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The Catra's Heart Campaign
"He-e-e-y, sleepyhead!" Scorpia said.
Catra sat up in her bunk, eyes determinedly closed. "What."
"I made you break-fast~!"
"I'm going to open my eyes," Catra said. "If I see the stupidest thing I've ever seen, I'm gonna start scratching and I'm not gonna stop until it goes away." She opened her eyes.
Scorpia stood at the foot of the bunk in a poofy, pink-trimmmed PLEASE ENGAGE IN CORDIAL CONVERSATION WITH THE COOK. THANK YOU apron, a tray of toasted bagels, lox, and cream cheese held out in her bone-crushing pedipalps. She wore a wide, open-mouthed smile and wide-open hopeful eyes. "Eh? Eh?" she said.
Catra closed her eyes again. "It's not the stupidest. Gimme."
"Of course, babe~" Scorpia said, setting the tray on Catra's lap.
Catra heaped cream cheese, dashed caper and onion, and went (perhaps ironically) ham with the lox. "Is there a drink or anyth--" she said before Catra produced a carafe of orange juice from a hidden carafe harness tied to her tail. "Okay," Catra said. She set the carafe down and took a bite of her food.
Scorpia watched her eat like a small child would watch a kitten hatch from its egg. (That's how it worked for serkhets and that's how it must work for magickats, Scorpia reasoned.) "Well?" she said. "Is it delicious?"
Catra finished her first sandwich and made another, eyes still closed. "S'aright. It's fish, can't go too wrong with that."
"Do you perhaps have any constructive criticism to lay out on me? Or is it perfect beyond your wildest dreams?"
Catra shrugged, too busy eating to respond.
"Well!" Scorpia said. "There's a comment card tucked under your plate so just be sure to fill it out once you're done so I know how I'm doing okay thank you have fun!" Scorpia darted out of Catra's room and into the rumpus room.
She shut the door behind her, then languished against it at maximum drama levels. "Oh, Atlach-Nacha," she said, "Dream Weaver, She Who Spins, Mother of Spiders and Fun Wine-Aunt of Scorpions, cast your net over this poor girl's heart that it not break the bounds of her weakling chest."
"How'd the breakfast trick go?" Entrapta said. She was at her desk, tinkering with a low-recoil mortar launcher for firing from the shoulder. It seemed like something that could be useful for fighting the notoriously difficult-to-injure-if-you're-not-Catra Scorpia.
"It's not a trick, it's a... it's a work in progress, Easy E," Scorpia said, lying on her belly on the cool ground, tail flicking through the air. "Fastest way to a lady's heart is through her stomach, right?"
"Hmmm," Entrapta said, chewing on one of her designated chewing pens. (She ruined one too many writin' pens and learned her lesson at last a few days ago.) "You know, that sounds like a workable hypothesis. I know that the thing I miss most about my palace is the number of people who'll just make me tiny food as I like it."
"Exactly. I'll make her so addicted to delicious breakfasts made with love that she'll have no choice but to reciprocate my emotions in a compassionate, mutually supportive relationship!"
"Heck yeah." Entrapta strapped a large pair of earmuffs on. "Hey, Scorpia. Think you can survive an explosion?"
"Huh," Scorpia said, sitting up. "You know, I think I've been exploded at a few times and I haven't died yet. Actually, let me double-check my journal, 'cause I could be misremembering." She stood up, trying to remember where she'd set her darn ol' journal last.
"What?" Entrapta said. "Whatever." She spun around on her chair, shouldered the mortar, and fired a bomb directly at Scorpia.
Catra's breakfast was interrupted by the door to the rumpus room exploding open and a flaming Scorpia tumbling across the ground and at her. Her final skip across the ground sent her sailing just above Catra's bunk, but the sting of her tail caught Catra's breakfast tray and yanked it away from her as Scorpia smashed against the back wall.
Scorpia pried her head free from the wall. "Hey, kitty," she said. "How... how was breakfast?"
"Ruined," Catra said, with a huff. "I'm going to get today's mission."
"Sorry 'bout that, babe," Scorpia said.
"Call me 'babe' again and I'm gonna scratch you super hard," Catra said, standing up (there was no upper bunk left to oppose her standing up in bed) and walking out the do', one shuffling footstep at a time.
"You already did," Scorpia whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "On my heart... on my heart."
"Did you die?" Entrapta said, standing in the exploded doorway.
"Only on the insi-hi-hi-hi-i-ide!" Scorpia said, bursting into profound, uncontrolled sobs.
"What?" Entrapta said. "I have my earmuffs on, you're gonna have to speak at like... can you do 300 decibels?"
Scorpia continued crying.
"What?"
Later, after the day's mission, Scorpia settled on the rumpus room's couch while Entrapta played video games. (The door and bunk had been fixed by Entrapta's drones, though not very well.) "Easy E, I wanna ask you something."
"Sure," Entrapta said, trying to guide the irritating stick through a tricky angular hallway.
"Do you think I even have a chance with Catra?"
"I'unno."
"So you're saying there's a chance!"
"I'unno."
"Right. So... let's brainstorm. What are things that Catra finds attractive?"
"Well, she likes Adora, right?"
"Yes, super obviously." She fetched a sheet of paper and pencil. "What are some traits of Adora that Catra might find attractive? I mean, I'd ask, but I think she's still mad at me for making and then ruining breakfast."
"Wait, it's been breakfast?"
"Yeah, breakfast, lunch... it's dinner soon."
"Huh! Noted." She jot that down with a pen in reach of her ponytail. (Jot it down on the wall.) "Anyway! Attractive traits!" Entrapta said, "Adora's big and super-strong about half the time, maybe, so maybe she's only into part-time giants."
