DemiGoddess

Chapter 18 | A moment of Lust

No preview for this one..... little bit too spicy for Tumblr. I really just post the images on her so I can copy the image link to post on AO3......

Sometimes I think about how Glimmer plays a major part in Catra and Adora being together. Whatever they talked about on that ship had to give Glimmer a different perspective about Catra, to see what Adora use to see in Catra.

Glimmer is Catra's first true moment of redemption and Glimmer has hope in who Catra really is not who she is portraying, because Glimmer can see straight through her. Again same coin, just two different sides.

I like to think that they were in that ship for a while and that led them to bond more than what we saw on the show. I believe Catra and Glimmer both let their guards down to cope with the isolation on an alien ship, with an enemy that has slaughter entire planets.

The two had had significant losses and lead on each other to stay sane. I think Glimmer saw for the first time how damaged Catra was, and Catra saw for the first time what a friend could be, what it felt like to have a friend (outside of Adora). Glimmer provides space for Catra to be, to break Catra hard exterior to allow herself to be open to change and I don't think she gets enough credit for that. Anyways I love Glimmer!!!!!!!

Chapter 17 | Just For A Moment

Adora glanced around the courtyard, trying to take in everything at once. The moment felt almost unreal.

Krytis had fallen.

After weeks of planning, sleepless nights, and the constant fear that Prime was somehow always one step ahead of them, Krytis was finally gone. Smoke still stained the distant horizon beyond Brightmoon’s walls, but Prime no longer held the city.

They had won.

The realization settled heavily in her chest. She didn’t have a true doubt that they couldn’t do it, but because victories had become so rare that part of her had forgotten what one felt like. They were making headway in this war. Finally.

Around her, soldiers continued pouring through the palace gates. Some walked under their own power. Others leaned heavily on friends or healers. Stretchers passed through the crowd carrying the wounded toward the medical wing while servants rushed to provide water, blankets, and food. The atmosphere was strange, balanced somewhere between celebration and mourning.

Not everyone had come home.

Adora’s eyes found Glimmer standing between Angella and Micah. Glimmer looked as though she was afraid to let either of them out of her sight. One hand remained wrapped tightly around her mother’s arm while the other rested against Micah’s shoulder. The sight made something in Adora’s chest ache softly.

She smiled faintly before looking away.

Glimmer needed this.

For weeks she had carried the weight of command, fear for her kingdom, fear for her parents, and fear of what would happen if any of them failed. Right now she did not need advice or reassurance. She did not need to be pulled back into strategy or asked to be brave for another hour.

She needed her family.

Beside her, Catra remained focused on the soldiers still entering through the gates. The celebration around them barely seemed to register. Her eyes moved continuously through the returning ranks, searching faces, counting uniforms, taking note of who had returned and who had not.

“Not everyone came back.” Catra said softly. The words were quiet, almost lost beneath the noise of the courtyard.

Adora turned toward her.

Catra’s gaze remained fixed on the gates. Her shoulders were still, but there was tension in the line of her jaw, in the faint twitch of her ears, in the way her hand rested near her side without pressing too hard against the bandage hidden beneath her clothing.

“I knew not everyone would return,” Catra continued after a moment. “I knew that before they ever left.”

Her jaw tightened slightly.

“Still doesn’t make it easier.” She finishes.

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Enjoy some artwork and a speedpaint!!!!

Chapter 16 | Act 1: War | Krytis Has Fallen

Catra woke slowly.

Her surroundings didn't return all at once. It came in pieces, dragged up through the weight still settled in her body, through the thick, unpleasant haze of medicine that had not fully let her go. For a few seconds, she didn't know where she was. There was only the hard surface beneath her, the blanket pulled over her, the faint chill in the air, and the heavy ache waiting patiently beneath her ribs.

Then she breathed in and recognized the familiar scents of smoke, old parchment, cold stone, and medicine that filled the war room.

Her hand moved, slipping beneath the blanket and settling carefully over the bandage wrapped around her side. The pressure was still there. The bandage felt clean and tightly wrapped, far too secure to be the same one she remembered from before she fell asleep.

Then she started to remember just slightly, the medic coming in and redressing her wound. Catra rubbed her head.

The first real movement pulled at her side, and pain flared through the bandaged wound. Catra sucked in a sharp breath, her jaw tightening as she stayed still until it settled back into a manageable ache. The medicine had dulled the worst of it, but not enough to let her forget. Every shift of her body carried a reminder of the blade that had found its mark and the fight that had followed.

Chapter 15 | Act 1: War | Taking Krytis Pt 3 | Glimmer

Morning settled over the war room in muted gray light.

The lanterns still burned despite the hour, their glow weak beneath the pale daylight filtering through the tall windows. Someone had opened one of the upper arches during the night, and cool air drifted through the room, carrying the distant scent of smoke with it.

Krytis was still burning.

Adora stood at the center table, staring down at the reports spread out beneath her.

There were too many of them now.

