the wise say that life is a cycle. that we are born, we are raised, we are broken, and we are burned. they say that we walk on four legs in the morning, two in the noontime, and three in the evening. they use metaphors to show patterns, and wax poetry to show meanings. life is a cycle and cycles, well, they don’t end.
catra likes to think this. she likes to think this when she pilots tanks and ravages villages. she sees blood, and she sees pain, and she sees death — but she doesn’t see endings. no. 
a small, shrivelled part of her tries not to, at least. 

(the princesses are powerful, symbols of hope and healing, but they can’t save everyone. [i]not in this cycle,[/i] she thinks.) 
her hands have destroyed, her words have demolished. she leaves fires in her wake. but fires leave ashes and from ashes tend to spring life. and so she keeps going because everything comes back, perhaps different, but [i]there[/i] nonetheless.

(she dreams of gold hair and blue eyes and whispers under blankets promising futures that should have come. she dreams of soft lips and warm smiles and hands that held the secrets of the whole entire universe in them. [i]everything comes back.[/i]
she dreams.
she dreams.
she wakes.)

[i]there are no endings.[/i] it’s a childish, utopian belief that catra holds on to like a lifeline despite everything. there are no endings, even when the enchanted forest goes up in flames and brightmoon, in all its former glory, falls. there are no endings even when the princesses surrender one, by one, by one. there are no endings, even when she looks at adora square in the eye and turns her back on her one final time.
she stares at the setting sun, blazing and burning and [i]oh so alive.[/i] it has seen many wars (it will see many more). and perhaps, out of the desolation and bleakness of history, it may see some peace as well. the sun might see trees burst out of the missiled ground, and flowers bloom where soldiers fell. it might see rivers flow where blood was spilled and children play where their parents perished. it might see two broken girls where there used to be two leaders, too young for their time, holding hands, and smiling, and breathing happiness where death had festered.

and even so, war will come again. such is life, and such it will be.
the wise say life is a cycle. patience, patience, for catra awaits the next one.