"Gotta shrink a little, but only sometimes, got it," Scorpia said, writing SHRINK SOME. "You know, I never liked being big. I like... I like to think that being little would work out a lot better."
"It's got its ups and downs. Oh, right! Blonde hair, she likes that," Entrapta said.
"I can dye. Next?"
"Huhhm..." She contemplated. "Adora's her adopted sister, right? Maybe she's into sisters."
"Hold me closer, tiny dancer!" Scorpia said. "That might just be the trick! I have a plan of attack."
"Do you need the gun I just made?"
"Metaphorical, Easy. Metaphorical attack."
"Aaah... so the gun I made last week."
"No."
The next day, Catra woke up to no-breakfast and ominous silence. She ate her normal breakfast (two protein bars) in silence and crept from her bunk towards the rumpus room. She pressed her ear against the door and heard the faint rustling of clothes, like someone was doing an excited dance in place. She gambled it all and swung the door open.
Scorpia turned in place to face her. She was kneeling in a shallow pit, maybe a foot deep. She'd dyed her hair highlighter yellow and was wearing some kind of cat costume--a brown body stocking with stripes painted on it, a big fuzzy brown warmer for her tail, and a pair of cat's ears. If Catra had to describe it, it would be "racist." And she had one of Adora's spare jackets thrown over her shoulder, not that she could actually wear it.
"Oooh!" Scorpia said, pitching her voice up high and framing her face with stuffed cat paws each the size of, like, if a beanbag chair were a beanbag ottoman. "Buenos dias, hermana Catra! Estas muy guapa hoy, miau!"
Catra's eyes doubled in size as her irises shrunk to pinpricks. She took a deep breath and shrieked in mortal terror as she never had before before sprinting away on all fours to the nearest alcohol dispensary.
Scorpia looked back at Entrapta, who was hanging from the ceiling by her ponytails, upside down, 'cause that's what she felt like doing. "What went wrong, Easy?"
"Maybe the hole shoulda been deeper," Entrapta said. "Did you try shrinking?"
"I did! I got really small!"
"Mm. Then you did everything right. Wait! Maybe you got too small and she saw you as a mouse or rat and that made her hungry and she ran in terror for fear that you had been hit by a magic spell or something." She took a sip from her bottle of Caramel Coloring Added Cola Nut Beverage.
"Maybe..." She whimpered. "Damn it, Easy. I've fed her, I've dressed up, what else is there in life?"
"Murder?"
"Attles bless me, I love murder," Scorpia said, yanking off her cat paws. "And Catra loves murder. Murder is so great. But we murder people all the time and that doesn't get her lovi..." She hiccupped. "Wait. Does Catra... not love me?"
"Hrm?" Entrapta lowered herself from the ceiling.
"Does she... does she not love me? Does she think I'm just a big stupid bug?" She wiped away tears, which never worked with her crushing, chitinous claws.
"Hey, you're not a stupid bug," Entrapta said, giving her a big warm hair-hug. "Bugs are way dumber than you are, on average, not counting brain bugs. But you're not dumber than bugs that aren't known for being smart."
"Thank you," Scorpia said, reciprocating with a regular scorpion hug. Entrapta gasped for breath. "There has to be a way, Easy... some way that I can get her to, like..."
"Register you with her sensoria?"
"Yes. Exactly."
"Hrrrmmm..." Entrapta tapped her chin with one of her ponytails. "Rumor has it that judging people by appearance is an entry-level technique. So you started by appealing to one of her basic needs, and then you started by appealing to superficial aspects... maybe you need to forge an emotional connection to get her liking you."
"Something that isn't shared love of murder?" Scorpia said.
"What else is something you both enjoy but haven't done?"
The next day, Catra woke up very carefully and with a taser in each hand. "Hello...?" she said, waving the tasers around in a wide arc testing for Scorpia, just in case she'd developed some kind of invisibility venom.
She found nothing but an envelope with gilt filigree. She tased it a few times to make sure it wasn't alive or trapped, stopping only when her brain woke up more and she realized tasing a possible bomb would not make it happier to see her.
"'...happier to see me,'" Catra grumbled, opening the envelope. "She Who Scratches, I drank too much last... day." The alcohol had blessedly dimmed her recall of why she had to drink that much; all that remained was the surety that something had come over Scorpia and it was worth only forgetting.
Someone had left her an invitation. She had a strong feeling who it might have been:
You are Cordially Invited to
the First Annual
ST. MOSTLY MITTENS STAG DANCE
Show Up Without A Date
Maybe You'll Find One There!!!
Signed,
Your Secret Admirer
"Scorpia," Catra said, "what in the wet red hell is wrong with you this week?" She crumpled up the invite and tossed it aside, then crawled out of bed and smoothed the invite back out to see where the stupid dance was happening.
Okay. Location memorized.
It was tonight at seven in "the mother of all gyms." She should probably skip it, in case Scorpia tried to make breakfast while dressed as--
Pain, like an icicle in the brain. She was dressed as--
Something she drank to forget.
Maybe she needed a little hair of the dog to smooth her nerves, seal over that awful itch in her brain. Yeah... something like a good stout IPA if she could steal one from the Force Captain lounge, or maybe she could lick some of the rum drippings from the distillery hidden in the cadet locker room.
"Am I an alcoholic?" Catra said. "Am I just now finding this out? ... Sort it out later, Catra. Pack that down next to the file cabinet labeled 'Shadow Weaver' and the library wing labeled 'Adora.' Nice... nice little shelf. The 'alcoholic' shelf. Aw, crap, now I'm talking to myself. Is that a sign?"
