Chapter Text
It's been flesh for less than a day when it first sees her. It doesn't know how long it was a sword, before it woke up with lungs and a heart that beats, but it doesn't think it matters. The creature is still working to understand everything its eyes see, but this visitor is less immediately aggressive than the other three humans it has seen so far, the ones that panicked when they found a body where the sword should be. It's not entirely sure the visitor is human, with the triangle ears on her head and tail flicking behind her, but she's a person at least.
Claws glint on her fingers when she drops a tray into the cell. The mush on it is gray, and it splatters a little when the tray hits the floor. She closes the door to the room loudly when she leaves. When the creature trails its new fingers through the mush, it's gritty under its fingers. Textures are new, in general, but it knows this one from the whetstone that used to grind along its blade, back when there was someone who cared to keep it sharp.
It doesn't know how long it was a sword. Long enough to understand how the world works. Humans yearn for power. When they see it, they thirst to have it for themselves. The sword had always been a gatekeeper to power, holding it for one of its creators' kind to do what needed to be done, but none of them have existed in centuries. Heroes picked it up and used its power to incapacitate and intimidate and, too rarely, to mend, but that was a long time ago.
For the last century it has been a battery, fueling something deep in the heart of Etheria, and on the day it becomes something else, little changes. After a brief discussion that it can only mostly follow, it switches from a tool propped on a stand to a tool kept in a cage, and soon enough the people who found it are back with needles and tubes for the power they were collecting through the wires that used to wrap around its hilt.
The visitor comes back later, with more mush, and wrinkles her nose at the old tray on the floor. "What, you're too good for rations?"
It blinks. The visitor sits in front of the bars, picking up the spoon on the tray, scooping the mush into it and putting it in her mouth. The creature has seen eating before, and it tries with the rations it has, though it gets as much grit on the skin around its mouth as it gets in. The visitor grimaces, but she wipes at its lips with a cloth when it has no more to eat, like it used to be wiped clean of blood after a battle. It knows enough to know that the movements of her face mean something about the thoughts turning inside her head, but it can't make sense of them.
In the quiet, dark except for the glow of the tubes full of its magic, it tries to mimic what her face did, form words in its mouth. It tries until it bites its tongue and the taste of blood is rich, just the way the sword remembers.
A few days later, the visitor comes in different, fists clenched and lips a flat line. The creature puts the sludge in its mouth as she paces across the floor. "Nobody respects me here," she says, voice boiling angry. "The rest of the squad got combat assignments - they sent Kyle to combat - but I'm here babysitting. I always get the jobs no one wants, because they're all fucking idiots and they're going to hope they live to regret it."
The mush feels thicker than usual on its tongue. Heroes always wanted something from the sword, asking how to unlock that door, energize that runestone, heal that human, and the visitor has the same frustrated need around her, but it doesn't know what she wants. It doesn't know what's in its power to give, at this point.
The visitor kicks the wall and winces. "I'm going to run this place. Or burn it to the ground. Something has to change. I'm not going to put up with their shit anymore."
The creature that used to be a sword listens. That is something it has long been good at. The person seems calmer when she stands, tail curling behind her. "Thank-" she starts to say, and then lets out a sigh, shakes her head. "Stupid."
The visitor keeps coming back and she keeps talking more. The creature starts eating its meals slower and slower, because she always stays to the end. "They don't give me a chance," she says one day, voice strange. "Someone decided everything is my fault and I don't know why. I hate it here, I hate it. There's nothing in the Fright Zone for me."
As it eats, it feels a prickle on its skin, too faint to be real touch, and when it looks up, the visitor is watching it with eyes that shine too much. "Maybe it's pathetic to pretend you're a person," the visitor says, "but I'm going to anyway."
Hours later, the creature holds that thought to its chest when it lays down to sleep. It doesn't know why that makes it feel so warm.
The creature practices a face for the visitor, when she comes, and her mouth arches in a smile to match. The visitor still talks about how frustrated and trapped and alone she feels, but she complains about having to look after the creature far less. She starts to say thanks for listening before she leaves. She's the only person the creature ever sees who lingers around it instead of doing her job brusque and quiet.
One day, when she comes in and greets it with a voice full and bright, the creature says, "Hello," and she jumps like the sword grazed her instead. "Sorry," it says, something heavy in its gut.
