Now, here's the thing. Lena is a reasonable woman. She's a woman of many, many means and has more money that even God knows what to do with. So she doesn't expect much, save, perhaps, for some respect and authenticity.
But even that seems like asking for a lot tonight. Especially when she peers over her wine glass over at her date in front of her—a man who sounded perfect on paper (which, in retrospect, was probably where this slow demise of a date began): great job, good looks, decent upbringing—and knows there's clearly been a miscommunication of sorts.
His nervous energy, she can understand. His overcompensation, even more so. Yet that manifests in rude manners as he interrupts her, arrogance in not-so-subtly considering her position as a CEO, and his tired misogyny in his expectations of what his paying for dinner truly affords him.
So she waits for him to finish talking, as he's monopolized the last ten minutes talking about some financial tech start-up for fish or something or the other. He FINALLY glances at her, flashes what she can only assume is his most winning smile. Which is the only thing she was waiting for, frankly, before she scoots her chair back and subtly waves at a server who already seems to have her coat at the ready.
"Whoa-wait, where are you going? They’ve barely served us the apps."
She smiles down at him, though her eyes are sharp and narrowed. "Riveting as you may think it is to listen to you, I'm going home and having a very lovely evening with my vibrator. I believe I'll have a much more fulfilling time with it than with you."
His jaw drops slightly, sputtering out sorry excuses for words, his face going through a roller coaster journey of expressions—a considerable improvement from the smarmy smile he'd been presenting her since she first saw him. She can even see how his cheeks and ears redden at her comment, could have possibly considered it cute if he was even an ounce less of who he was. The look on his face is almost worth the stress of what little of this dinner has already cost her sanity and time. She turns to the server beside her just as he helps her shrug on her coat, his face the poster of professional decorum, except for the slight twitch from the corner of his lips that betrays him slightly.
And just because she can, Lena rummages through her clutch and pulls out a few hundred dollar bills, where she throws a couple on the table and rolls one to insert in the server’s breast pocket.
She leaves without a single glance back despite feeling all eyes on her.
When she exits out of the restaurant, her driver is already waiting for her at the front. She takes a deep breath and exhales before walking up to him and dismissing him for the night, telling him that she’ll find her way back just fine. She walks away with a final greeting and heads towards the direction of the park.
Lena reaches the edge of the park where she finds a slew of food trucks lining the curb. Most of them have some customers in line waiting except for the bright yellow one parked at the very end. Typically, Lena would hesitate approaching a food truck without customers as that is surely cause for concern. Yet the name ‘Love is Crepe’ seems to call to her, perhaps fitting of the night she’d just endured.
She stands just to the side of the awning with a gaze towards the menu, determining if she should treat herself to both sweet and savory crepes. She decides she deserves to indulge herself.
Yet when she walks up to the front counter, she realizes there’s a handwritten sign that notes:
SOLD OUT
THANKS AND SORRY :(
-crepe mgmt
She can’t help the amused smile on her face even if she finds herself disappointed in not getting any crepes, after all. She’s just about to turn around when she jumps at the sound of someone yelping in surprise behind her.
“Oh!”
She turns around and stops in her tracks when she finds the most attractive woman she’s ever laid eyes on carrying three different bags of food from what appears to be the other food trucks. It takes her a second to process that she should speak, yet her eyes can’t help but glance at the blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, the sharp jaw, the perfect curved lips, and the blue of the woman’s eyes behind black rimmed glasses. Her gaze dips to the womans’ biceps, the t-shirt sleeves folded up to her shoulders, straining slightly under the weight of the bags she’s carrying.
Lena clears her throat. “I—I thought you were open, but I see you’d sold out of everything.”
Despite being the one to have been caught surprised, it’s the blonde woman who’s standing stock still in front of her, surprise slapped on her face. “You’re Lena Luthor.”
This time, it’s her turn to be shocked. “Oh, um, yes.”
The woman shakes her head and quickly drops the bags on one of the tables parked right in front of the truck. “Oh my golly, I’m so sorry, that’s—well that was very impolite of me. I’ve just–I’m a big fan. I, wait-no. I mean, I am. I totally am, but like, you’re you, I mean—hang on. Um, wait.” The woman then puts her hands on her waist, and positions her body so she’s properly facing Lena before taking a deep breath. “You want crepes?”
Lena’s brows furrow in amused confusion even as she slowly nods. Something about the way this woman stumbles through her words and her movements has Lena endeared, and so she responds, a slow smile already forming on her lips. “Yes, but I see you’re sold out.”
“Oh, right. I am, but I—” the woman pauses and puts a finger up, a frenetic energy about her, before rushing to the back of the truck. Lena hears rummaging and movement, until the woman pops her head out of the front window, crumpling the piece of paper notice as she slides the window to the side. “I can—I can make you one crepe. Like a malnourished crepe because it won’t have as many strawberries or Nutella, but I can make it. Do you still want it?”
She’s poised to decline, not wanting to interrupt this woman’s night, but the expectant and almost eager way the woman is staring down at her from the window, hopeful and anticipating, has Lena nodding her head before she can even gather her wits about her.
The woman is overjoyed, so Lena believes she’d given the right answer. Something warm buzzes inside of Lena when she witnesses the woman’s bright smile before she disappears from the window.
Lena takes a seat right by where the woman’s food is, a small frown forming when she realizes she’s more than likely interrupted this woman’s dinner. Yet, the woman seems more than happy to work in her truck, so with hesitant resignation, Lena just waits.