The dance was held in a disused gymnasium. It was disused because it spent a year as some kind of gestation chamber--not by design, sometimes things just happen in the Fright Zone--and every full moon for a year it calved some awful thing. After the third full moon culled a few more Hordesmen than Hordak was comfortable with, the door was sealed with a piece of tape reading DO NOT ENTER, which kept nothing in and, after the room stopped spitting out monsters, nobody out.
Like Catra. Catra pulled open the door and bore witness to a slightly clean gymnasium floor lit with a few flashlights set on their butt ends in a wide circle. There was an end table with a few cans of Sweetened Cola Beverage. There was a middle-aged serkhet gentleman sitting on a folding chair, reading a book designed to be read by someone with giant claws. And Scorpia was here in a ballgown that looked like a wearable wedding cake.
"Hey, wildcat," Scorpia said, curtsying. "Did you get the invite?"
"No," Catra said, "I just wandered half a mile from our building and wound up here on accident."
Scorpia wilted.
"...that was a joke. You said there's a dance?"
"Yes!" Scorpia said, clapping her claws. "Enrique, if you please."
The other serkhet reached to one side while keeping his eye on his book. He set a boom box in front of him and pressed "play." Decent music played.
Catra looked around. It was just them.
And Dragstor, who had brought motor oil and locker room rum and was shotgunning them both. It was his life's goal to crash every single party in the Fright Zone. At least he was off in an unlit corner with his engines on idle.
Scorpia blushed. "Well... wanna dance?"
Catra smiled, stepping closer, and held out her hand. "Sure."
The two danced hand-in-pedipalp as the song played. It wasn't the kind of dance that Catra did with Adora, the intimate, chest-to-chest sexy threat dance; it was more in the genre of "eight-year-olds awkwardly pretending to be cool grownups." Scorpia articulated it around the time she lurched to the left so fast Catra had to jump just to maintain her footing: she was an anchor dragging her entire cat act down.
Scorpia's blush deepened and her dancing, already halting, came to a stop. "Oh..." she said. "Dang it. I screwed up."
"Screwed up how?" Catra said.
"Oh, no..." Scorpia felt a hitch in her throat. "You can't even notice when something goes wrong."
"What went wrong?"
"I can't dance," Scorpia said, letting go of Catra's hands. "It's like the most important thing a serkhet does and I can't even do that properly. And you don't even know! It's like I'm made of glass. But not like a glass unicorn or a mirror, like I'm a pane of glass that's just sort of standing upright in the middle of the floor and you only notice me when you walk into me late at night looking for the bathroom or 'cause someone sneezed on me."
Catra considered. "Well, that's... well, that's a vivid image. I like it. But, uh..."
"It's right, isn't it?" Scorpia said, burying her face in her bone-crushing chitinous claws. "You just... you've just been looking right through me! 'Cause I'm a pest! I really am just a big dumb bug!"
Catra sighed and contemplated a course of action. "Well," Catra said. "That's... not right. I mean, you're like half this team's muscle. Entrapta's the brains, I'm the unstoppable instrument of divine vengeance, and you put the hurt on people. And, uh. You... uh..."
Scorpia snivelled. "Dang it, Catra. If I'm so precious, why were you so mad at me the day before yesterday?"
"Because you woke me up two hours before my alarm did."
"...oh, yeah. That was the latest I could reserve the kitchen. And the next day?"
Catra's nose gushed a thick black liquid that wasn't blood. "I don't think I'm supposed to remember that day." She wiped her nose on Enrique's sleeve. He allowed it, though not happily. "But... whatever. That's just two weird days in a row. Two weird days isn't gonna change what we have."
Scorpia peered above her claws. "What was that about what we have?"
"You know, this... uh... this... professional... relationship... we have."
"So we have a relationship!"
"Yes! Professionally."
Scorpia took a deep breath. "Wanna try dancing again, wildcat?"
"Stop calling me 'wildcat' and the answer is yes," Catra said, holding her hand out.
"Consider it done... what would you like me to call you?"
"'Catra.' 'Catra' is fine. ... Maybe 'captain.'"
"Yes, Captain Catra." Scorpia took her hand.
"Follow my lead," Catra said, and she closed the friendly gap she'd kept between them. "Move with me, one step at a time. And... just 'Catra' for now. A'ight?"
"A'ight," Scorpia said, a little more high-pitched than she intended.
"Match pace, don't overpower," Catra said, punctuating each sentence with a little display of grace, inviting Scorpia to follow each her own way. "Go with what feels right, not with what some jackass said is the logical follow-up to your moves. Be who you are and don't apologize for it. You don't apologize when you dance; you show the universe who you are and they just have to stand back and accept it. If someone gives you shit about it, you... are a six-foot-two scorpion woman."
"I am, aren't I?" Scorpia said. "With super-strength. And I'm a princess! And I'm rich!"
"So don't worry so much, okay?" Catra said, patting her cheek. "You're nine times as badass as anyone else where and you got nothing to prove. So, please, stop trying to prove yourself, it's scaring the hell out of me."
"Gotcha," Scorpia said. "Life lesson learned."
Catra parted and spun about and bowed to her; Scorpia bowed in return.
"Good job," Catra said. "Now can we please skip to the next song on this playlist?"
"It's not a playlist," Scorpia said, "it's a mix tape that's just that one song lie fifteen times."
"...then how about we go to the cafeteria and whale on anyone sober enough to try and fight us?"
"Let's do exactly that, wild... I mean, domestic cat who sets her own rules. Startin' with you!" She picked up the end table and flung it at Dragstor, who didn't have long to notice the flying table until it smacked him in the head.
The evening was soaked with blood and quite entertaining indeed.
Catra sat up in her bunk, eyes determinedly closed. "What."
"I made you break-fast~!"
"I'm going to open my eyes," Catra said. "If I see the stupidest thing I've ever seen, I'm gonna start scratching and I'm not gonna stop until it goes away." She opened her eyes.
