ISSUE #6 written by Emma Woods
February 2018
February 2018
"New Dawn Rising"
When Kara awoke, it was to silence.
She was slow to open her eyes, her body filled with warmth, the light infusing her with hope. The room hummed with serenity, steadying her troubled heart, a tiny abode housing but a single bed, a veritable mansion compared to what she had become accustomed.
She was alone, the only occupant of the small room, curled up and still half slumbering, the smallest of relieved smiles daring to grace her features before she stretched, groaning as her muscles grew taunt. She relaxed with a relieved sigh before forcing herself to sit up straight, garbed in the simple robes of a supplicant, her quarters as spartan as an aspirants.
A deep inhale was to follow, Kara holding it as she closed her eyes once more, savouring her sanctuary and appreciating its worth. She could stay here forever, within this one moment, and never have to concern herself with change again, lost between the cracks of an unkind universe.
Would it be so bad to live forever as merely content?
Was that too much to ask?
There was a chime at her door, low and comforting, urgent and yet not invasive, Kara opening her eyes as the query passed, reality catching up to her at last, the cosmos demanding she move on. She sighed, standing to her full height as she approached the door, swiping her palm over a small light and allowing the threshold to slide open.
Her mood brightened almost immediately, Arisa standing opposite her, the wellspring of the elfin young woman’s joy refilled to full upon her return home, the Green Lantern restored in both body and soul. Kara was almost forced to perform a double take, her companion of these last few months once again attired as she was born to be, in the strong emeralds of her calling and all but glowing from head to toe.
“Well,” Arisa grinned back, “you sure do like to sleep, thought I was going to have to toss you out of bed.”
Kara blinked, uncertain of her meaning.
“You’ve been snoozing for two days,” her friend confirmed, linking her arm with Kara’s before the Kryptonian could protest and pulling her from the small room. “I am now certain that you are a cat.”
“Two days?” the young girl mumbled in disbelief, “I couldn’t have...”
“And yet,” Arisa cut her off, not missing a beat as she led the way down the corridor, “you did, an impressive feat by all accounts. We can add it to your growing list.”
Kara didn’t reply, unable to find the words as effortlessly as her companion, astonished by how quickly she had recovered. It was as though the Lantern had never been imprisoned at all, her spirit as indomitable as the sun.
“Come on,” Arisa urged, her enthusiasm infectious, “I have to show you something cool.”
**********
It was said that Oa sat at the centre of the Cosmos, and Kara was inclined to believe it, guided through its gilded towers by her companion and in awe of its majesty. It was a city built from light, or so it seemed, every structure radiating purpose and its citizens, the Green Lantern Corps, filled it with industrious life. Upon this soil was raised a lynchpin of the Universe, and never had Kara seen such unparalleled drive within a population.
Arisa took the wonders about them in her stride, as only a native of any given culture could do, and she filled the silence left by Kara with her own chatter, more than willing to explain every detail. Every structure had a story, and more than once the Kryptonian was forced to question whether or not the elfin Lantern was making any of it up.
She chose to believe her at face value, it would be rude not to, and she was a grateful guest.
Shortly after the Mountain had been liberated, the slaves seizing control and declaring a state of freedom, Arisa had made true on her own promise. Finally reunited with her ring, the Lantern had called upon her compatriots and the Corps had arrived in force, a sea of emerald descending upon the despot’s world and solidifying their victory, lending aid where it was needed.
Many of the former slaves, now refugees, had returned home, finding families who had long thought them lost. Others had chosen to stay, claiming the Mountain for their own and founding a new settlement, one under the stewardship of the Corps. Kara had found her way here.
She had no-where else to go.
Given the circumstances, the Corps had been more than willing to provide sanctuary, although the Kryptonian was uncertain if the decree had been handed down from the Guardians or the Guard, and she was thankful for their hospitality. Never the less, the question remained.
Where to go from here?
“Kara?”
She looked up, feeling suddenly foolish, realising that her thoughts had been drifting. She looked about to re-establish her surroundings and found herself inside, the great hall some manner of museum.
“Sorry,” Kara muttered her cheeks tinting before she could regain her composure, “I was...”
“Drifting,” Arisa chuckled at her expense, “I noticed. Fortunately I am the forgiving sort, and you can make it up to me later. For now,” the Lantern swept out her free arm, “anything strike you as familiar.”
