“No, you– you couldn’t really see the stars like this on Krypton. We had telescopes, but..” She looked up at the sky. Kara wasn’t sure if she could handle the thought of Krypton. How the spires stretched so far into the sky they nearly disappeared, how it sounded when the wind blew through the crystals. She could remember the Jewel Mountains, and her first ceremony at the Fire Falls. Everything was so bright in so many ways, whether it be the red light of Rao off the jewels, the lights of buildings and pods blotting out the atmosphere, or the warm radiance of the fire as it spilled off the cliff.
The Sahara wasn’t Krypton. It was the wind blow sand across the soles of her shoes and lit only by the patchwork of pinpricks of light in the sky. It was beautiful in its own way, of course. Kara picked it because–
“If you look, there…” She pointed to a space between brighter stars, where a small dot of light could be seen. It looked almost reminiscent of what the humans called Beetlejuice, a faint orange-red tint to it. “There’s Rao.”
She could’ve picked the Fortress of Solitude, she knew Kal would have let her. It’s landscape was so much like home, with all the pieces assembled in one place. She could’ve picked Sanctuary, for there she wouldn’t even have to ask. There were her memories, bathed in red that was constantly shifting with the waters around it. What she’d stolen from Kal was gathered there, it was the Krypton she’d created. She could’ve made this look like home, but she didn’t want to.
She wanted to be able to see Rao’s light herself. To know that somehow, despite time and distance and devastation, his gladsome rays could still shine down upon them.
She looked back down to Lar. He’d bowed when he landed in front of her. He spoke her language in kind, and shared memories of the same star. He’d shown time and again that he understood what culture and the loss of it meant, how hard it could be to both respect and uphold it, while also trying to find their place in a world that was so entirely different. He’d been respectful of her beliefs, even as she’d thrown them back in his face, angry and unseeing. The Sahara wasn’t Krypton, and neither was Lar.
But Kara found she loved him, anyway. She loved him even if traditions told her not to, she loved him even if her father would scoff. She loved him even while she struggled to come to terms with letting go of the pieces of Krypton she had left. She loved him.
Because he bowed, and he smiled, and she knew he loved her, too.
She pulled in a breath, and straightened her shoulders. This wasn’t about letting go of Krypton, or its traditions. It was about acknowledging where those traditions had been wrong, and molding them around something new, something better. Something that would let the both of them love without letting go of what was important to them.
“I’m sorry for the formality, but…” She tried for professional, for the same type of formal presentation that would have taken place on Krypton, but she found the corners of her lips pulling up in a smile. If only for a moment. She pulled the formal proposal from behind her back, and the last time those papers had been laid between them, she shoved them right back at him. Her voice shook when she continued.
“Lar Gand of Daxam, I would like to propose a formal courting between the House of El and the House of Gand.” She held the packet out. In it, her own drawings had been added. Lar in Cincinnati with his head tipped back in laughter, or with his head bowed over a book of poetry. Her own poems that reminded her of him, words written in the blank spaces between. At the end were all the signatures Lar had gathered, but an additional page was added reflecting Lar’s family, with Brainy’s own signature at the end.
“We have…we still have so much to work through, so much to talk about. And I know that. I know we’re not ready for the Fire Falls. But, Lar–” She shifted and slid just the smallest bit closer, “I love you. I love the person you are, I love your poems, I love laughing with you. I want to be with you. I want to promise to be with you.”
With that, she pulled out the bracelets she’d found in the bathroom ceiling. Lar had done an amazing job with them, the colors perfect. Kara had added one more gold thread, something of her own, signifying the work they’d both put in. “If, if you’ll have me.”
“Nothing like this.” He finished for her, his nod one of understanding as he followed her gaze up toward the sky. The swirl of stars a blanket above them. He squinted, rocking onto his toes briefly as if the small movement would help him see any better and then, like magic, the sky went from a blanket to a patchwork quilt, each star so easily distinguishable from the others that his lips shifted into an amazed smile at the sight of it. Rao was so easy to see then, so clearly their sun that it was a wonder he had never spotted it before now. The light he saw now must have been older than all of them, so old that his line had not yet split from the house of Am when it first burned and began its journey all the way to shine on both of them, however faintly, now.
Time was such a farce; distance such a tragedy.
“Wow,” he breathed, weightless with it, “What a beautiful night.” His voice held the kind of conviction that only she could really bring out in him and he looked at her, smiling, his heart aching sweetly at the sight of her profile. He wondered if that would ever stop, but he had a feeling, deep within him, that it wouldn’t.
He shifted. She seemed so lost in thought so often and now was no exception. A wanderer, his father would call her. There was something admirable in that, he thought, maybe how much it took to continue to wander, how much of a siren call home had for so many, especially those who had no home to return to. But he was a bit biased when it came to Kara Zor-El, and unafraid to admit as much. It felt a bit impossible to not find yourself instantly charmed into her convictions, but at least he could take comfort in knowing he was not the only one who felt as such.
His head wavered and then tilted in unabashed confusion as he stared down at the familiar enough proposal, its gilded gold boarders shining even under the moonlight. He glanced up at her, earnest and nervous, and then back down toward the packet, unassuming and shaking in her hand, and back again on a loop as she continued, his mind stuck on its own loop of ‘I would like to propose a formal courting I would like to propose a formal courting Iwouldliketoproposeaformalcourting.’
He took the packet, his own hands shaking as he flipped through it slowly, his own sketches and musings giving way to her familiar handwriting, her graphite fingerprint smudged on the corner of a drawing of him, Brainy’s signature, the one they signed onto official documentation for things like treaties, the kind they actually cared about.
He closed the packet carefully, smoothing his hand over the cover page with a reverence that would have been embarrassing if he wasn’t still numb with shock and looked up to find her closer. Hopeful.
And he laughed. Bright and cheerful and wholly inappropriate for how much effort she had put in, how seriously she was taking this.
His hand landed on her wrist, pulling her into his chest even as it still heaved with untamed giggles. “I adore you, Kara Zor-El. Did you know that?” He asked, puling back enough to smile down at her and take the bracelets from her grasp with a shake of his head.
“I have loved you and I will love you,” he said simply, “And I have chosen you and I will choose you, always.” That was that, wasn’t it? What else was there to say? What else would encompass the bubbling expanse held within his ribcage?
“Here!” He said, finally, his smile cracking into a giddy laugh as he rushed to fit the bracelet onto her wrist. “I-Kara, this feels like one of those times where kissing would be appropriate.” He laughed.