Scorpia stood at the foot of the bunk in a poofy, pink-trimmmed PLEASE ENGAGE IN CORDIAL CONVERSATION WITH THE COOK. THANK YOU apron, a tray of toasted bagels, lox, and cream cheese held out in her bone-crushing pedipalps. She wore a wide, open-mouthed smile and wide-open hopeful eyes. "Eh? Eh?" she said.
Catra closed her eyes again. "It's not the stupidest. Gimme."
"Of course, babe~" Scorpia said, setting the tray on Catra's lap.
Catra heaped cream cheese, dashed caper and onion, and went (perhaps ironically) ham with the lox. "Is there a drink or anyth--" she said before Catra produced a carafe of orange juice from a hidden carafe harness tied to her tail. "Okay," Catra said. She set the carafe down and took a bite of her food.
Scorpia watched her eat like a small child would watch a kitten hatch from its egg. (That's how it worked for serkhets and that's how it must work for magickats, Scorpia reasoned.) "Well?" she said. "Is it delicious?"
Catra finished her first sandwich and made another, eyes still closed. "S'aright. It's fish, can't go too wrong with that."
"Do you perhaps have any constructive criticism to lay out on me? Or is it perfect beyond your wildest dreams?"
Catra shrugged, too busy eating to respond.
"Well!" Scorpia said. "There's a comment card tucked under your plate so just be sure to fill it out once you're done so I know how I'm doing okay thank you have fun!" Scorpia darted out of Catra's room and into the rumpus room.
She shut the door behind her, then languished against it at maximum drama levels. "Oh, Atlach-Nacha," she said, "Dream Weaver, She Who Spins, Mother of Spiders and Fun Wine-Aunt of Scorpions, cast your net over this poor girl's heart that it not break the bounds of her weakling chest."
"How'd the breakfast trick go?" Entrapta said. She was at her desk, tinkering with a low-recoil mortar launcher for firing from the shoulder. It seemed like something that could be useful for fighting the notoriously difficult-to-injure-if-you're-not-Catra Scorpia.
"It's not a trick, it's a... it's a work in progress, Easy E," Scorpia said, lying on her belly on the cool ground, tail flicking through the air. "Fastest way to a lady's heart is through her stomach, right?"
"Hmmm," Entrapta said, chewing on one of her designated chewing pens. (She ruined one too many writin' pens and learned her lesson at last a few days ago.) "You know, that sounds like a workable hypothesis. I know that the thing I miss most about my palace is the number of people who'll just make me tiny food as I like it."
"Exactly. I'll make her so addicted to delicious breakfasts made with love that she'll have no choice but to reciprocate my emotions in a compassionate, mutually supportive relationship!"
"Heck yeah." Entrapta strapped a large pair of earmuffs on. "Hey, Scorpia. Think you can survive an explosion?"
"Huh," Scorpia said, sitting up. "You know, I think I've been exploded at a few times and I haven't died yet. Actually, let me double-check my journal, 'cause I could be misremembering." She stood up, trying to remember where she'd set her darn ol' journal last.
"What?" Entrapta said. "Whatever." She spun around on her chair, shouldered the mortar, and fired a bomb directly at Scorpia.
Catra's breakfast was interrupted by the door to the rumpus room exploding open and a flaming Scorpia tumbling across the ground and at her. Her final skip across the ground sent her sailing just above Catra's bunk, but the sting of her tail caught Catra's breakfast tray and yanked it away from her as Scorpia smashed against the back wall.
Scorpia pried her head free from the wall. "Hey, kitty," she said. "How... how was breakfast?"
"Ruined," Catra said, with a huff. "I'm going to get today's mission."
"Sorry 'bout that, babe," Scorpia said.
"Call me 'babe' again and I'm gonna scratch you super hard," Catra said, standing up (there was no upper bunk left to oppose her standing up in bed) and walking out the do', one shuffling footstep at a time.
"You already did," Scorpia whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "On my heart... on my heart."
"Did you die?" Entrapta said, standing in the exploded doorway.
"Only on the insi-hi-hi-hi-i-ide!" Scorpia said, bursting into profound, uncontrolled sobs.
"What?" Entrapta said. "I have my earmuffs on, you're gonna have to speak at like... can you do 300 decibels?"
Scorpia continued crying.
"What?"
Later, after the day's mission, Scorpia settled on the rumpus room's couch while Entrapta played video games. (The door and bunk had been fixed by Entrapta's drones, though not very well.) "Easy E, I wanna ask you something."
"Sure," Entrapta said, trying to guide the irritating stick through a tricky angular hallway.
"Do you think I even have a chance with Catra?"
"I'unno."
"So you're saying there's a chance!"
"I'unno."
"Right. So... let's brainstorm. What are things that Catra finds attractive?"
"Well, she likes Adora, right?"
"Yes, super obviously." She fetched a sheet of paper and pencil. "What are some traits of Adora that Catra might find attractive? I mean, I'd ask, but I think she's still mad at me for making and then ruining breakfast."
"Wait, it's been breakfast?"
"Yeah, breakfast, lunch... it's dinner soon."
"Huh! Noted." She jot that down with a pen in reach of her ponytail. (Jot it down on the wall.) "Anyway! Attractive traits!" Entrapta said, "Adora's big and super-strong about half the time, maybe, so maybe she's only into part-time giants."
"Gotta shrink a little, but only sometimes, got it," Scorpia said, writing SHRINK SOME. "You know, I never liked being big. I like... I like to think that being little would work out a lot better."
"It's got its ups and downs. Oh, right! Blonde hair, she likes that," Entrapta said.
"I can dye. Next?"