Before long, the woman comes out and personally puts her plate right in front of her with a set of plastic utensils wrapped in a napkin. “You didn’t have to do that,” she comments, even as her mouth salivates at the smell of the dish in front of her.
“It was no trouble at all.” Then the woman’s eyes widened. “Oh, unless you wanted it to go. Oh man, I didn’t even ask. Did you—”
But Lena just shakes her head. “Here’s fine.”
The woman beams at her, and Lena briefly wonders how it feels for people in this woman's life to constantly be on the receiving end of such a bright and warm smile. Lena’s frown forms as she watches as the woman then takes her bag of food off the table.
“Won’t you join me? Since I so rudely interrupted your dinner.”
“But you’re Lena Luthor.”
She smiles at that. “And you are?”
The woman’s mouth opens, shock evident on her face, before it transforms into a smile. “Kara. You can call me Kara.”
“Well, Kara. Won’t you join me?”
There’s the smile again as Kara wordlessly nods, and sits herself directly across from Lena. She waits until Kara empties out all of the food from her takeout bags, the spread fully taking over the table they’re sitting on. Kara nudges the containers her way, prompting Lena to quirk a brow.
“Please help yourself.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
She responds with a smile in kind and digs into her crepe, enjoying the flavors of her sweet crepe. “This is really quite delicious,” she offers, meaning every word.
Kara shyly ducks her head even as she smiles proudly. “Thanks! It was slow going for a while, but my friend Nia mentioned that I should put myself in the videos so they could connect with me and not just the crepes. So I guess they’ve been able to see that I really care about the food I make and the videos have been going viral.”
Lena tilts her head in observation, thinks to herself, I don’t think it’s just the crepes they’re looking at.
Suddenly, Kara’s mouth drops and her cheeks redden. Belatedly, and much to Lena’s horror, she realizes that she’s said her thoughts out loud. This time, it’s her turn to cover her face. “Oh god, I’m sorry. That was—”
“Thank you, Lena.”
“You dropped the Luthor.”
“I realized I’d said it twice already, I feel like I’ve hit my quota of full naming you for the day.”
She laughs at that, though a sense of self-deprecation leaks out despite her best attempts. “Thank you for not shunning me away even knowing who I am.”
A crinkle of concern appears between Kara’s brows and Lena wonders, not for the last time that evening, how it feels to see that regularly.
“The only Lena Luthor I know is the one who has tirelessly made the Children’s Hospital the best one in the country so my niece Esme can get the care that she needs. So, I’d say you’re the last person I’d shun away.”
Kara’s stares at her intently, gratitude written all over her face.
“I’m glad to hear that,” is all Lena says, not wanting to overstep by asking more questions. She and Kara are basically strangers, and she wouldn’t want to make her uncomfortable.
“Besides, who shuns away pretty ladies?” Kara says with a shrug before popping an entire potsticker in her mouth. The two of them sport identical rosy cheeks when Lena catches up to Kara’s words just as Kara seems to realize exactly what she’d said.
“Well, thank you, Kara.”
Kara tilts her head and smiles, making a show of swallowing the potsticker that Lena giggles at, and shifting her glasses back up on her face. “Anytime, Lena.”
She can’t help but compare the woman in front of her to the man who’d attempted to wine and dine her earlier tonight. How their eyes shared the same shade of blue, yet Lena thinks she’d happily lose herself in staring at Kara as she listens to the other woman talk about food.
She does just that when they spend the rest of their time in companionable conversation, Kara urging her to try the dishes that litter their table. Before long, the first hour rolls into one, then two, until she glances up and finds that the other food trucks are beginning to break down for the night.
“Oh, I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time,” she says when she wraps her coat tightly around her. “You now have to stay longer to clean up.”
But Kara waves her off just as she finishes cleaning. “No! Please! You’re the one all dressed up tonight. I hope I wasn’t keeping you from anything.”
“God, no. If anything you were saving me.”
Lena thinks she notices Kara standing up a bit taller. “Bad date?”
“Terrible. Perhaps romance is simply not in the cards for me.”
“I don’t believe that,” Kara says, with a shake of her head. “You’re too amazing to not find someone who’ll appreciate you for who you are, Lena Luthor.”
“Careful, you’ve exceeded your full naming quota.”
“Forgive me just this once?” Kara bows her head slightly, a teasing smile on her face.
“Only if you take this.” Lena then proceeds to take out a couple hundred dollar bills and tries to offer it to Kara. But Kara covers her hand and closes it for her, the bills clutched in her fist. She is now fully aware of the warmth of Kara’s hand on top of hers, the softness of it on her skin. Now that she knows this, she’s not sure she can go back to not knowing. To not knowing who Kara is, really.
“Absolutely not! Tonight’s on me. Plus, that was not a true trademark Love is Crepe crepe, okay? I can totally do better. No, I will totally do better!”
“Is that so?”
“Yes! Why don’t you come back tomorrow, and I’ll prove it to you.”
Lena’s heart flutters at the idea of seeing Kara again. “I suppose I can settle for that.”
“Good, it’s settled. So see you tomorrow?”
“See you then.”
She doesn’t linger for too much longer, hailing a cab and staring out the window until a waving Kara disappears from view.
When she gets home, Lena opens her phone and calls her best friend.
“Oh, Sam. I think I’m in love.”
“The date went well?” Sam asks incredulously from the other end of the line.
“Oh god, no. The date was a disaster, I never wanna see that guy ever again.”
Sam laughs. “Okay, then if not him, who? Start from the top, babe. What’s his name?”
Lena closes her eyes, images of Kara’s beauty filling her mind. Of their dinner together, of the meandering and rich conversation they had tonight. Of the way Kara laughed with her whole body, and smiled with her whole face.
