Phantoms of a promise

Plan

The word "arousal" describes a temporary alteration of the nervous system, caused by a stimulus, whether it is positive or negative, from the outside or the inside, more or less intense - it's a general excitation status, characterised by a better responsiveness and symptoms such as faster heartbeat, higher blood pressure, sweat, shortened breath, butterflies in the stomach and more.
The thing is, it's not correlated to a specific emotion and your body would react the same if you were having sex with the love of your life, or you were being killed slowly.

It sure sounds messed up, but it's also true that our bodies can do that much...

Anyway, this status has an adaptive function and in the immediacy it's part of a fight-or-flight defence mechanism, but in the long game it can consume you, causing stomachache, heart diseases and worse.

Such long periods of time in arousal caused by the stress of a threat can be known also as a hyper-vigilance status, in which your constantly aroused condition makes you super-reactive, unable to rest, wary and sicker by the minute.

Now, Catra must have been hypervigilant since the very beginning of the fight with Adora - no, scratch that - since she received the creepy box, which happened about 50 hours ago.

During all this time Catra has been on a fucking emotional rollercoaster with no prospects of finishing the ride.

She has met Adora (whatever she is and has been), has talked to her, has fucking cuddled with her - something she isn't very found of even after sex - has fought with her, has slapped her, fought more and had been pinned by Adora Grayskull against the door.

The ghost of those soft lips pressed hard on her forehead, almost to leave a mark, to make it last longer after they would separate...it honestly killed the brunette.

And she left Adora.

"...you are right! You said the world is grey, that we are painted in shades, so please, Kitty, please believe that I'm not black too...there has never been an instant in my life I wanted to be away from you...but there's so much more, today like ten years ago."

But Catra left.

Left for what? To go home and throw a bunch of things? To scare Melog? Hit random stuff? Crying and falling on the sofa? Cuddle with Melog after they understood she was no longer a threat?

She sure did all those things.

But then she also ate a pot-brownie and fell asleep and a new day came and there was just so much to think about: Adora, feeding the cat, daily managing of the DrylTechs, saving the DrylTechs, Adora, scheduling an appointment with her personal lawyer, scheduling an appointment with her therapist, buying a present for Scorpia's birthday and Adora.

Dear god, so much to think about...

What to begin with?

Well, saving everyone's asses sure wasn't a spare-time activity, so maybe begin there(?)

Catra was supposed to not arouse suspicion if she wanted to make it, but priorities are a thing, so she unusually came to work just before lunch, much to everyone's disbelief.
Nobody questioned her behaviour beyond a causal, worried and wary "how are you?", but she stayed ice-cold and asked to re-program her agenda.

No-essential tasks were redirected to different people and she made Kyle scan all the financial and production records for a massive review by herself and Emily.
She also looked over the documents Hordak would take care of himself to check any weird turn of events or hint to illegal businesses.

Catra was actually building up a plan:

Step 1: find out how much of Hordak's other activities have influenced DrylTechs.

Step 2: think of a way to make the company as indipendent as possible.

Step 3: keep a low profile with the media and delay the launches of the newest products.

Step 4: build a defending law team and rewrite every contract for every employee according to their best interests.

Step 5: keep the rest of the board as far from Entrapta as possible.

But maybe she was supposed to know how Hordak had bought the company first.
She also needed to think of a way to slow down the production.
And excuses to doing so lamely her job, while doubling the efforts to actually make DrylTechs better.

What if she told DT about the incoming shitstorm? They would know how to compromise their image that much not to shut down, but keep Prime's attention miles from them.

"...the moment we will start moving legally, two things could happen to you: the bad advertisement will make you weak in the market and the second - and worst - is that Prime might turn to your company to compensate the damage on H-industries."

That would be probably smart...

Step 2,5: talk to DT about a marketing line that would be cautious enough.

And Catra should probably ask Entrapta about Hordak - it was obvious that they shared a special friendship? Partnership? Bond? Whatever!

"...Prime is dangerous! Like really dangerous - like deadly dangerous! I'm not here to ruin your life, I'm here to keep you safe."

Adora made that guy sound really threatening...

Was she honest?
She seemed so, but was she?
And the whole "keep you safe" bullshit?
No, ma'am, too late for that!

But what if she was?

And why, why did she eventually listen to Weaver? After all they had been through...

There was a time when if Catra was sure of something, it was that Adora would always be a safe place to go to.
The blonde had always been the rock of the duo: hard, solid, rigorous...never really fond of expressing big emotions, especially the negative ones, just like their guardian wanted her to be.
Her goal was to make everything look easy to do, like she wasn't overwhelmed, she wasn't hungry or restless, like she wasn't terrified by failure...like she was perfect, the good one, the best one.
Catra could count on one hand the times she had seen Adora cry after elementary school, although she knew that sometimes her friend would take longer to get out some repressed feelings in the changing room of the school after some practise sessions or lost matches.
And when Adora was sad or tired, or exhausted, they would organise a pigiama party and whisper as long as they lasted, cuddle in a shared single bed and warm each other.
Adora used to count Catra's freckles, but she would always say a different number, would fall asleep meanwhile, or would get lost half the way.
Catra knew she was in love with Adora even then, because - as Ms Weaver said - she would willingly walk down the devil's path to steal a kiss from those smirking lips, so close to hers.
Remembering their scents mixing up and breathing each other's air, while intertwining fingers and talk about Razz's cakes was the highlight of the brunette's life.
It easily beats anything else.

Travelling the world is great, adventurous, fun, enriching and all...but a real connection with someone is priceless.

Nobody else ever managed to make Catra stay awake till the next morning just to talk.
That was her forever happy ending - their forever happily ever after, maybe...if only Adora didn't betray her.

But her loss, right?

No need to cry over poured milk.

"Emily, I want you to enlight these keywords and select all the documents that contain them." She ordered the AI, snapping back to reality.
"Yes, miss Maullidos." It answered.