"No, don't - oh my god, don't apologize." She takes breaths, and the creature watches her throat change while she swallows. "You can talk?"
It shrugs its shoulders up. Its cheeks are warm. "Not well."
"I don't care," the visitor says. Her eyes are big. "I didn't know for sure that you were sentient, speak however you want. Have you been able to talk this whole time?"
"No. I'm - learning."
She asks more questions, about what the creature is, how it got here, and it realizes that it doesn't really know the answers. Details didn't matter, when it was a weapon. Someone was going to pick it up, and its edge or its magic was going to do what needed to be done. It's been so long since then, and something spikes piercing in its chest when it tries to answer.
The creature has to clear its throat to speak. "I don't know."
"That's okay," the visitor says, something soft in her voice. She stops asking, and the creature has to force itself to eat. The visitor keeps looking at it with a twist to her mouth that it doesn't recognize.
When there's no more grey on the tray, the visitor says, "Just one more, okay? It's an important question."
It nods, something full and hot behind its eyes.
"What's your name?"
"I was named the Sword of Protection," the creature says. A shiver crawls down its spine.
"No, you need a name for a person. What do you want to be called?"
The creature shakes its head. It has barely grasped speech, let alone names. "What would you like to call me?"
The visitor looks at it for a moment. Her expression is even harder to interpret than usual. "Adora," she says. "And you can call me Catra. I never told you my name, did I?"
Adora shapes the names in its mouth. Adora. Catra. It likes how they sound together in its head.
The door opens and one of the people who harvests the magic comes in, and Catra leaves. She goes before he changes the tubes that wind into it, that make Adora flinch sometimes with replacing, and it's glad she isn't there for that part. It isn't sure why.
"Were you outside? Before here, I mean."
Adora nods. Its voice rasps less as it gets more practice with speech. "I went to many places."
Catra rests her chin on her pulled-up knees. "What is it like?"
Adora thinks, tries to sum up everything it's ever seen. It talks about the snows, ice crunching under boots, cold putting gloves on hands and making metal weak. The waste, wide and dry, dust seeping into the fine details of its hilt. The coastline, with salt in the air that had to be cleaned well off its steel lest it rust. Catra listens this time, tail curled around her legs.
"What was your favorite?" she asks, quieter than before.
Adora doesn't understand the question, and Catra must see that on its face, because she says, "If you could go anywhere again, where would it be?"
"The woods," Adora says, without hesitation. Bark giving way under its blade, to mark a path or to burn; footfalls soft on leaves; rain on a tent in the night. It thinks it spent a lot of time in the woods.
Catra looks at something past it, even though there's nothing there. "It might be nice to go, someday."
"Someday," it echoes. It thinks about the woods again, after she has to leave. It wonders about the senses it didn't have, the last time it was there. The woods are probably beautiful.
Eventually, Catra is given more tasks for its maintenance. She is less efficient at managing the various magical equipment than the others and her hands are awkward when they reach through the bars, but Adora still prefers her.
"Fuck," Catra says, after missing a vein again. She came in angry today, and her hands aren't steady. She glares through the bars like she can make them disappear that way. "Maybe I should get someone who actually knows what they're doing."
Adora shakes its head, heartbeat picking up. It's valuable, so everyone is careful with it, but Catra is different. She says what she's doing, asks if Adora's okay when she pokes too hard. Catra is careful like it matters if Adora hurts, even if it isn't damaged.
She squints and tries again. "This shit would be so much easier if I didn't have to do this half-blind." Her skin has a fine fuzz. It has come to appreciate many textures and that is one of its favorites.
The red wells up on Adora's skin instead of in the tube where it's supposed to be, and Catra jerks her hands away. "Fuck!" She slams her fist on the ground next to her and winces hard.
"Sorry," Adora says. It recognizes the gut twist as guilt, now. Its only purpose was to channel magic, and here it is, useless.
"I'm sorry, I keep fucking up. You shouldn't even be in here, it's so-" Catra makes a frustrated noise in her throat. "The Horde's evil, that's not news, but literally keeping a person in a cage is a new low."
"I'm not a person," Adora says. It doesn't know much, but it knows that.
"Bullshit," Catra says, teeth flashing. "Got an explanation for that one?"
