#kiarcheo

they say that rao created the suns and stars and planets to keep him company, that he loved his creations for their beauty and order so much that he made krypton, and its people, to delight in it with him. they said—they said—he was so pleased with his children that he gave to them everything he had: wisdom, and passion, and strength, and intelligence, and within all of these gifts, his love.

she knows rao made order. a delicate, incredible dance. that rao set the rules of it all and made the music and the room to dance in, and the costumes, and the decorations, and the love and rhythm of their heartbeats—all of that, everything that exists, and somehow he couldn’t account for his tiny children running amok. couldn’t account for them making up their own rules, or for their countless missteps. 

there was a stretch of time—a considerable stretch indeed—when kara hated him. because if rao had brought order to the universe, he missed a step. didn’t look far enough ahead to consider the end of his jewel, his love, his krypton.

kara read a lot when she came to earth, about religions and gods, both the divine and the fallible, but mostly she read about people. she was only thirteen when krypton—when it happened—but she remembers the quick thrum of her mothers pulse, fearful, and the way her father smiled at her with so much love in his eyes it burned, like he knew it was the last thing he would ever get to do and he wanted it to leave some kind of mark. well, it was, and it did. and she thinks a lot about choice and self and people and how it might have been easier for her if she hadn’t seen them right there. right next to her. how it still felt cruel to have seen them, and to have been made to leave them.

and the what ifs, that loud, endless wave of what ifs: what if one of them had gone with baby kal, what if they had made those stupid, stupid pods with room for two, what if her mother had never sent astra to the phantom zone, if non had never killed a guard, if kara had never called astra home, if someone had spoken up sooner, louder, more insistently, if her mother had just agreed to try, if generations ago the house of el had never even been formed—and everything stacks up on everything that came before and kara gets lost in it.

but there’s no point. there’s no point, because krypton is dead and left far behind, and that’s where it will stay.

all that remains of krypton is a fortress of toy relics, a man with her blood but the heart of a human, and shards of her dead planet. and her, still her. and there is no point in hating a god who died with the rest of her world.

//

years later, standing on the roof of national city’s tallest building—which isn’t catco, as much as cat might like to think it is—she hates him again.

the rain is so cold even she is shivering. head tilted up to the sky, she doesn’t both wiping away the torrent drenching her face, her hair. her cape drags heavy on her shoulders, a sopping weight, and she whips it to the side when it tangles around her ankle. the move flicks water off it like a spray of diamonds, shattering against the concrete where the rest of the water, the rest of the world, trembles at her step. she paces the roof of the building, eyes fixed on some distant point, the heart of the storm.

there comes a sound that only she can hear, and she pauses at the corner of the building. poised there, lightning cracks and illuminates her against the backdrop of a broiling, immense storm. it cloaks the whole city in shadow, clings to everything with its misted tendrils, and she is no exception. she would be engulfed in it, but for the power gathered behind her eyes—white-hot and furious. 

and when the thunder drums again, like a call to war, kara’s edges are sharp enough to be a war all by herself. 

lightning cracks the sky wide open. thunder follows it instantly in a boom. the wind that comes tearing flings back kara’s hair, her cape, shudders against the windows stories far below her feet.

kara clenches her jaw, braces herself against it. her eyes flash hotter.

she saw diana catch lightning in her hands once, knows better than most that many things in the world are more than they are given credit for. this storm is more than crashing particles—this is her challenge, her fight, and by everything that exists in this world, rao will hear her!

“DUAHZ VOIEHD KRYPTAHNIUM,” she yells up to the clouds.

the thunder rolls. grumbles, shatters into itself.

“TA-RRIV RRAOP-RAO RAOGRYHS PAHDH IRSTUN OSH KHAP!”

she gets no answer save the lightning that zips down toward her and kara’s eyes flash. she grits her teeth around a scream and launches herself right at it, catches it on the bands diana gifted her and doesn’t stop, punches right up through the clouds to the heart of the storm. she winds the lightning around her, grips it tight.

“rao,” she yells, voice dragged raw.

the wind is stronger here and it whips her hair across her face, stinging, and everything tastes like hot metal and salt water. she holds tight to the lightning just to feel it burn. feels the answering sting in a line down her chest, sternum to navel. “rao, ta-irstun rraop-rao pahdh voiehd? khap eiahm,” she whispers. the words are tugged from her, ripped from her lips. she wills it out, up, to the right ears. the right heart. “khap eiahm, ewuhsh gehd.”

a formal introduction; or, skulir: verb, the active form: to look, to examine. 