“Well,” she begins, unable to wipe the large excited smile on her own face. “Her name is Kara.”
"We can still go with money if you want?" Lena suggested after their third attempt to get the main part of the machine operational.
Kara refused to admit they might be over their heads. It was a machine designed by a superior civilisation Kara had never fully had the chance to explore and far beyond anything Lena had worked on before. Including the teleporter for the Daxamite. They needed help, Kara knew that.
Asking Brainy would be pointless as the whole thing was a surprise for him and Nia to begin with, asking her parents felt wrong. If she was completely honest with herself she just really enjoyed the challenge, she enjoyed putting her mind to work and most of all, she enjoyed spending all this extra time with Lena.
"We're not getting them money for the wedding. We'll get this to work." Kara said with all the determination she could master.
"Okay then. I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but I think we deserve a lunch break. Chinese?" Lana asked, getting up from her work station to stretch out a bit.
"With extra potstickers?"
"Like I don't order you three portions every time." Lena smiled at her.
"You're the best." Despite the progress they made so far. Today was a good day.
When Kara lands on Lena’s balcony at L-Corp, she’s here on a mission.
“Miss Luthor.”
Lena whirls around at her desk, clearly surprised by the visit.
“Supergirl. I wasn’t expecting you. Is there a problem?”
Kara stalks into her office, hands on her hips.
“Yes, I mean, no, not a problem, per se.”
“But?” Lena prompts, picking up on Kara’s frantic energy.
“I was meeting with the mayor this morning,” Kara starts, thinking back to being summoned by city officials to talk about the damage to some waterfront buildings that happened in the wake of Kara fighting off the latest rogue alien who attacked the city.
“Oh. Well, that’s unpleasant,” Lena quips. “He’s a useless sack of flesh in ill-fitting suits, at least as far as I’m concerned.”
“Um, I mean. Yes. But, that’s not why I’m here.”
Lena sits back down at her desk and motions for Kara to take one of the chairs across from her and waits for her to get to the point.
“Right, so, he said that you paid for the damage to the two office buildings by the pier.”
A small smile settles on Lena’s face. “I did.”
The confirmation makes Kara feel jittery. Why would Lena do that? It’s not like she was involved in the fight. It’s not her responsibility!
“Why?”
“Why did I pay for it? Because I can, Supergirl. My family has more money than they know what to do with. I figured it’s only fair to use some of it for good.”
Kara huffs. She doesn’t quite know how to argue with that, but it still feels wrong for Lena to pay for the damage Kara left behind.
Lena seems to sense Kara’s discomfort. The teasing smirk on her face softens into an understanding smile.
“You do so much for this city. You put yourself on the line every day. I have the resources to help, and it won’t even make a noticeable dent in my bank account. Let me take care of this, okay?”
Kara shifts around on her chair, still a little unsure about this arrangement.
“Okay, but, you have to let me make it up to you somehow.”
At that, Lena nods. “Let me steal a couple of your french fries tomorrow at lunch and we’re even.”
Kara can hear the finality in Lena’s tone. It’s not unfriendly, but it’s clear that Lena won’t be deterred.
“Fine. Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
Lena nods again and grins.
It’s not until Kara has launched herself into the skies above National City that it clicks. Lena has lunch plans with Kara Danvers tomorrow, not with Supergirl.
Lena knows.
Shocked and distracted, Kara crashes into a billboard. She wonders if Lena will pay for that, too.
"What is?" Kara asked, so focused on her article that she didn’t look up from her computer until Nia gave her a little nudge on her shoulder.
"That," Nia said, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. She pointed surreptitiously to the man who had just stepped out of the elevator holding a modest bouquet of both white and red roses. He walked with purpose towards the desk cluster reserved for CatCo's revolving door of interns, his sights trained on the brunette whom Kara had seen earlier in the day being taught the ins and outs of the copier with a look of deep concentration on her face.
He did his best to hide the flowers behind his back before he approached for all the good that it did him because it seemed that she had caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye before he could surprise her.
She goggled at him, clearly not expecting the visit but when he produced the flowers from behind his back a little shyly, she beamed at him and leaped out of her chair with enough force to nearly bowl him over.
“That is sweet,” Kara said. She smiled, feeling happy for them even though she didn’t know them. “And who knows," Kara said and glanced towards Andrea's office. "If she snags the junior reporter job he might be delivering flowers to her very own office someday."
Maybe,” Nia said, but Kara could tell from her voice that she believed such an outcome was a long shot. A fair assessment considering how picky Andrea could be. And with only one open junior reporter position up for grabs it meant that competition would be nothing short of intense. “He’d probably want to spring for a bigger bouquet for just such an occasion. Nia smiled and snuck one more look at the happy couple before she glanced back towards Andrea’s office. “I should get back to work before Andrea comes out and makes an example out of me in front of the interns.” She rapped her knuckles on the side of Kara’s desk and set off back to her own
“He could always fill her office with flowers,” Kara suggested before Nia got too far away that she had to raise her voice. She did so almost absentmindedly, her focus had already shifted back to her article.
"Now that would be romantic,” Nia said as she kept walking. “But I don’t want to even think about how expensive that would be,” she called over her shoulder.
Would it be romantic? The answer seemed obvious but still, Kara found herself pondering the question intently while she tried to return to work. As if she didn't like the very obvious answer staring her in the face. Of course, it would be romantic.
So my office is overflowing with flowers…
That much was obvious. If a single bouquet was romantic, surely several dozen more than even that would be considered romantic. Looking at it in such an overly logical (and paradoxically illogical) way, Kara couldn't help but think of Brainy, believing he might try and break down the problem in a similar fashion.
