A sound like chewing on ice snapped Catra out of her hunter's reverie. She glimpsed behind and above her, ears twisting to the sound of sobbing in the midnight dark. Entrapta, dammit, was crying in her perch. Catra broke her patrol and scrambled up the tree. She whispered in Entrapta's ear: "What in the hell are you crying about?"

Entrapta didn't meet her gaze; she held out her hand. In her palm rested a faint white sliver in a pool of red. "My tooth broke," Entrapta said. "I think I swallowed some of it."

"Well, then you should brush your teeth more often, idiot," Catra said.

"I... I brush 'em all the time, honest... once in the morning... once at bedtime..." Her words took on a nursery-rhyme lilt. "...and after each meal, so my teeth will shine."

"Then don't bash your head on things."

Entrapta looked up at last. The whites of her eyes were pink. "I think it's the DROSTE."

"Did it say 'teeth might fall out' on the hypo, Entrapta?"

"It just said 'DROSTE.'  And that it lasts five days."

"And how long have we been waiting in this Bast-forsaken forest waiting for the princesses to waltz by to their jungle hideout?"

Entrapta stared at her.

Catra held up three fingers.  "This many days."

"The sun came up and went down that many times," Entrapta said.

"Yes."

"...are you sure?"

Catra slapped her.

"Ow..."  She rubbed her cheek.  "Are you sure, though?  I think... I think it's been more."

"Shut up and stuff that tooth in your pocket.  Two days and we're out."  Catra slid down the tree, leaving more lines gouged into the bark. Back to pacing. The DROSTE obviated their need for sleep. The princesses could be through here at any minute.  Better then to be prepared for them for longer than the target window, sleepless and all-seeing.

Yeah... that made sense.

The moons hung low and the night turned darker yet. The thin foot paths were vacant. She found some worms and small vermin, which she absently ate to still her stomach and pass the time. She left slashes on tree trunks, she heard the sound of footsteps and held still for minutes until she realized she had only been imagining the noise--

--or hearing it, and the princesses holding that much more still, and that they were here in force, waiting.

Catra slunk behind a tree and found Scorpia. Scorpia was filthy from trudging in the dirt for three days.  Her eyes were wide and her pupils pinpricks.

"What?" Catra said, after the pause grew from long to unbearable.

"Do you remember the last time you woke up?"  Scorpia said.

"It doesn't matter, gods take you."

"I don't think I've been born. I think I'm still in the egg, waiting to break free. This is a vision.  I... I need to stop it from happening..."

She was crying. The whites of her eyes, now gone cracked and gray, flaked with her tears.

"We're fine.  We're fine," Catra said.  "Three days. Out of five. We'll be fine in two days.  At most."

"Catra... you keep saying that. You said that five days ago. I think you said it two days ago, too..." Scorpia held out her left pincer and let it relax. Nine hypos of DROST clattered to the forest floor. "Catra... [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq364f4RGqE]do you remember the last time you woke up?[/url]"

Catra meant to slap her, but her claws were loose, and so she drew four bright bleeding lines across Scorpia's face instead.

"We're fine," Catra said, and in a moment of inspiration made Scorpia's face symmetrical. "We're fine.  We're [i]fine.  We're fine, you--[/i]"

She cut and cut and cut and cut until her arms gave out.

Catra stood, alone for a moment, and stared at her hands, suddenly transfixed. Her hands were soaked blue. The princess's blood tickled the constellation of track marks running up her arms.

She felt tired.

"Just three more days," Catra said, fetching a new hypo of DROSTE, "and we'll be out."