//

kara is six years old when she finds out that she will have a husband. she considers it for two days, silently, before bringing it up to anyone.

a tall figure in blue—that’s all kara can see under her thin blanket—stands in the doorway of her bedroom. “your mother says you’re not well. do you want to come out from under that blanket?”

“no.”

“no?”  the bed creaks as she sits on kara’s bed. “then perhaps i shall sit here with you. is that alright?” kara murmurs her assent, scoots over a little to make space in the bed. “i brought your stars, little one. are you sure you don’t want to see them? we were only partway through the primaries.” astra waits a moment for kara’s response. when it doesn’t come immediately, she offers, “you may hold the star jar, if you wish.”

kara kicks her feet under the blanket as she considers that.

finally, she pulls down the covers. “just the stars?” she asks, fixing her aunt with a suspicious look.

astra leans over, presses a kiss to her forehead. “just the stars,” she promises, and kara rolls around in her bed, bundles the blankets around herself, and thumps down into astra’s lap. her aunt pulls her close, strokes her hair back from her forehead.

“there is my darling star,” she murmurs. she activates the holo-reader—kara’s ‘star jar’—and scatters the stars across the ceiling. once it’s active, she allows kara to hold it in her little hands. 

kara stays there, tucked up into astra, listening to her explaining the primary stars and astra cards her fingers down her long hair until kara’s nervous gut unclenches and she asks what has been bothering her.

“does everyone get married?”

astra’s voice falters, and then stops. she looks down at her niece, bemused by the topic change. “married?”

“fardhogh-cheh says that everyone gets married. that parents pick someone and then you have to spend your whole life with them.”

“did he put it like that?” astra crooks a finger under kara’s chin, tilts it up to look at her. “hmm, little one?” she tickles under kara’s chin and astra’s eyes, so clear and fond, are brighter than rao’s midday light. kara cuddles into her, ducks her head again. “have you been concerned about this?”

“...no.”

astra tickles at kara’s shoulder, makes her squirm. “for how long?”

“…two days.”

“i see. you do like to keep things to yourself, don’t you, little one?” kara shrugs. “well, it is nothing to be concerned about. marriage is a union between families.”

“who will it be?”

“he will be of good standing—”

“will he be nice?” kara asks, and with it comes the flood of questions that have blinded her for the last few days. “do i know them? how long do i have? what happens? do i have to get married? do i get to choose him? why do i have to get married? what does it do? is it scary?”

“these are a lot of questions.”

“i have a lot of questions,” kara agrees quietly.  

“a curious mind can be dangerous, little one,”

“questions are good!” she argues, struggles to sit up and away, and astra nods. she helps kara, tries not to laugh at the bundle of a girl who wriggles away, irate at the suggestion that questions might not be a good thing.

“always. but you should share them with your family or else you may get lost in them.” astra strokes  down her cheek. “and i would not like that.”

“oh.” kara waits a moment. “so?”

astra glances away, tries not to smile. “your betrothed,” she tells her niece, “will be chosen by your family, we who love you. we will not let you be bonded to someone unworthy, not when you are more precious to us than all else.”

“but what’s the point?”

“marriage is a union. do you know of shokh?”

“truth,” kara nods impatiently. “the first virtue.”

“the primary virtue, yes, on which we base all dealings. shokh is the virtue all unions are based on. a family would never agree to a union without first knowing who their beloved shall be bonded to, just as one would never agree to an alliance or business without knowing who extends their hand. it is a virtue that persists throughout a union—shokh is constant. unwavering. it is about learning and knowledge and discovery. sharing.” she hugs kara to her, strokes her hair again, out of her thoughtful eyes. “does that make sense, little one?”

“yes. but,” kara smiles, a little shy, when astra laughs. “i have more questions.”

“of course you do. share them with me,” she encourages, sets the star field aside for another night.

alura joins them later, knocking gently on kara’s bedroom door. she peeks in, relaxes against the door when she sees them curled there.

“you are feeling better then, kara?”  kara nods—sheepish, small in her aunt’s arms, but she nods. “i’m so glad. you’ve had us worried. we had to call in reinforcements.”

“reinforcements?” kara sits up quickly, looks back over her shoulder at her aunt. “you’re reinforcements?”

astra laughs, throws her head back. “your parents were worried.” she lets kara go when she wriggles away from her, goes to stand defiant in the centre of the room, her little frown stern and her little arms crossed. “do not be displeased with me, little one.”

kara considers the request for a time, before she flicks her hair back over her shoulders and walks out of the room. she makes her way out of their home and down the long corridor before loud steps follow her and she breaks into a run before zor-el plucks her clean off the ground and carries her home.

“i’m mad at you.”