But as distracting as the question was, it was Nia’s last comment that Kara found herself dwelling on long after she had left work. How expensive was it to fill an office with flowers? It sounded like the kind of esoteric problem you might see crop up on a particularly finicky math test. Because it wasn’t just the sheer quantity of flowers that would factor in, as well. There was also the unusualness of the request to consider. Not many flower shops would even be able to fulfill such a request, no matter how much they might like to.
She puzzled over the question while she ate dinner alone. Leftover takeout from her favorite Chinese place. As she chewed she made a couple of rough estimates. Tried to recall just how many flowers there had been in her office that day… She remembered that stepping into her office had momentarily taken her breath away. It had been like stepping into a fairytale and how she had never even tried to count them. It would have felt too much like trying to figure out how a magic trick was done. It would rob it of something essential, something beautiful.
Had she really never asked herself that before? It felt strange to think that it had only just now occurred to her. Both the enormity of the gesture and how much something like that must have cost. Maybe because she hadn’t wanted to?
She speared a potsticker on the end of her chopsticks and chewed it without really tasting it. It wasn’t just the flowers though. There was the little matter of CatCo itself… What did it mean when your best friend bought you a company? But she already knew what it meant. A part of her had always known. It might have been the utter shock she had felt upon first hearing the news that had kept her from realizing it. Maybe it was Lena’s insistence that her buying CatCo was merely a business decision that she fully intended to make the most of even when Kara could see in her eyes it was so much more than that. Or maybe it was the simple fact that she was too afraid of what it might mean.
She had come within a hair's breadth of finally admitting it when Lena had sold CatCo to Andrea. When Lena had freely confessed just why she had bought the company. But then things hadn’t gone crashing down around them soon after that and the truth staring her in the face had been all too easy to ignore.
But what was stopping her now? When things between them had never been better? The answer came to Kara at once. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Save for however long it would take her to fly to Lena's penthouse and maybe a few stops along the way…
Kara shouldn't have been surprised that Lena's penthouse was empty when she flew past. Not when Lena spent most of her nights working well into the night. Usually that would have bothered her. But not tonight. Tonight it felt right. It offered a kind of harmony that they might look back on fondly…
She touched down on the balcony and realized that she was already smiling when she saw Lena sitting at her desk. Whatever she was working on had her full attention and it allowed Kara to cross the balcony without Lena noticing. She knocked twice and when Lena looked up from her work she did so with a knowing smile on her face.
"How did you know it was me?" Kara asked when Lena opened the balcony door.
"I had a feeling," Lena said, stepping aside to let Kara inside. "And the list of people I know that can enter through my balcony starts and ends with you. Is everything okay?"
"Everything's great. I just hope I'm not interrupting you."
Lena shook her head and it was only then that Kara realized she had taken off her heels, the difference in their heights a little more noticeable. "I was just about ready to call it a night." She waved a hand at her computer. "I could work through the morning and I'd still have plenty of work left to do. Might as well get a few hours of sleep before I do it all over again." she joked.
"You shouldn't work so late," Kara insisted.
"Look who's talking," Lena said but nodded a bit apologetically. "I'll take a day off soon," she promised. "We can do brunch," she suggested with a smile. "My treat."
"It's always your treat," Kara said and knew that there would be no better opening than now. "And even when it's not you always know how to distract me when the waiter comes by with our bill so that you can grab it first. How do you do that?"
Lena grinned. "You're not the only one with superpowers," she joked.
"You spend too much on me," Kara said softly.
"Well, you do eat a lot," Lena said, still grinning although it started to fade when she saw that Kara hadn't joined her.
"You filled my office with flowers," Kara said. "I have no idea how much that must have cost you. I still remember how magical it looked. It was like stepping into the Land of Oz. So much color. It's one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me, Lena."
"Kara..." Lena said, starting to blush. "You already thanked me for that ages ago. You don't have to do it again."
"I want to. You... You bought CatCo for me." She pursed her lips, feeling a tightness in her throat. "I never... I never really thanked you properly for that. How could I ever thank you for something like that?"
"Kara," Lena said, a little sternly, her cheeks now aflame. "It was n—"
"Don't say it was nothing," Kara pleaded. She shook her head and brushed at her eyes. Please don't say that. Don't try and diminish it when it means the world to me."
Lena nodded slowly and Kara could hear her heart beating a little faster, nearly keeping time with her own. "CatCo was important to you," Lena explained. "And I..." She took a breath and let it out slowly, looking everywhere but back at Kara. "I just like when you're happy," she said softly.
"I know," Kara murmured. "I feel the same way."
"Is that what you came all the over here to talk to me about?" Lena asked, and Kara could feel her trying to inject a little levity back into their conversation.
"Not exactly. Can you close your eyes for a second? Just one," Kara said, holding up her index finger to hammer home the point.
For a moment, Kara saw the polite curiosity on Lena's face and wondered if she might try and ask what for but when their eyes met, a small smile pulled at Lena's mouth and she shut her eyes.
"You can open them now," Kara said, looking the tiniest bit windswept.
"Oh my God..." There was a sharp intake of breath and Lena reached for Kara's arm as if she suddenly needed it to keep her balance. But when she clasped her wrist it was with a featherlight touch. "Kara, how did you?" she began to say but fell silent before she could finish her question. "It's beautiful," she said a little while later after she had taken in every inch of her office as if trying to commit it to memory, and for all Kara knew she was. "Like magic," she said and looked at Kara sideways and even that was enough to make Kara blush a little.
