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Catra couldn't believe what she was hearing, the Brightmoon council had voted at her trial to have her executed for her crimes during the war. The same council that had previously allowed Shadow Weaver to not just continue living, but also had allowed her to have access to the royal family.
But Catra? She was going to be executed. She could hear Adora yelling something at Queen Angella in the background but couldn't manage to focus on what exactly was being said. All she could do was stare at the ground in front of her.
They'd basically opened the gates to the shittiest mom to ever exist, Catra however, was too evil to even consider just imprisoning.
Shadow Weaver had been right all along, Catra was just a waste of space. She wasn't like Shadow Weaver, wasn't useful, not in the eyes of anybody else.
She didn't matter.
It was all she'd ever wanted, to matter. Catra had thought she'd meant something to Adora; meant enough to stay at least, just like Catra had once stayed for her. She'd been wrong, her friend's swift betrayal the moment she'd met somebody she'd deemed better had opened Catra's eyes to the truth of the matter.
Matter.
Matter.
Matter.
It all came back to that word, and how all she'd ever wanted was to matter.
But she couldn't even have that, not really. Not in a way that made her feel good, in a way that got rid of the bubbling rage in her heart. That festering virus which dictated her every move.
And yet Catra knew there was a way out of this, if she would just let herself take it. It wasn't even hard. All she had to do was accept that she was the one thing she'd spent her entire life hating more than anything else.
Easy enough. Just accept that she was a princess. Simple.
It wasn't, but Catra wanted to live more than she was willing to lay down and die. The yelling from Adora had long since quieted down by this point, and Angella didn't seem any closer to using her queenly powers to overruling the Council's decision. Catra was alone in this, nobody was going to save her if she didn't do it herself.
Catra looked up towards Angella, noticing that all the civilians had since left, only the royalty of Etheria had deigned to stay, and even then only a select few had remained. Mermista, Glimmer and Adora. The three that she had hurt the most had chosen to stay, naturally.
She was sure that the acceptance at what she was going to have to do written on her face was being misconstrued, but that was okay, better they think she'd accepted her death than otherwise. At least for the next couple of minutes at least.
"You know, I always wondered why Shadow Weaver didn't kill me." Catra didn't give Angella a chance to ask for her last words. "She never made it a secret how much she hated me, or how much I owed her for saving my life."
Catra reached deep inside and grabbed ahold of the tiny egg of magic that lay nestled deep within her core, underused and underfilled. She was too far away from the Crimson Wastes and the sunken city she'd discovered her runestone in to really truly let loose and fill the whole chamber with the burning fire that so desperately desired release.
But it was enough for what she was planning. Catra had always been an expert at stirring up drama and posturing, it'd been an excellent tactic she'd used time and time again to distract the princesses while her troops completed whatever mission she'd been sent to accomplish. She was going to do the same thing here. The metal brick they'd sealed her hands in to prevent her from escaping with her claws wouldn't be able to stand up to the kind of heat she was able to output, even with her stores of magic so low. After that all it would take was a little bit of posturing and a little bit of flare to secure her safety. They couldn't kill her once she'd shoved the fact that she was a princess in their faces a couple of time over.
"And then I found out, and everything suddenly made a whole lot more sense. Shadow Weaver didn't kill me for one very simple reason, she couldn't; and neither can you." Angella's face briefly twisted into a frown but Catra paid it no heed.
Catra slowly picked herself up off of the chair she'd sat in throughout her trial and lifted her hands to chest height, letting her magic flow into the tips of her claws and radiate into the metal surrounding them, turning it red hot. A quick flex of her fingers, as much as she could within the metal, had it shattering around her hands.
Showtime.
"Whoops, my bad. Did I do that?"
She paused for a moment to stretch her fingers and release her claws, watching the various reactions of the three remaining princesses and Queen Angella while she had the chance.
Glimmer snapped out of her surprise the fastest, and immediately prepared to throw her annoying beams of sparkle energy Catra's way, but was stopped by her mothers hand on her shoulder. Catra still wreathed her hands in fire in response.
"Good thing you've got your mommy here to protect you Sparkles." Catra gave Glimmer a mocking grin. "After all, it required all of you just to take me in before, and I wasn't even using magic at the time, care to test your odds now?"
"How can you ev-"
"You're safe, Catra, nobody here is going to hurt you." Queen Angella finally took the chance to speak up and prevent the nigh-inevitable fight.
A quick burst of laughter escaped Catra before she managed to stifle it. "Yeah right! I'm not that easy to fool your majesty, I heard what my sentence was."
Angella calmly walked over towards Catra, well within range if Catra decided she wanted fried queen for dinner. "I overruled the council's decision Catra."
"Wha- No you didn't!" Catra barely prevented herself from stumbling as she retreated in the face of Angella's tranquility.
Angella stopped her approach to giggle. "You were lost in your own head for quite a while there. It was quite amusing."
Catra glanced over towards Adora, who had her hands clasped low in front of her and stars shining in her eyes, then at Mermista, who was eyeing the flames on Catra's hands warily but making no aggressive moves towards her. Glimmer of course was glaring at her, but had gotten rid of the magic she'd been preparing to fire. None of the princesses appeared as if they were trying to threaten her, and Queen Angella certainly wasn't, so maybe there was some truth to what she was saying.
Catra let her fire die out, and struggled to keep herself standing when the side affects of using almost all of her remaining magic hit her.
"I told you being a princess was contagious Glimmer!"
Oh crap, Adora had caught on, she'd never hear the end of it.