Supergirl (2015) ficlet
So my mp3 player died a terrible but long-expected death so instead of listening to podcasts today on the bus, I wrote fic. The last time I actually finished even a tiny fic was back in 2013 when I wrote a short piece about Derek Hale (Teen Wolf), which I still haven’t really watched.
Any ideas about a title for this thing? I’m stumped. FYI, this makes references to Kryptonian culture and language that I've used or invented for my Smallville fic series - Unexpected Guests / Reunion'verse. Yes, I know it hasn't been updated in a bazillion years. I'm sorry.
Sol-3 is different. In time she would learn just how different - and diverse - it was, but in the beginning it was simply this: Sol-3 is different.
They have this thing called rain where melted snow falls from the sky throughout the warmer parts of the cold season, and sometimes during the hot season, too, as part of a storm. She’d heard of such things from Uncle Jor-El, but had never imagined what it was really like.
The sky is the color of wilting fanya flowers, like the end of a fifth-day festival. She had gone to Kal-El’s only three months before it all ended - it is still clear in her memory when her escape pod opens and the new world looks like a nightmare.
Almost all the vegetation is green like sickness. She’s entranced when the House of Danvers takes her to an agricultural supplier and she sees a red Japanese maple for the first time. She sobs and cries out for Akypta and Rao. By the end of Razoyan - a whole Kryptonian year - Lady Danvers - Sylvia - Mom -has redesigned the landscaping in the backyard so that one great corner is filled with plants that do not grow bright green, including that first wine-colored, delicate-leafed maple. It is a beloved refuge, even now.
Humans do not celebrate Solam-ka or Bri-kuram, and at Bri-kuram she huddles next to the maple tree and whispers the names of the dead. She is both eldest and youngest now - there have been no signs of Kal-El, and so she adds his name last: Kal-el, son of Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van, last son of the House of El, last eldest son descended from Lord Kal-El, second Bethgar of Urrika in ancient times.
For her Terran birthday, Alex - her foster-sister - gives her a journal. She is still sometimes surprised by the ubiquity of paper (Terra is only start to digitize compared to Krypton) and so it feels like a much costlier gift than it is. “Write it all down,” Alex says, “in your own language. Don’t forget where you came from even though you’re here now.”
And so she does. It’s strange still to write with a ball-point pen instead of doing careful calligraphy in at class, as she had been doing with her cohort last Solam-ka, but in time she becomes accustomed to it. She writes her name on the first page, the familiar Kryptonian symbols flowing from her hand: Kara Zor-El, only child of Zor-El of the House of El and Alura In-Ze of the House of Ze, last survivor of Krypton, adopted daughter of Fre-Yed and Silvia Dan-Verz of the House of Dan-Verz of New Troy of Sol-3, her memories. When she is sixteen, by Terran standards, the inscription on her latest journal has to be changed: one of two survivors of Krypton, ledari-ka of Kal-El, of the House of El, first Bethgar of Metropolis of Sol-3. As it turns out, Kal-El had been there all along - but had arrived much sooner, and now her baby cousin is much older than her. She digs out the old, old word from the depths of her memory and carefully spells out ‘ledari-ka’ - the old nobility of Krypton no longer exists, and Kal-El hasn’t declared himself Prince of anything, but he acts as one should, guarding his city and the people of Earth, and so she can call herself ledari-ka if she wants. At least, in her head. Just think if her classmates knew she was first cousin to a prince, a duchess. Who cares if no one has used the title seriously in over a thousand Kryptonian years?
She wonders about him, her long-lost cousin, who makes Metropolis his home and who grew up all alone, without her. Did he ever get tired and sick to his stomach with everything being so green? Or was that normal for him, having never known anything else?
She understands how he kept to himself, kept himself secret as she has - what would have happened if someone terrible had found out that a teenage girl was really an alien? And how terrible it would have been for baby Kal-El to have been found in that way? She has been incalculably lucky with the House of Danvers and later, one day, she will truly know how lucky little Kal-El was with the House of Kent. It’s almost enough to make her believe in the old gods.
She misses home, misses her family and friends, but - with time - she adapts to living on Sol-3 - on Earth. She grows to love the Danvers and to call Alex ‘sister’, she makes friends when they feel it’s safe for her to go to school, she learns to enjoy Chinese takeout and baseball and Halloween and Star Trek. She gets used to everything being green, though moving into the city is more comfortable in the end. Aside from the moments of homesickness and loneliness, she is still the happy, bubbly person she was before, even more so because she’s continually in the best health she could have ever imagined. She gets used to controlling her vision and not accidentally seeing though things or setting things on fire, and she is so used to wearing glasses, an ever-present reminder to control her eyes, that she just keeps on wearing them. Besides, she thinks she’s cuter with them.
And then the plane.
She knows what Kal-El does - she’s known for years now, ever since she learned he was still alive. She’s dithered over it, uncertain and unconvinced that she’d be good at it like him. She hardly uses her ‘powers’ at all on an ordinary day, and she’s barely ever really tried to fly. She remembers a time before ‘powers’, when she was ordinary except for her family’s noble past.
But Alex is on that plane. Her sister.
Her decision is made.
And everything is now clear.
She’d prefer “Superwoman” - she’s an adult after all! - but admits that “girl” rolls off the tongue a little easier.
Still. It’s not exactly fair.