I bet it does look like magic, Kara thought. When Lena had closed her eyes her office had looked as it almost always did, fastidiously neat, the kind of mental image one might think up when imagining an office in a sprawling high-rise. When she opened them again her office was bursting with plumerias. Sprays of color in delicate shades of pink and white, vibrant yellow and blue as well as deep red and orange. And she still had one last trick up her sleeve... She reached behind her back in an obvious way to draw Lena's eye and pulled a bouquet from behind her back that she offered to Lena a bit timidly considering she had just filled her office with flowers.
Oooooh, that paladin/new god post... for a SuperCorp AU, which would be which? My first inclination is divine Lena and paladin Kara, but I think an argument can be made for the other way around.
I think either could totally argued, but Paladin Kara is too good for me not to kind of spiral and write Lena as the goddess of Death so!!!! This isn’t much like the original post prompt but it’s where my brain went 🤷♀️
-
As one cursed with eternal life, it was only a matter of time before Death tried to come for Kara.
She sees the goddess for the first time as she’s sitting on a fallen tree, trying to dig a knife out of her back. She’d intervened in a roadside robbery out of pure instinct more than anything else – she prefers to keep to herself, for the most part, and has done so for years beyond counting – and she hadn’t been expecting this band of brigands to have a fourth member hidden in the woods. He’d caught her by surprise. Leading to her current predicament. She hadn’t even noticed the blade sticking out from between her shoulders until after she’d sent the thieves running and the victims on their merry way, and now it’s stubbornly lodged in a place she can’t reach.
Death stands in the shadows. Her dress is (unsurprisingly) black, her long dark hair framing a face Kara can’t quite see. She reminds Kara of the night. A foreign concept, here - the sun of this world never moves from the centre of the sky. Always beaming straight down. It focuses on this half of the planet, leaving the other half dark and dead rather than simply deigning to set for half the day to share its light. It leaves the world’s denizens thinking the globe is flat. A ridiculous notion.
The god of the sun had been benevolent on Kara’s world. Not here.
“I’ve been watching you,” the goddess says. Her voice echoes, clouds around Kara’s senses like a flock of ravens. “You’ve walked this earth for 120 years and haven’t aged a day. You should be dead. Why is your name not on my list?”
“I’m not of this earth,” Kara says distractedly. The voice should send shivers down her spine, but as her spine is currently being scraped by sharp iron she has bigger fish to fry at the moment.
“That much I do know,” Death says coldly. “Your gods are dead.”
The reminder makes Kara’s chest ache. An echo of her dead planet, more dead even than the darkened half of this one. Reduced to rubble. But she smiles through it.
“They are.”
“That shouldn’t mean you can evade death. In any realm.”
“Evade is a funny word for being kept from something,” Kara says, gritting her teeth as her fingers brush the knife’s handle without grasping it. Every time she twists her arm to do it, it sends a shot of pure pain through her. “Could you maybe help me with this?”
“You want to die?” Death asks. Her voice is changed, now – the smoky effect drops, as if it was an affectation interrupted by her shock.
“Would love to, actually.”
“So, how -”
“Ask your brother,” Kara says cheerfully. She knows the pantheon of this world almost as well as her own, now. Learned that hard lesson when she arrived here alone, on this world where the sun never sets. She knows the familial ties that bind the gods. There were many once, one for every little thing one might need to pray for, but now there are but two. Lex, the sun god who provides life, and his unnamed sister the goddess of Death.
Death scoffs. “What does my brother have to do with this?”
“He cursed me,” Kara says, finally turning in her frustration to a nearby tree. Bracing for pain she rubs her back against it, strafing until bark hits blade and the pressure slides the knife free. The wave of pain eases into relief as soon as it’s gone, and in moments the wound has stitched itself up. “With eternal life. Cursed never to see my dead family in the afterlife. Clever, right?”
“That’s not possible,” Death says slowly. “He can’t supersede my domain.”
“Well, he has,” Kara says, nodding her head half-respectfully in Death’s direction before gathering up her things and heading back to the road. She has nowhere in particular to be, but walking gives her a sense of purpose even so. “So take it up with him.”
The goddess disappears in a dramatic wave of black smoke. And that, Kara thinks, is the end of that.
-
Kara meets the goddess of death again 3 years later. She’s busy putting out a house fire, one that might have overtaken the entire village if left to grow – she’s the only one braving the flames when everyone else has run to safety. The fire sears her palms, leaves shiny red welts that disappear the moment they see the rays of the sun, but it hardly registers as pain anymore. She’s grown used to it in the last few years.
Saving people in need means a lot of injury.
When the flames are dampened and she’s left pouring water on the cinders, she moves a crooked pile of rubble to find the dark goddess sitting with graceful poise on the charred remains of a wooden table. Even in the eternal sunshine, darkness sits around her like a heavy cloak.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Kara says. She brushes the ash from her hands, gesturing at her soot-stained face. “Sorry about the mess.”
“He shouldn’t be able to do this,” Death says. Kara can detect none of the echoing dramatics her voice held during their last meeting – now her tone is clear and sharp. Low and a little raspy, maybe, but not in an unpleasant way. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Shouldn’t, but did,” Kara says, shrugging and moving to pass around the table. “If you’ll excuse me?”
The goddess holds out a hand, and Kara’s way is blocked by a dark cloud of energy. Kara sighs.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to do,” Kara says, with a little more steel to her voice. “I’d love to help you out and go into the great unknown or whatever it is that you do, but I can’t die. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Why did he curse you?” Death asks.