"Huhhm..." She contemplated. "Adora's her adopted sister, right? Maybe she's into sisters."
"Hold me closer, tiny dancer!" Scorpia said. "That might just be the trick! I have a plan of attack."
"Do you need the gun I just made?"
"Metaphorical, Easy. Metaphorical attack."
"Aaah... so the gun I made last week."
"No."
The next day, Catra woke up to no-breakfast and ominous silence. She ate her normal breakfast (two protein bars) in silence and crept from her bunk towards the rumpus room. She pressed her ear against the door and heard the faint rustling of clothes, like someone was doing an excited dance in place. She gambled it all and swung the door open.
Scorpia turned in place to face her. She was kneeling in a shallow pit, maybe a foot deep. She'd dyed her hair highlighter yellow and was wearing some kind of cat costume--a brown body stocking with stripes painted on it, a big fuzzy brown warmer for her tail, and a pair of cat's ears. If Catra had to describe it, it would be "racist." And she had one of Adora's spare jackets thrown over her shoulder, not that she could actually wear it.
"Oooh!" Scorpia said, pitching her voice up high and framing her face with stuffed cat paws each the size of, like, if a beanbag chair were a beanbag ottoman. "Buenos dias, hermana Catra! Estas muy guapa hoy, miau!"
Catra's eyes doubled in size as her irises shrunk to pinpricks. She took a deep breath and shrieked in mortal terror as she never had before before sprinting away on all fours to the nearest alcohol dispensary.
Scorpia looked back at Entrapta, who was hanging from the ceiling by her ponytails, upside down, 'cause that's what she felt like doing. "What went wrong, Easy?"
"Maybe the hole shoulda been deeper," Entrapta said. "Did you try shrinking?"
"I did! I got really small!"
"Mm. Then you did everything right. Wait! Maybe you got too small and she saw you as a mouse or rat and that made her hungry and she ran in terror for fear that you had been hit by a magic spell or something." She took a sip from her bottle of Caramel Coloring Added Cola Nut Beverage.
"Maybe..." She whimpered. "Damn it, Easy. I've fed her, I've dressed up, what else is there in life?"
"Murder?"
"Attles bless me, I love murder," Scorpia said, yanking off her cat paws. "And Catra loves murder. Murder is so great. But we murder people all the time and that doesn't get her lovi..." She hiccupped. "Wait. Does Catra... not love me?"
"Hrm?" Entrapta lowered herself from the ceiling.
"Does she... does she not love me? Does she think I'm just a big stupid bug?" She wiped away tears, which never worked with her crushing, chitinous claws.
"Hey, you're not a stupid bug," Entrapta said, giving her a big warm hair-hug. "Bugs are way dumber than you are, on average, not counting brain bugs. But you're not dumber than bugs that aren't known for being smart."
"Thank you," Scorpia said, reciprocating with a regular scorpion hug. Entrapta gasped for breath. "There has to be a way, Easy... some way that I can get her to, like..."
"Register you with her sensoria?"
"Yes. Exactly."
"Hrrrmmm..." Entrapta tapped her chin with one of her ponytails. "Rumor has it that judging people by appearance is an entry-level technique. So you started by appealing to one of her basic needs, and then you started by appealing to superficial aspects... maybe you need to forge an emotional connection to get her liking you."
"Something that isn't shared love of murder?" Scorpia said.
"What else is something you both enjoy but haven't done?"
The next day, Catra woke up very carefully and with a taser in each hand. "Hello...?" she said, waving the tasers around in a wide arc testing for Scorpia, just in case she'd developed some kind of invisibility venom.
She found nothing but an envelope with gilt filigree. She tased it a few times to make sure it wasn't alive or trapped, stopping only when her brain woke up more and she realized tasing a possible bomb would not make it happier to see her.
"'...happier to see me,'" Catra grumbled, opening the envelope. "She Who Scratches, I drank too much last... day." The alcohol had blessedly dimmed her recall of why she had to drink that much; all that remained was the surety that something had come over Scorpia and it was worth only forgetting.
Someone had left her an invitation. She had a strong feeling who it might have been:
You are Cordially Invited to
the First Annual
ST. MOSTLY MITTENS STAG DANCE
Show Up Without A Date
Maybe You'll Find One There!!!
Signed,
Your Secret Admirer
"Scorpia," Catra said, "what in the wet red hell is wrong with you this week?" She crumpled up the invite and tossed it aside, then crawled out of bed and smoothed the invite back out to see where the stupid dance was happening.
Okay. Location memorized.
It was tonight at seven in "the mother of all gyms." She should probably skip it, in case Scorpia tried to make breakfast while dressed as--
Pain, like an icicle in the brain. She was dressed as--
Something she drank to forget.
Maybe she needed a little hair of the dog to smooth her nerves, seal over that awful itch in her brain. Yeah... something like a good stout IPA if she could steal one from the Force Captain lounge, or maybe she could lick some of the rum drippings from the distillery hidden in the cadet locker room.
"Am I an alcoholic?" Catra said. "Am I just now finding this out? ... Sort it out later, Catra. Pack that down next to the file cabinet labeled 'Shadow Weaver' and the library wing labeled 'Adora.' Nice... nice little shelf. The 'alcoholic' shelf. Aw, crap, now I'm talking to myself. Is that a sign?"
The dance was held in a disused gymnasium. It was disused because it spent a year as some kind of gestation chamber--not by design, sometimes things just happen in the Fright Zone--and every full moon for a year it calved some awful thing. After the third full moon culled a few more Hordesmen than Hordak was comfortable with, the door was sealed with a piece of tape reading DO NOT ENTER, which kept nothing in and, after the room stopped spitting out monsters, nobody out.
