the deal that formed between them in that silent beat.
Adora said, “Because I was ashamed. Because of the truth. Because I couldn't save her from what she had chosen to become.”
Catra visibly trembled. She could see that fear had her teeth chattering behind closed lips. It was her turn.
She moved her hand to just below her navel, looking down. She said, “I could trade–… pieces of life for safety. I had done it before.”
Adora’s eyes watched the gesture, puzzling it with the meaning of her words. A numb, cold gripped at her heart guessing at what she might mean.
Adora asked, “Did… did my mother… also?”
Catra looked up back to Adora. She gave a barely perceptible shrug of her shoulders and a shake of her head. She didn’t know.
November’s sun had drooped low.
Nettlewood’s abandoned buildings barely propped themselves up in one way or the other. They had cleared away the central decoy magic circle in the days that followed the Shadow Witch’s death. Adora had found the name of the city in the church’s records along with a mission statement. The settlement was supposed to be a resource gathering town and a toe-hold for Whiteveil to begin pushing back the threats of the Hordewood.
It obviously failed.
Adora had never heard of Nettlewood in her classes, which disturbed her unanswered questions noxiously, like disturbing ash.
Catra and Adora were standing in the graveyard of the broken church. Old headstones were rounded from age. Broken angels bowed their heads, reaching with blessing gestures over disturbed stone outlines where the dead were deep. Long fingers of empty trees reached towards the crumbling abandoned church. At the edge of the overgrown field Catra and Adora stood. The shadows of the encroaching forest were almost complete here. Fresh earth was at Adora’s black booted feet, her mother was freshly below.
Adora had her full clothing, minus the armor. Her veil cascaded from her head behind her shoulders. Her hand was outstretched, letting grains of salt spill between her fingers and pop on the fresh grave.
She had asked Catra for her prayer chain. Still denied. She at least got her bible to read passages from.
Lord God, watch over this woman now without struggle and strife. She was a daughter of Eve, loved by the many gathered here today.
Adora looked over at Catra, the only other person there. She licked her lips, turned the page.
She strived to live life according to scripture. She defended the weak, fed the hungry, shook the wicked from this world, and gave of herself so that others might live in peace. She gathered His flock, speaking His word so that others might find grace in His ways. She walked in the ways of your Church as best she could.
May the things she wished for others be hers in the next life. She brought righteous light to callous darkness…
Adora’s voice trailed off. Here is where she would list the most impactful graces she had done. Adora had never heard of Marlena before she first met her here.
May she be brought before the court of the Holy angels. May her sins be shone before all, and may God find that her deeds in life shone seve–... n…
Adora’s throat closed. She brought a hand to her mouth, composing herself. She cleared her throat.
sevenfold brighter than the times she misstepped.
Adora felt stinging tears fall to her chin. The ritual wasn’t able to fit the moment.
Adora began to sing the vigil chain prayer. She could normally carry the tune, but she could hear the fragility in her voice as she projected into the yard.
Father in heaven, bless us.
Help us shine like the break of dawn upon the bleak night.
Give us bounty as we need so that we may share our excess and be for others’ light.
Teach us kindness to those deserving and no quarter for the wicked.
Craft us into a stalwart shield so that the peaceful might continue without sin.
I trust in God, I act with God, I work as God would want me.
Aimae.
Adora quietly closed the bible. Her words left the clearing. She felt herself tremble.
Silence filled the space. The biting breeze pushed gently against them. The stone at the top of the grave flickered, somehow catching the low sunlight through the wood. She felt her fingers tighten on the book’s spine.
Adora said, “I don’t have words for this. I didn’t know her. I didn’t–… I didn’t know it would be like this.” She wasn’t sure if she was talking to her mother or Catra.
The girl thought for a moment. She said, “Magic asks that what you cast out, prepare to meet threefold returned. Killing is much the same.”
The two watched each other then. Catra was the first to turn from the grave.
Adora watched the little patch of mounded dirt, part of her wanted to weep. She wanted to understand the reason why she wasn’t, it just felt huge and looming. Like if she started to really understand it, it would overwhelm her completely.
She crossed herself, then turned away to their cart.