“Because he is the great Lord of the sun on this world, and honouring Rao dishonours him,” Kara replies heavily, leaning against a very unsteady beam. It’s hot against the skin of her arm. “He took offence to worship being given to another when I first arrived here. Even a dead god.”
The goddess is quiet. Embers crackle and settle around them - the orange glow lights the angles in her face through her cloak of shadow, though the details are still obscured.
“Did you know that the sun moves on most worlds?” Kara says. The goddess doesn’t move. “Rao didn’t control the sun. He was the sun. He moved through the day to cover the whole planet. There’s no night-time, here.”
“Yes,” Death says softly. “My brother likes to be the centre of everyone’s sky.”
“Except the dark side of the planet.”
Death doesn’t answer for a time. Shadows curl around her, licking at the surface of the table like dark flames.
“Most would covet eternal life, you know,” Death finally says. Her voice is curious. “Most hate death as a very concept. Hate me.”
Kara folds her arms. She looks directly at Death, focused on where her eyes should be.
“I’m not most.”
After a beat the goddess disappears, leaving Kara alone in the ashes.
After that day, Kara can almost feel the goddess watching her every time she survives something that should kill a mortal. Every time she heals a fatal wound, or lets another birthday pass her by without a sign of age. But for years the goddess leaves her alone. It’s another 21 before Kara sees the goddess of death again.
This time, Kara is almost sure she’s finally managed it. She dove deep to pull someone from the remains of a shipwreck, and after sending them to the surface for rescue she stayed underwater. Letting her air run out slowly, feeling her lungs fill with seawater. Choking in the dark. Blackness creeping in, the world getting fuzzy, her family’s faces swimming before her eyes as she feels the first spark of hope she’s felt in over a century -
She wakes to hot sunlight, sand under her back, and the goddess of death looking down at her from a regal seat on a beached crate of supplies. Her dark hair is framed by midday sun, her pale skin luminescent and stubbornly resisting its rays. For the first time, Kara can see the details of her face. She’s as flawless as a goddess might be expected to be, each feature carved and tying together a picture worthy of worship. And her eyes. They waver back and forth in colour, once blue and now green, like shades of the ocean reflected by different skies.
She’s beautiful. And she’s looking at Kara like she’s a stubborn puzzle-box, refusing to give up its secrets.
“Damn,” Kara says, coughing up several mouthfuls of salty water and turning over to spit them into the sand. “I came close that time, didn’t I?”
“I don’t understand you.”
Kara flops back. Her lungs are burning, and she can already tell it’s going to be hell to get all this sand out of her clothes. “Yeah, I don’t understand me either.”
“You could be living a life of selfish pleasure. Endless pleasure,” Death says. There’s a crease between her brows that, in her drowning-induced delirium, Kara wants to smooth with a finger. The first hint of imperfection in her limestone face. “You could accrue wealth and fame and followers. You could live the life of a god on earth if you wanted, and yet you spend your time throwing yourself into danger for others.”
“Why not?” Kara says, sitting up and feeling each vertebrae pop back into place. “I can’t die. I can do things others can’t.”
“So instead you aim to eliminate names from my list.” The goddess doesn’t look angry. Just confused. “Today three names disappeared before I could get here.”
“I would say sorry, but I don’t like to lie,” Kara says. She brushes sand from her arms, grimacing at the knots the seawater has made in her hair.
The goddess’ lips twitch. Almost a smile. Her mouth downturns naturally - fitting, for a goddess of the saddest domain - but Kara thinks suddenly that her smile might just be life-giving. She wants to see it. It lights a fire in her she didn’t expect.
“No need to apologize,” Death says quietly. “I take no pleasure in the reaping of souls.”
Kara pauses partway through untangling her hair.
“Huh.”
“Is that surprising?” Death says. One perfect brow arches, and Kara traces its curve with her eyes.
“Well, that’s not how people speak of you.”
“Ah, yes. Death, the cruel thief of joy,” the goddess says, a thread of bitterness weaving into her words. “Waiting in the dark to snatch mortals away at the slightest provocation. Bringing woe and grief wherever she goes.”
The dark smoke that’s been mostly absent from their conversation appears again. It sweeps around Death, blurring her features like a stormcloud, and Kara leans back on her hands.
“I mean. The aesthetic isn’t exactly doing you any favours,” Kara notes.
The smoke parts. And this time, the goddess does smile. It’s almost incredulous, like she’s shocked at Kara’s gall, but Kara finds she was correct - that smile is like the first beam of moonlight after an eclipse. Something not of this world.
“No,” the goddess says, rising to her feet. The sand doesn’t touch her dress. “I suppose it isn’t.”
Her form starts to waver again. Black smoke takes over her features, sweeping across the beach. Kara scrambles to her feet. Sand sticks wetly to her back, making her hyper-aware of just how bedraggled she must look in comparison to the literal goddess she’s speaking to, but she calls out anyways.
“Wait!”
The smoke stops.
“Do you have a name?” Kara asks, hardly daring to hope for an answer. She can feel Death looking at her even with her features obscured.
“I haven’t used it in a long time.”
“No time like the present,” Kara says. The smoke billows out, sweeping across Kara’s soggy boots. Almost like a laugh. After a long pause, she answers.
“It’s…it’s Lena.”
Kara smiles.
“I’m Kara. Since my name isn’t on your list.”
Lena disappears without an acknowledgement. But Kara clings to her name. She holds it in her mouth like a sweet, lets it melt over her tongue as the last hint of the goddess’ presence disappears in the bright sunshine.
“Until next time. Lena.”