Like Catra. Catra pulled open the door and bore witness to a slightly clean gymnasium floor lit with a few flashlights set on their butt ends in a wide circle. There was an end table with a few cans of Sweetened Cola Beverage. There was a middle-aged serkhet gentleman sitting on a folding chair, reading a book designed to be read by someone with giant claws. And Scorpia was here in a ballgown that looked like a wearable wedding cake.
"Hey, wildcat," Scorpia said, curtsying. "Did you get the invite?"
"No," Catra said, "I just wandered half a mile from our building and wound up here on accident."
Scorpia wilted.
"...that was a joke. You said there's a dance?"
"Yes!" Scorpia said, clapping her claws. "Enrique, if you please."
The other serkhet reached to one side while keeping his eye on his book. He set a boom box in front of him and pressed "play." Decent music played.
Catra looked around. It was just them.
And Dragstor, who had brought motor oil and locker room rum and was shotgunning them both. It was his life's goal to crash every single party in the Fright Zone. At least he was off in an unlit corner with his engines on idle.
Scorpia blushed. "Well... wanna dance?"
Catra smiled, stepping closer, and held out her hand. "Sure."
The two danced hand-in-pedipalp as the song played. It wasn't the kind of dance that Catra did with Adora, the intimate, chest-to-chest sexy threat dance; it was more in the genre of "eight-year-olds awkwardly pretending to be cool grownups." Scorpia articulated it around the time she lurched to the left so fast Catra had to jump just to maintain her footing: she was an anchor dragging her entire cat act down.
Scorpia's blush deepened and her dancing, already halting, came to a stop. "Oh..." she said. "Dang it. I screwed up."
"Screwed up how?" Catra said.
"Oh, no..." Scorpia felt a hitch in her throat. "You can't even notice when something goes wrong."
"What went wrong?"
"I can't dance," Scorpia said, letting go of Catra's hands. "It's like the most important thing a serkhet does and I can't even do that properly. And you don't even know! It's like I'm made of glass. But not like a glass unicorn or a mirror, like I'm a pane of glass that's just sort of standing upright in the middle of the floor and you only notice me when you walk into me late at night looking for the bathroom or 'cause someone sneezed on me."
Catra considered. "Well, that's... well, that's a vivid image. I like it. But, uh..."
"It's right, isn't it?" Scorpia said, burying her face in her bone-crushing chitinous claws. "You just... you've just been looking right through me! 'Cause I'm a pest! I really am just a big dumb bug!"
Catra sighed and contemplated a course of action. "Well," Catra said. "That's... not right. I mean, you're like half this team's muscle. Entrapta's the brains, I'm the unstoppable instrument of divine vengeance, and you put the hurt on people. And, uh. You... uh..."
Scorpia snivelled. "Dang it, Catra. If I'm so precious, why were you so mad at me the day before yesterday?"
"Because you woke me up two hours before my alarm did."
"...oh, yeah. That was the latest I could reserve the kitchen. And the next day?"
Catra's nose gushed a thick black liquid that wasn't blood. "I don't think I'm supposed to remember that day." She wiped her nose on Enrique's sleeve. He allowed it, though not happily. "But... whatever. That's just two weird days in a row. Two weird days isn't gonna change what we have."
Scorpia peered above her claws. "What was that about what we have?"
"You know, this... uh... this... professional... relationship... we have."
"So we have a relationship!"
"Yes! Professionally."
Scorpia took a deep breath. "Wanna try dancing again, wildcat?"
"Stop calling me 'wildcat' and the answer is yes," Catra said, holding her hand out.
"Consider it done... what would you like me to call you?"
"'Catra.' 'Catra' is fine. ... Maybe 'captain.'"
"Yes, Captain Catra." Scorpia took her hand.
"Follow my lead," Catra said, and she closed the friendly gap she'd kept between them. "Move with me, one step at a time. And... just 'Catra' for now. A'ight?"
"A'ight," Scorpia said, a little more high-pitched than she intended.
"Match pace, don't overpower," Catra said, punctuating each sentence with a little display of grace, inviting Scorpia to follow each her own way. "Go with what feels right, not with what some jackass said is the logical follow-up to your moves. Be who you are and don't apologize for it. You don't apologize when you dance; you show the universe who you are and they just have to stand back and accept it. If someone gives you shit about it, you... are a six-foot-two scorpion woman."
"I am, aren't I?" Scorpia said. "With super-strength. And I'm a princess! And I'm rich!"
"So don't worry so much, okay?" Catra said, patting her cheek. "You're nine times as badass as anyone else where and you got nothing to prove. So, please, stop trying to prove yourself, it's scaring the hell out of me."
"Gotcha," Scorpia said. "Life lesson learned."
Catra parted and spun about and bowed to her; Scorpia bowed in return.
"Good job," Catra said. "Now can we please skip to the next song on this playlist?"
"It's not a playlist," Scorpia said, "it's a mix tape that's just that one song lie fifteen times."
"...then how about we go to the cafeteria and whale on anyone sober enough to try and fight us?"
"Let's do exactly that, wild... I mean, domestic cat who sets her own rules. Startin' with you!" She picked up the end table and flung it at Dragstor, who didn't have long to notice the flying table until it smacked him in the head.
The evening was soaked with blood and quite entertaining indeed.
Pics
This is in one of the top spots on my slate. I'm a big fan of the prose here — minimal errors, which is great, but also some really clever and evocative lines. Some of my favorites:
That last one especially caught me off-guard, and got a big laugh.
One line that didn't sit well, however:
What does this mean? Is this a cat thing?
A few things broke my immersion. I think your voicing of Entrapta is off; here are two examples:
I like her firing at Scorpia, but Entrapta's not gonna say "Whatever" — especially in the middle of talking science.
Same with the "like" clause here.