Adora opens its mouth, and stops. It isn't a weapon anymore. It breathes, eats, sleeps, just as Catra does. It has blood and skin and pain that a sword never had. It has always had some awareness - perhaps fueled by the magic it channels - but muted, compared to now. It has thoughts. It's learning about feelings. "Because," Adora says, and something in its voice convinces Catra to let the matter go.
Catra doesn't get someone else. She tries once more, and this time the needle finds where it's supposed to go. She turns down the machine, before she leaves. She says Adora might feel better if the device takes less. Adora hadn't known it felt bad, but apparently people usually have more energy and less nausea than it does.
A technician comes later, turns a dial, and leaves, never saying a word, and Adora feels the magic seep out. It could probably remove the tubes itself, if it wanted. Maybe Catra would have to come back. The rubber is warm under its fingers, glowing with white light, the way the sword used to. It doesn't want to risk someone else coming instead, so it lies down as best it can and thinks about the woods and Catra's soft fingers on its face.
Time passes. Adora doesn't notice the shift until one day when Catra says something about other people and Adora realizes that she's started to think of herself as one. Catra's gotten better at maintenance, even as her mood gets worse and worse.
"Is everything okay?" Adora asks one day.
Catra huffs air through her lips. "They're pushing the combat troops harder. Means everyone left behind has more to do, keeping them supplied. Something big is coming, but they wouldn't tell a cadet what it is."
Adora thinks about Catra in combat, clattering biting metal and the dense smell of blood. Blood had always been neutral to her, as a sword. She doesn't feel neutral about Catra's blood. "You aren't going," she says, without meaning to.
Catra's face hardens. "No. I'm not trustworthy enough for that, apparently."
Adora can't put her hands as far out of the bars as Catra can reach in, with the attachments on her arms, but she can reach fingers that are about to unwrap a dressing. "Good."
Catra waits a long moment before she moves away. "You're stuck with me, all right."
Adora is new to being a person. A sword needs very little, once crafted - a whetstone and a cleaning cloth and someone to wield it. A person needs air and food and a place to rest and a thousand other things Adora still doesn't understand. Adora doesn't know if the demand in her chest is one of those things or not.
Catra brings her rations again the next day and she has something else as well. "It's a fruit," she says. "From the forest outside the Fright Zone."
"How did you get this?" Adora asks, holding the fruit in her hands. It's small, nestling in the center of her palm, a little bigger than her eye.
"Had blackmail on someone who was headed out there." Catra shifts on her feet. "You can get a lot of things in the Horde if you know the right people."
"Fruit is for eating, right?"
"Yeah, dummy," Catra says, but she smiles like it's a good thing.
The fruit bursts like skin breaking when she bites it, juice richer than blood underneath, stone hard against her teeth. "Sorry," Catra says, wincing even though her teeth are fine. "I didn't think about whether it had a seed. Are you okay?"
She doesn't know. Her mouth feels better already, but something aches, deep under her ribs. Catra gives her the cloth for her face and their hands brushing make it worse. A while ago, Adora learned that the gnawing in her stomach in the hours before she ate was hunger. This feels the same, but rations don't make it ease.
Catra asks, "How was it?"
"Beautiful," Adora says, and Catra grins when she explains the kinds of words people use for food, and Adora holds the tiny stone in her palm. She keeps holding it, juice staining her skin. Later, when she grows too worried that it will be discovered, she swallows it, but its absence only makes the hunger worse.
Adora realizes the bars can be opened when someone she hasn't met before opens them. She doesn't know that she prefers it. She definitely does not prefer the new tubes that embed into her shoulders and back, wider through holes cut into her shirt, and the new sound the machine makes as it churns faster. The new technician tilts his head when he examines her, too many eyes when he blinks. "That should be sufficient," he says to himself. Only one person speaks to Adora, and she isn't here.
She grows weaker quickly, exhaustion falling like darkness. By the time the door opens again, Adora is lying down as best she can, knees propped against the bars, eyes slitted against dizziness.
Catra turns the machine down, helps Adora lie on her side. Her hands linger too long. "What happened," Catra says, frantic note in her voice.
Adora breathes as magic pools by the ports, a respite. "They must have needed more."