-
Saving people in need becomes something of a pastime. With nothing much else to do with her endless days Kara keeps travelling, helping out where she can and learning how to fight to do so more effectively. And, she finds, she’s good at it. It comes as easily to her as anything.
But sometimes, even easy things go wrong.
It isn’t often that Kara fails. But her strength has limits, even with eternal life – when the man she’s caught mid-fall on a rocky cliff slips from her grasp, there’s little she can do but watch as he hits the ground. She even falls after him, pulling herself towards him on broken legs that snap themselves back into place within moments, but there’s nothing she can do to heal his broken body.
Lena appears in her periphery as she’s holding him. His wheezing breath is starting to leave him - he’s terrified, seizing at her clothes.
“Help,” he chokes. Lena moves just into Kara’s field of vision. Not circling, but making her presence known.
“I can’t,” Kara whispers. She lays him gently on the ground, prising his hands from her tunic and stepping away, and when she finally looks at Lena she sees not satisfaction but deep, unimaginable sadness.
The moment Lena takes Kara’s place, he knows.
“No,” he moans, trying to scramble away but failing as the strength leaves his body. “No, no, please, I – I have a family, you can’t – please don’t -”
“Be at peace,” Lena says softly. A pale hand comes to rest on his wound, a soft glow emanating from her palm. Her face is set in aching empathy. “Your suffering is over. No pain will follow you here.”
The man is not at peace. He’s still terrified, hardly hearing her comforting words, but Lena says them anyways; when his spirit fades and his body goes limp, Lena stands. She doesn’t look at Kara, not directly, but nor does she disappear as Kara takes a heavy seat on a flat rock.
After a moment, Kara calls out.
“Lena?”
Lena twitches. Her hand flexes, making a fist and then relaxing again. Kara wonders if she’s heard her name called a single time since their last meeting.
“Come talk to me,” Kara says softly. She pats the spot beside her, and Lena’s eyes flicker to the movement. “Please?”
Lena comes closer, but she doesn’t sit. Her eyes are downcast. Kara wishes she would look up, so that she could see the ever-changing colour of them. She’s been thinking about it for years, now. She’s just as starkly beautiful as she was the last time they saw each other.
“I’m sorry,” Lena says quietly. Kara shrugs, trying to put aside the guilt eating away at her insides.
“Can’t save everyone.”
“And yet you still try. Doesn’t it get tiresome?”
“I should ask you the same thing,” Kara says. Lena finally looks up.
“My task is enforced on me,” Lena says, her hands coming together in something close to a fidget before she seems to remember herself and stop. Her eyes are grey, today. Like the choppy steel of a stormy sea. “You do this by choice. Have you made some kind of game out of erasing names from my list?”
“I guess you could say that,” Kara shrugs. She moves over, patting the open spot beside her again. “Or maybe I just enjoy your company.”
Lena scoffs. “That’s even more absurd than defying Death.”
“And yet, here I am. Doing both.”
Lena’s face is like stone as she assesses Kara’s words. But she sits.
“You don’t get to talk to people often, do you?” Kara says. Lena has left a great deal of space between them, perching on the very edge of the rock, and Kara takes in what she can of her side profile.
“Not unless I’m bringing them to the afterlife,” Lena says. Her hands twist together again. “And in those cases, as you saw, they tend to be…”
“Afraid.”
“Or angry. Or pleading. But yes. Mostly frightened,” Lena sighs. “Everyone fears the unknown. It doesn’t really matter what I say.”
“But you still try,” Kara says. It’s something she never would have expected from Death, this well of genuine empathy for the humans she reaps, but it seems to be a fundamental part of Lena just as much as her stormy eyes or her sharp tongue.
Lena nods. “Everyone deserves comfort in their final moments. Especially if they’re gripped by fear.”
Kara’s next words come in a whisper.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
Lena looks at her sharply. Her brows are knitted with disbelief, and her hands stop their twisting and instead brace on the rock.
“My brother did this to you,” Lena says. Her voice is low, but urgent as she leans towards Kara as if to persuade her. “Keeps you from seeing your family. He is the source of your curse.”
“Unless I’m mistaken, you don’t seem to be your brother.”
Kara’s hand moves closer to where Lena’s rests. A few inches between them, perhaps, easily closed. Closer and closer Kara moves, towards Lena’s pale fingers, reaching –
The swirling black cloud has hidden Lena’s features before Kara can come close to touching Death’s hand.
“Lena, wait!” Kara shouts. But it’s to empty air. The goddess of death is gone.
-
After that day, Kara puts herself in danger perhaps a shade more than she did before in the hopes of drawing Lena out again. Sometimes Kara can feel her presence when she saves a life, a gentle smoky warmth just over her shoulder; sometimes she can almost see her as someone’s soul is leaving their body, if Kara has failed to change their fate. A faint outline. A sense of calm, even when the dying person is frightened. But no matter what Kara does Lena doesn’t materialize.
She even tries praying, which feels as silly as it must look. Lena doesn’t answer. Her absence only intensifies Kara’s fascination.
As she walks the world Kara looks for worshippers of her newly-favoured goddess, and finds few and far between. Besides the occasional murderous cult who worship a version of Death that doesn’t resemble Lena in the slightest and a single, run-down temple on a remote island hidden from human access, there’s no trace of the kind of worship given to Lena’s brother the sun-god. No festivals, no sacrifices, hardly even an acknowledgement. Only fear, and resistance against the inevitable. As if pretending death doesn’t exist will stave it off indefinitely.
Even with only three meetings, Kara feels somehow as if she knows Lena. And her erasure feels deeply unfair.