Scorpia calling Catra "babe" seemed a bit forward, although I don't totally mind it. Not a fan of Catra asking for a "stout IPA" — too much real world intersecting with She-Ra world.
Dragstor killed me. I love it when people bring in obscure classic villains for small gags.
Lastly, I appreciate that you didn't force Scorpia and Catra together at the end. Too many writers would make Catra suddenly reveal her feelings, or do a "Let's give this a shot" ending. There's something nice about them agreeing on friendship. Feels natural.
Catra heaped cream cheese, dashed caper and onion, and went (perhaps ironically) ham with the lox.
It wasn't the kind of dance that Catra did with Adora, the intimate, chest-to-chest sexy threat dance; it was more in the genre of "eight-year-olds awkwardly pretending to be cool grownups."
"That's... not right. I mean, you're like half this team's muscle. Entrapta's the brains, I'm the unstoppable instrument of divine vengeance, and you put the hurt on people."
If Catra had to describe it, it would be "racist."
That last one especially caught me off-guard, and got a big laugh.
One line that didn't sit well, however:
Catra's nose gushed a thick black liquid that wasn't blood.
What does this mean? Is this a cat thing?
A few things broke my immersion. I think your voicing of Entrapta is off; here are two examples:
"What?" Entrapta said. "Whatever." She spun around on her chair, shouldered the mortar, and fired a bomb directly at Scorpia.
I like her firing at Scorpia, but Entrapta's not gonna say "Whatever" — especially in the middle of talking science.
"What?" Entrapta said. "I have my earmuffs on, you're gonna have to speak at like... can you do 300 decibels?"
Same with the "like" clause here.
Scorpia calling Catra "babe" seemed a bit forward, although I don't totally mind it. Not a fan of Catra asking for a "stout IPA" — too much real world intersecting with She-Ra world.
Dragstor killed me. I love it when people bring in obscure classic villains for small gags.
Lastly, I appreciate that you didn't force Scorpia and Catra together at the end. Too many writers would make Catra suddenly reveal her feelings, or do a "Let's give this a shot" ending. There's something nice about them agreeing on friendship. Feels natural.
I'm honestly quite torn about this piece. In the details, it excels: every time I read through, I spot something new that catches my attention and gets a wry smile out of me. It's a fairly strong comedy, with a touching (if understated) character arc. But while this piece is clearly at home in quippy one-liners, which are used well throughout, its longer jokes fell a little flat for me. Let's look at a quick example:
I've included the first two lines here for context, and also to praise them: Scorpia's line here in particular is exactly the sort of quip that this piece does well with, and the inclusion of "exploded" here is (beyond merely being an extension of continuity) just a funny bit of description. But after that, this passage trails off a bit: while I kinda get what you were going for, here, I feel like just the line "What?" by itself, even as repetition, doesn't really pack enough punch to be funny. This example stood out for me in particular because it was the end of a scene, which really left a poor impression on me.
That's actually a bit of a trend in this piece—weak scene endings. Your very last line is much stronger (though still felt as if it was missing a little something, to me?), but the other scene endings in this piece all left me feeling a little unsatisfied, in a similar way to the one quoted above. I got the overall impression that they just weren't weighty enough to have the scenes feel like they were ending, rather than simply drifting off.
While I wasn't too keen on some of the nuances of the characterisation here (>>Dubs_Rewatcher has touched on Entrapta's voicing above, and I think I was caught a bit more off-guard by the "babe thing"), there are a handful of great moments here that shine through and elevate this story above the silly comedy. In particular, I adored the sequence where Catra starts to teach Scorpia dancing. It's cute and funny, but also touching in a way that I wasn't expecting at that point in the story, and that's something I have to give a lot of credit to. And the detail in the description of the gymnasium was such a breath of fresh air after the action-and-dialogue-heavy prose we'd gotten so far; I'd like to see you work in occasional snippets of detail like that more, author, not just because it was an absolute delight to read but also because it could do wonders for the flow of the story.
I'm seconding Dubs' thoughts on the friendshipping at the end, by the way. That was 100% the right call here, and it worked very, very well.
Speaking of things Dubs said, we were chatting about this story in DMs when I was informed that Dragstor was, in fact, an obscure classic villain. He was already, in my opinion, the single funniest thing in this entry (I lost it at his introduction), and my enjoyment of this piece was considerably improved by looking him up. To anyone sitting on the fence on this one: go google Dragstor. It'll make your day.
"Did you die?" Entrapta said, standing in the exploded doorway.
"Only on the insi-hi-hi-hi-i-ide!" Scorpia said, bursting into profound, uncontrolled sobs.
"What?" Entrapta said. "I have my earmuffs on, you're gonna have to speak at like... can you do 300 decibels?"
Scorpia continued crying.
"What?"
I've included the first two lines here for context, and also to praise them: Scorpia's line here in particular is exactly the sort of quip that this piece does well with, and the inclusion of "exploded" here is (beyond merely being an extension of continuity) just a funny bit of description. But after that, this passage trails off a bit: while I kinda get what you were going for, here, I feel like just the line "What?" by itself, even as repetition, doesn't really pack enough punch to be funny. This example stood out for me in particular because it was the end of a scene, which really left a poor impression on me.
That's actually a bit of a trend in this piece—weak scene endings. Your very last line is much stronger (though still felt as if it was missing a little something, to me?), but the other scene endings in this piece all left me feeling a little unsatisfied, in a similar way to the one quoted above. I got the overall impression that they just weren't weighty enough to have the scenes feel like they were ending, rather than simply drifting off.