Loose parchment covered nearly the entire table. Maps had disappeared beneath troop movements, casualty estimates, recovered sketches, copied notes from the bases under Krytis, and pages written in hurried handwriting by soldiers trying to record what they’d found before entire sections of the city were swallowed by fire.

The first reports had come before dawn. Then another.

Every time the war room fell silent, another runner arrived with soot on their armor and another piece of Krytis carried in their hands.

Across from her, Glimmer leaned against the edge of the table, looking as exhausted as Adora felt. One hand rubbed tiredly against her temple while the other held a report she’d already read twice. Her eyes moved over the same lines again, slower now, like sheer will was the only thing keeping her focused.

Neither of them had slept. Not really.

Adora didn’t know if closing her eyes for a few minutes at the table counted as sleep. She only knew every time her body started to drift, the door opened again.

Another runner. Another report. Another discovery. Another reminder that Prime had been preparing for this war long before any of them understood how deeply he’d rooted himself into Etheria.

Adora forced herself to look down at the parchment in front of her again.

The ooze. Even the word made her stomach tighten now.

Recovered notes described exposure symptoms in disturbing detail. Stages of corruption, behavioral changes, loss of emotional resistance and eventual submission to Prime’s control. Some of the writing was so cold and clinical it made Adora shiver in horror. Hosts retained consciousness initially. That line had stayed with Adora since she first read it.

Retained consciousness. Meaning people could still be inside themselves while Prime hollowed them out piece by piece. Her jaw tightened.

Beside another pile sat recovered sketches from the lower chambers beneath Krytis. Bow had organized most of them sometime before sunrise, when he was still awake enough to make sense of the scattered pages. The drawings showed heating systems, containment chambers, sealed vats, and production notes marked with symbols none of them fully understood yet.

The ooze wasn’t random corruption. It was engineered, weaponized.

Glimmer flipped another page over sharply beside her. “God.” Adora looked up.

Chapter 14 | Act 1 | War: Taking Krytis Part 2

Hours passed in fragments.

The first impact from Krytis had faded into the walls long ago, but the palace had never gone fully quiet after it. Every so often the distant force of battle rolled back through the stone, low and uneven, just enough to make the lantern flames tremble and pull Adora’s eyes toward the open door. Runners came and went with short reports that never felt like enough.

The first wave had pushed through. Halfmoon had taken the upper routes. Brightmoon was holding the lower road. Prime’s soldiers were giving ground too quickly in some places and fighting too hard in others. None of it settled the fear sitting in Adora’s chest.

Catra had remained beside the table through all of it, stubbornly alert despite the wound in her side. The medicine had started working sometime after the second report, softening the tension in her shoulders and making her movements a little slower. Adora noticed every change. Catra leaned more heavily on the chair now. Adora had stopped asking if she was alright after the ninth time. She didn't need too. It was obvious.

Catra leaned back slightly in the chair, one hand resting loose against the arm of it while the other stayed near the edge of the table.

“So,” Catra said breaking the long silence that sat between them.

Adora glanced toward her.

Catra’s mouth curved just enough to make Adora immediately suspicious. “About earlier.”

Chapter 13 | Act 1: War | Taking Krytis

She knew what she was doing. Adora could feel it under her hand, the tension just beneath the surface, the way Catra’s muscles tightened and flexed in response to her touch as her fingers moved across her abs.

The warmth of Catra’s body under her palm drew her focus that made everything else feel distant for half a breath. Adora found herself aware of the strength beneath the skin, the way Catra held herself so tightly controlled even when she was letting Adora touch her like this.

Catra’s breathing was heavier now and she held Adora’s gaze without breaking it. There was something in that look that stayed with her, something that did not move away from what was happening between them. Catra wasn’t hiding from it. 

She had not been ready for how the night had gone. The trees had closed around them. Steel had flashed through the dark. Green light had cut through the space between bodies.

Her chest tightened as the memory pressed back in. It had been close. Closer than she liked to sit with. In the forest, there had been too much happening to feel all of it at once. Her body had taken over, adapting as it always did, moving because there had been no other choice. Now the stillness gave the fear room to spread. It would not have taken much for it to turn, for one movement to land wrong, for one opening to be missed.

She could have lost her.

The thought did not pass through her lightly. It settled, disturbing something deeper, something she could not push aside as easily as she had in the moment. She knew what this was. She understood what war required, what it took from them, what it demanded in moments like that. They wouldn’t walk out of every fight untouched. She had accepted that but this was personal.

Catra was not just the Prince of Halfmoon. She was not just an ally, a piece of strategy, or someone Adora was tied to because of duty or circumstance. She was someone Adora wanted. The realization did not come with resistance. It did not feel wrong or misplaced. Catra mattered to her, and Adora didn’t want anything to happen to her.

Losing her would feel like she had lost someone she wasn’t willing to give up. Beneath that, there was something else that had been building for longer. Something physical. Something she felt now. 

Her hand had not moved. If anything, it had settled more firmly where it rested against Catra, her fingers spreading slightly as they brushed over the taut line of her abs.

I think you mean ship? If so it's definitely Catra and Adora!!!!