It takes 12 years for Kara to see her again. 12 years of looking for danger, saving people whose names she knows must have been on Lena’s list, stealing souls back from Death in an endless back-and-forth, until finally Kara does something drastic.
She takes her vows, and becomes Death’s only Paladin.
Hearing Lena’s voice again is like hearing the first drops of rain after a long drought.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
Kara opens her eyes. She’s only halfway through her 24 hours of silent prayer in this windowless room, the last step in this holy process, and now her patron goddess herself is perched on the altar surrounded by flickering candles. Her legs are folded one over the other in a graceful cross, and her face is set in incredulity.
“Lena!” Kara breathes, grinning wide and rising from her knees. “Long time no see!”
“Death doesn’t have Paladins, Kara,” Lena says fiercely, as if Kara hasn’t greeted her at all. “Nobody walks the earth saving people in Death’s name. My brother’s Paladins seek to defy me, they don’t…they don’t worship.”
“Why not?” Kara shrugs. Her armour, a dark leather set with Death’s symbol on the breast, squeaks with her movement in the way new leather always does. Lena’s nostrils flare.
“Because it doesn’t make sense!”
“It does, though. Think about it,” Kara says, as insistent in her decision as she’s been these last two years of training. She’s had to weather the disbelief of the other Paladins here too, all training to serve the sun-god. She’s gotten more than enough practice. “I can’t die. Ever. Who’s more fitting to carry out Death’s will?”
“What are you going to do, go out and kill people indiscriminately in my name?” Lena says, waving her hands wide. The strength of her reaction makes her somehow more real than she’s ever been, even when her draped sleeves pass over the candles without catching. “What could possibly be the function of a Paladin of Death?”
“You don’t take pleasure in the reaping of souls.”
Lena pauses. Her arms fall slowly back to her sides.
“You remembered that,” she whispers.
Kara knows then with a certainty she can’t describe that she’s done the right thing. She’s tried keeping Rao in her heart, she’s tried escaping from her past, she’s tried every method available on this earth of letting Death take her. But now that she knows Death, has seen her firsthand, she’ll kneel for Lena and nobody else.
“I can be your vassal,” Kara says, lowering her voice to match Lena’s. “I can sort those who can be spared from those whose time has come. Make your job easier. Save them, or ease their passage if I need to. Soothe some of that fear.”
Lena bites at her lower lip. Her teeth are brilliantly white, the edges sharp enough to leave a mark that fades slowly.
“It would defy my brother,” Lena admits. “He’s the one who gave me this task. I’m not meant to deviate.”
“Who better to do that, too?”
Lena is silent. Kara approaches her, trying to absorb her every perfect feature while she can – the curve of her brow, the shape of her sharp jaw framing her mouth. The slight underbite that shines through as she seems to chew on the inside of her cheek.
Kara reaches out a hand.
Lena slides off the altar, snatching her arm away before Kara can get close. “No - you can’t touch me.”
“Why not?”
Lena sidesteps, sliding past Kara and backing up until her back hits the wall. “Mortals can’t touch the gods. You’ll burn. It’ll -”
“Kill me?” Kara grins. She removes her gauntlet, dropping it to the flagstones. “I’d welcome it.”
Again, slowly, she reaches for Lena’s hand. And slowly Lena relaxes her arm until finally, Kara’s fingers wrap around her bare wrist.
Lena’s skin is like ice. It’s cold enough that it might burn, like Lena said, if Kara wasn’t cursed. But it doesn’t. Kara feels more alive than she’s felt in decades, just from a simple touch. Wonderfully alive. Joyously alive. Lena’s intake of breath is sharp enough to cut.
“See?” Kara says lowly. “My curse is good for something.”
“You’re…”
Kara’s free hand joins the first. She cups both of them around Lena’s, feeling their shape; Lena’s long, elegant fingers curl into themselves in the cradle of Kara’s palms, their cold receding. Kara keeps her voice low.
“What am I?”
Lena swallows. Kara watches her throat bob, her lips parting to show a flash of her pink tongue.
“Warm,” Lena murmurs. “Like the sun. I haven’t felt warmth in…a long time.”
Kara is close to her. So close that she can see the shifting sea colours in Lena’s eyes even in the dim candlelight. Carefully, Kara sinks to her knees with Lena’s hands still cradled in her own. She opens up her fingers so that she can press her forehead to Lena’s palms, and she finds that the coldness has left them. They’re almost hot, now.
“Let me serve you, Lena,” Kara whispers, like the endless prayers she’s been whispering since she was locked in this room. “Please.”
Lena’s fingers move. For a moment Kara thinks she might push her away. But instead they relax, and press against the top of Kara’s head.
“You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met,” Lena says. But there’s wonder in her voice. Happiness, even. And when she disappears in her usual cloud of smoke, the smoke drifts over Kara. She breathes it in, feeling it full her lungs, and on the first breath she feels it changing her.
Lena smells of fresh earth. Of fallen leaves, crisp and decomposing in a fragrant autumn. The tangy smoke of a doused fire.
She smells like the cool air of night.
When she smoke leaves her, Kara feels different. Unimaginably different. Envigorated. The pew she uses to pull herself to her feet cracks and splits under her hand with hardly any effort, and when she flexes her shoulders – feeling a new strength in them, one she can’t wait to explore – she feels something else there.
Two black, feathered wings unfurl from her back, filling the room with fragrant shadow.
Truly such a beautiful day for their majesties the new king and queen may there rule be long and prospero- BLIMEY! ITS PRINCESS DIANA AND SHES GOT A STEEL CHAIR
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