While I wasn't too keen on some of the nuances of the characterisation here (>>Dubs_Rewatcher has touched on Entrapta's voicing above, and I think I was caught a bit more off-guard by the "babe thing"), there are a handful of great moments here that shine through and elevate this story above the silly comedy. In particular, I adored the sequence where Catra starts to teach Scorpia dancing. It's cute and funny, but also touching in a way that I wasn't expecting at that point in the story, and that's something I have to give a lot of credit to. And the detail in the description of the gymnasium was such a breath of fresh air after the action-and-dialogue-heavy prose we'd gotten so far; I'd like to see you work in occasional snippets of detail like that more, author, not just because it was an absolute delight to read but also because it could do wonders for the flow of the story.
I'm seconding Dubs' thoughts on the friendshipping at the end, by the way. That was 100% the right call here, and it worked very, very well.
Speaking of things Dubs said, we were chatting about this story in DMs when I was informed that Dragstor was, in fact, an obscure classic villain. He was already, in my opinion, the single funniest thing in this entry (I lost it at his introduction), and my enjoyment of this piece was considerably improved by looking him up. To anyone sitting on the fence on this one: go google Dragstor. It'll make your day.
The characterization is good on this one, but what's throwing me early on is that the perspective is unclear. It's taking mostly an omniscient view of things, but one that uses a very conversational voice. It's not impossible to do that, but then you throw in things like this:
"One too many" is someone's opinion, but I have no idea whose. If you'd explicitly attributed the opinion to a character, then it still works for omniscient, but as it is, it's the narrator's opinion, and I don't know who that is. Plus using the elision (writin') creates a personal voice, which you're normally only going to do for a limited narrator. So I'm left feeling a little confused about the narrative viewpoint.
This finally seems to establish Scorpia as the narrator. It'd help if you made that clear right from the first paragraph.
Now you seem to have popped over into Catra's head. It's fully possible to relay one character's emotional state through another's observations of them, so sticking to one perspective doesn't mean giving up the ability to get at other's emotions. In a story this short, it's probably not a good idea to switch perspective anyway. It'd help keep the story more stable if you picked one of them and stuck with it.
Did Scorpia ever pronounce it that way in the show? If so, I missed it. If not, it's an odd choice to have her do so.
I'm not sure what this is referring to.
Okay, the racism joke was funny. This story is consistently coming up with good jokes.
This probably could have been done more cleanly with a scene break.
I like the idea of Catra trying to bring Scorpia out of her shell, as it were. That was a surprisingly touching moment. And the humor, as the central attraction here, is reliably funny. It's just got a scattered perspective, and there's a fair amount of repetition (reused descriptions, use of a word twice close together, etc.). A few typos, too, but nothing serious. On that idea of Catra being nice at the end, it'd have more to say if you could imply what Catra's motivations are for doing this. She suddenly gives in and is being really nice, and I don't understand why. Some of her behavior could imply it, or if you choose her perspective for the scene, we'd have the internal piece. The reason why is that's the story's emotional conflict. Scorpia doesn't change during the story, but Catra seems to. Even though the main thing of a comedy is to be funny, it's still a good idea for it to make a point, and you've got all the pieces you need to do so.
(She ruined one too many writin' pens and learned her lesson at last a few days ago.)
"One too many" is someone's opinion, but I have no idea whose. If you'd explicitly attributed the opinion to a character, then it still works for omniscient, but as it is, it's the narrator's opinion, and I don't know who that is. Plus using the elision (writin') creates a personal voice, which you're normally only going to do for a limited narrator. So I'm left feeling a little confused about the narrative viewpoint.
She stood up, trying to remember where she'd set her darn ol' journal last.
This finally seems to establish Scorpia as the narrator. It'd help if you made that clear right from the first paragraph.
Catra's breakfast was interrupted by the door to the rumpus room exploding open and a flaming Scorpia tumbling across the ground and at her.
Now you seem to have popped over into Catra's head. It's fully possible to relay one character's emotional state through another's observations of them, so sticking to one perspective doesn't mean giving up the ability to get at other's emotions. In a story this short, it's probably not a good idea to switch perspective anyway. It'd help keep the story more stable if you picked one of them and stuck with it.
walking out the do',
Did Scorpia ever pronounce it that way in the show? If so, I missed it. If not, it's an odd choice to have her do so.
the irritating stick
I'm not sure what this is referring to.
Okay, the racism joke was funny. This story is consistently coming up with good jokes.
The next day
This probably could have been done more cleanly with a scene break.
I like the idea of Catra trying to bring Scorpia out of her shell, as it were. That was a surprisingly touching moment. And the humor, as the central attraction here, is reliably funny. It's just got a scattered perspective, and there's a fair amount of repetition (reused descriptions, use of a word twice close together, etc.). A few typos, too, but nothing serious. On that idea of Catra being nice at the end, it'd have more to say if you could imply what Catra's motivations are for doing this. She suddenly gives in and is being really nice, and I don't understand why. Some of her behavior could imply it, or if you choose her perspective for the scene, we'd have the internal piece. The reason why is that's the story's emotional conflict. Scorpia doesn't change during the story, but Catra seems to. Even though the main thing of a comedy is to be funny, it's still a good idea for it to make a point, and you've got all the pieces you need to do so.
Thanks for the commentary and suggestions, everybody! Especially the bit about weak scene transitions, which put to words something I couldn't quite gather myself.
And to answer a question: originally Catra's nose was gonna gush regular ol' blood to show she was having a stroke at trying to remember Scorpia's getup, but I changed it to "a black liquid that was not blood"... more or less to make it creepier and less explicable. So, mission accomplished? Maybe a little too well.
And to answer a question: originally Catra's nose was gonna gush regular ol' blood to show she was having a stroke at trying to remember Scorpia's getup, but I changed it to "a black liquid that was not blood"... more or less to make it creepier and less explicable. So, mission accomplished? Maybe a little too well.