Catradora oneshots and short stories

To ease the guilt

TW: describes behaviors for anorexia, intrusive thoughts, body image and depression

Enjoy and don't forget to comment :)

Everyone's deals with guilt differently. Some people avoid the subject of their guilt, whether it be a person or a certain place or avoiding a specific topic of conversation. Others talk it out with others, ranting for hours on how they feel. Some people do all they can fix the thing they feel guilty with constant apologies and giving up all their time to fix what they felt they ruined. Some people let it out through crying or screaming. Others kept themselves busy as to not think about it. Others let guilt consume their thoughts.

Others, used extremely unhealthy coping mechanisms. Drinking, drugs, self harm, punishing themselves.

Catra denied herself food.

The clench in her stomach, the growling it made reminded her that she didn't deserve such a thing. The hunger pains were her way of punishing herself for all the evil she had committed. It was easy to do. Hunger was a punishment she had received plenty of times during her childhood. It wasn't absurd in her mind to not eat for a few days, despite the headaches and weakness she experienced after a day or two.

She didn't know when she's started to starve herself. It had to be after the war had ended. Everyone was busy, planning to rebuild Etheria and all the damage Horde Prime had done. No one seriously spoke out against the ex-Horde general walking around Brightmoon along with the princesses. In fact, many citizens had welcomed Catra with gratitude and praise. Not as much as they gave the others, but still.

Catra didn't understand why anyone thought to thank her. She felt all the praise should be given to Adora and the rest of the real heroes. They had done good and only good for the universe. They deserved the celebration and praise, not her.

Ever since Adora had rescued her from Horde Prime, Catra has had a lot of time to think. Think of all the people she'd hurt and lives she'd destroyed. She had become a monster, cold-hearted and angry. It hurt to think back to all the times she hurt Adora, willingly. Yeah, she held back from using full strength, but she still hurt her. Catra had no idea how Adora could forgive her for that, how any of them could.

She didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve to stay in the palace, in a comfy bed, eat their food, walk freely around as an equal. Catra couldn't believe it. As they weeks went by, no one even suggested punishing her or keeping her locked up in a cell. No one. It didn't make sense. They all let her help plan rebuilding strategies, asking her for suggestions and a hand to help with manual labor.

Catra jumped at the idea to help out and made good use of her time. She helped out at any hour of the day. The days would sometimes go on from sunrise til dark. Catra sometimes skipped meals in order to keep working. She felt the hunger a distraction from the dark pit in her gut. It helped her to lift some of that overwhelming guilt she constantly felt.

Hunger became her distraction.

It seemed to snowball from there. She'd refuse meals throughout the day, finding excuses to not be around when dinner was served. She'd hide out until well after to return to the others, making up a lie that she wasn't hungry. No one seemed to catch on, not even Adora. Bless her heart, Adora was the most gullible person Catra had ever met. It was pretty easy to assure her she was fine. Of course, since they were dating, it was trickier to escape from her sight in order to hide during mealtimes. Not that Catra wanted to hide from Adora. She loved Adora and was overjoyed to finally get to have her in her life the way she'd dreamt of for so long.

However, if Adora knew Catra was starving herself, she'd blame herself and worry a ton. So, to spare her of her own guilt, Catra withdrew from her social life even more, hoping no one would notice and that she could willingly become a background character to everyone. That was another reason to eat less.