But she’s got more important things to worry about than if people call her a dumb name.
She’s got a city to protect.
And a cousin to hunt down for superheroing advice.
Any ideas about a title for this thing? I’m stumped. FYI, this makes references to Kryptonian culture and language that I've used or invented for my Smallville fic series - Unexpected Guests / Reunion'verse. Yes, I know it hasn't been updated in a bazillion years. I'm sorry.
Sol-3 is different. In time she would learn just how different - and diverse - it was, but in the beginning it was simply this: Sol-3 is different.
They have this thing called rain where melted snow falls from the sky throughout the warmer parts of the cold season, and sometimes during the hot season, too, as part of a storm. She’d heard of such things from Uncle Jor-El, but had never imagined what it was really like.
The sky is the color of wilting fanya flowers, like the end of a fifth-day festival. She had gone to Kal-El’s only three months before it all ended - it is still clear in her memory when her escape pod opens and the new world looks like a nightmare.
Almost all the vegetation is green like sickness. She’s entranced when the House of Danvers takes her to an agricultural supplier and she sees a red Japanese maple for the first time. She sobs and cries out for Akypta and Rao. By the end of Razoyan - a whole Kryptonian year - Lady Danvers - Sylvia - Mom -has redesigned the landscaping in the backyard so that one great corner is filled with plants that do not grow bright green, including that first wine-colored, delicate-leafed maple. It is a beloved refuge, even now.
Humans do not celebrate Solam-ka or Bri-kuram, and at Bri-kuram she huddles next to the maple tree and whispers the names of the dead. She is both eldest and youngest now - there have been no signs of Kal-El, and so she adds his name last: Kal-el, son of Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van, last son of the House of El, last eldest son descended from Lord Kal-El, second Bethgar of Urrika in ancient times.
For her Terran birthday, Alex - her foster-sister - gives her a journal. She is still sometimes surprised by the ubiquity of paper (Terra is only start to digitize compared to Krypton) and so it feels like a much costlier gift than it is. “Write it all down,” Alex says, “in your own language. Don’t forget where you came from even though you’re here now.”
And so she does. It’s strange still to write with a ball-point pen instead of doing careful calligraphy in at class, as she had been doing with her cohort last Solam-ka, but in time she becomes accustomed to it. She writes her name on the first page, the familiar Kryptonian symbols flowing from her hand: Kara Zor-El, only child of Zor-El of the House of El and Alura In-Ze of the House of Ze, last survivor of Krypton, adopted daughter of Fre-Yed and Silvia Dan-Verz of the House of Dan-Verz of New Troy of Sol-3, her memories. When she is sixteen, by Terran standards, the inscription on her latest journal has to be changed: one of two survivors of Krypton, ledari-ka of Kal-El, of the House of El, first Bethgar of Metropolis of Sol-3. As it turns out, Kal-El had been there all along - but had arrived much sooner, and now her baby cousin is much older than her. She digs out the old, old word from the depths of her memory and carefully spells out ‘ledari-ka’ - the old nobility of Krypton no longer exists, and Kal-El hasn’t declared himself Prince of anything, but he acts as one should, guarding his city and the people of Earth, and so she can call herself ledari-ka if she wants. At least, in her head. Just think if her classmates knew she was first cousin to a prince, a duchess. Who cares if no one has used the title seriously in over a thousand Kryptonian years?
She wonders about him, her long-lost cousin, who makes Metropolis his home and who grew up all alone, without her. Did he ever get tired and sick to his stomach with everything being so green? Or was that normal for him, having never known anything else?
She understands how he kept to himself, kept himself secret as she has - what would have happened if someone terrible had found out that a teenage girl was really an alien? And how terrible it would have been for baby Kal-El to have been found in that way? She has been incalculably lucky with the House of Danvers and later, one day, she will truly know how lucky little Kal-El was with the House of Kent. It’s almost enough to make her believe in the old gods.
She misses home, misses her family and friends, but - with time - she adapts to living on Sol-3 - on Earth. She grows to love the Danvers and to call Alex ‘sister’, she makes friends when they feel it’s safe for her to go to school, she learns to enjoy Chinese takeout and baseball and Halloween and Star Trek. She gets used to everything being green, though moving into the city is more comfortable in the end. Aside from the moments of homesickness and loneliness, she is still the happy, bubbly person she was before, even more so because she’s continually in the best health she could have ever imagined. She gets used to controlling her vision and not accidentally seeing though things or setting things on fire, and she is so used to wearing glasses, an ever-present reminder to control her eyes, that she just keeps on wearing them. Besides, she thinks she’s cuter with them.
And then the plane.
She knows what Kal-El does - she’s known for years now, ever since she learned he was still alive. She’s dithered over it, uncertain and unconvinced that she’d be good at it like him. She hardly uses her ‘powers’ at all on an ordinary day, and she’s barely ever really tried to fly. She remembers a time before ‘powers’, when she was ordinary except for her family’s noble past.
But Alex is on that plane. Her sister.
Her decision is made.
And everything is now clear.
She’d prefer “Superwoman” - she’s an adult after all! - but admits that “girl” rolls off the tongue a little easier.
Still. It’s not exactly fair.
But she’s got more important things to worry about than if people call her a dumb name.
She’s got a city to protect.
And a cousin to hunt down for superheroing advice.