"No," Catra says. "They can't - they're going to kill you if they keep that up."
Adora hadn't thought about whether or not she could die. It had never mattered before. Heroes and enemies could have broken her, when she was a sword, but a body has a thousand more points of failure. "Oh."
Catra adjusts Adora's hair where it spills on the floor. "Yeah, oh."
Catra's face has changed, mouth and jaw tight, movements jerky instead of jittery. Adora has known her long enough to know what that means. "You're angry," Adora says.
"Of course I'm fucking angry." Catra retracts her hands back through the bars. "They can't just do this."
Adora has compared the way Catra acts to the technicians, and she has drawn conclusions. "You like me," she says. "You don't want me to die."
Catra stiffens. "They're being stupid. You've spent forever powering the Heart, which is running half this place. If you die, the Horde will fall."
Catra does nothing but complain about the Horde. She dreams about crushing her commanders under her boots, exploding the Fright Zone from the inside before she vanishes into the wastes. "Better to be alone than to put up with this shit," she says, but she doesn't meet Adora's eyes when she does.
"You want the Horde to fall," Adora says.
Catra jolts, face snarling. "You don't know anything."
"You hate the Horde. They aren't kind to you."
"The world isn't kind," Catra spits, angrier than Adora thought she could make her. "If you think it's better anywhere else, you're dumber than I thought."
Adora can't make sense of this. "You've never been anywhere else, how would you know?"
The door slams when Catra leaves. The rations are still there on the tray where she left them when she came in. Adora can't use the spoon from this angle, but her fingers can reach the gray mush, and the grittiness is even less bearable than usual. Someone comes soon after to turn the machine back up, and the hum pounds at Adora's head.
Catra comes back, too soon for it to be the next day already. Her face twists when she cleans the ration smear that Adora missed by her mouth, because Adora's too tired to move. "It's okay," she says, "you're going to be okay."
Catra removes the needles she can reach, focusing more on speed than comfort. As they drop off, magic collects in Adora's core again and she could gasp with the reprieve. Catra presses something into Adora's hand before she leaves and Adora would know the shape of a hilt anywhere. "I'll find you," she says, fingers squeezing before they pull away. "I promise."
Adora doesn't have to wait long. One technician checks the machine and leaves. The one with extra eyes returns, opens the bars, moves her body to inspect where the ports used to be, muttering to himself, hands rough with frustration. He doesn't notice what Adora hides under her thigh.
The sword Adora used to be was wielded by many people, over the centuries. Some took to the blade easily, others always hesitated before they struck. Adora plunges the dagger into the technician's heart with precision, without pause, and he doesn't make a sound as he drops. The blood on her face is familiar.
The tubes on her back burn when she pulls them out, and the legs she's never used are unsteady. She opens the door to a room that stretches out on both sides, covered in a dozen more doors, and Adora closes the door before she can be seen, panic crashing in her chest. A moment later the door starts to open and Adora shoves against it with all the strength she has left, breath sobbing.
"Adora, it's me," Catra's voice says, and when Adora opens the door and sways backwards Catra catches her. The touch, more than she's ever had, makes her lightheaded and alive all at once. Catra takes Adora's hand in hers to guide her through the shadows, and it's better than a solid grip behind a crossbar.
They don't stop walking until they're surrounded by woods, breathing hard. Adora knows the forest by how many swings it used to take her to chop a tree down, but now she can drink in the colors and the smell and the feeling of Catra's hand in hers. They sit for a time on a log, and when Adora's head slumps, Catra's shoulder is right there.
"What do we do now?" Adora asks, skin tingling pleasantly for once.
Catra squeezes her hand. "Get you somewhere safe. There are stories about you - what you were. The Horde never got inside your temples, I'm sure you could stay in one of them."
Adora remembers doors that only open for her, surrounded by the whispers of the woods. Somewhere safe. Catra's voice sounds wrong, and it takes Adora a moment to figure out why. "What about you?"
"Don't worry about me," Catra says, muscles going stiff. "I'll figure out something, I always do."
Adora still doesn't understand names very well, but she knows a lot more words than she used to. She knows what adore means, now, and she knows the name of the feeling in her heart that never goes away. "I want to stay with you," Adora says.
She can feel Catra's swallow as if in her own throat. "Then that's what we'll do."