Kara looked again, uncertain as to her meaning, before the heritage of the heirlooms around her became blatantly apparent. They were all Kryptonian. She was speechless, unable to form words even if she wanted, the handful of remnants from her extinct culture as precious to her as the stars themselves. Somehow they had survived the death of her species, fleeting fragments scattered across the cosmos, echoes of a dead race, a remembrance that they had ever existed at all.
“We save what we can, when we can,” Arisa explained, still guiding her friend through the chamber, “not just people. Some of it turns up in the damndest places, this one however,” she explained, coming to a stop before a man sized cabinet, “was already here.”
Kara covered her mouth, her heart threatening to beat right out of her chest as her eyes fell upon the glass case. There within, pristinely preserved, lay presented the attire of her people, the reds, blues and yellow accents of her families colours vibrantly bringing the outfit to life and, at its centre, sat embezzled a Shield embossed with her House’s mantra.
She knew her family’s history, and she could scarcely believe that it had found her now.
“This,” Kara finally spoke, her reflection staring back at her from across the generations, “this was my Grandmothers.”
“Actually,” Arisa spoke up, her tone mischievous as she looked about, “between you and me, I’d say this is yours...”
**********
By every official record, Vartox had not died during the rebellion, but a man did not live the life that he had without knowing better. His rule toppled, his power stripped, his freedom snatched away, the man that once was the Lord of the Mountain sat alone within a tiny cell, his confinement as complete as it could ever be. He had become an afterthought in the bureaucracy of the Universe, a tally in someone else’s ledger.
He was already dead.
Vartox sat in silence, his mood toxic, arms folded across his lap with his head bowed. Anger simmered beneath the surface, impotent rage forcing the muscles of his shoulders to twitch and spasm, his temperament spiralling towards self destruction. He would wring the necks of every Lantern on Oa, if he could but escape this one, tiny cell.
He had become irrelevant.
He was already dead.
Vartox looked up as the doors slid open, a violent tick contorting his right eye and, as he looked upon his visitor, it was all he could do to not voice his rage. There before him stood the Kryptonian, reborn from the fires of her forging, attired in the vibrant blues and bold reds of her people, a cloak of crimson sat imperiously across her shoulders as if she were born to royalty. Stunning, majestic, as radiant as the sun...
Kara Zor-El of Krypton.
Infuriatingly perfect.
“Well,” he finally formed words, his lips curling with distaste, “aren’t we the pretty, little Princess.”
It was intended as an insult, and yet Kara’s steady stare betrayed no irritation, exasperating Vartox’s own.
“Do you think you’re won?” he continued, refusing to be cowed, “do you think this is over? Do you even understand what the Mountain was? You cost people money, powerful people, people who own this Universe! They’ll come for you, all of you, and when they do,” he paused, fingers clenching into fists, “they’ll take back what’s owed.”
Kara remained silent, unmoved and undaunted.
“Is that it!?!” Vartox stood up sharply, infuriated by her indifference, the sheer lack of regard that he was being held in. Not even the sour dignity of contempt. “Say something, damn you! SAY SOMETHING!!”
Nothing.
Not even a narrowing of her gaze.
For a moment, Kara Zor-El opened her mouth to speak and then, as the moment lingered, she chose to say nothing at all, instead turning on the spot with a flourish and leaving the ‘Lord’ of the Mountain behind her.
There was nothing left to be said, his part in her life was over.
Vartox was already dead.
**********
“Daaaaaaaaaamn,” Arisa exclaimed in admiration as Kara exited the cell block, a grin plastered across her features. “You just didn’t want to leave him with any dignity at all, did you?”
Her companion resisted the urge to blush even as she exhaled deeply, feeling as though a weight were being lifted from her shoulders. “I’m just glad I’m done with him,” she confessed, “its over; I never want to see that man again.”
“No problem there, of that I can assure you,” Arisa asserted with unshakable conviction, “if nothing else, paper work will keep him buried for the rest of time. Do you know how many crimes he committed? Salaak’s going to have a field day.”
Kara nodded, perhaps not feeling quite as imperious as she now appeared.
“He was right about one thing though,” Arisa linked her arm with Kara’s, leaving the undesirables of the Universe in the rear view mirror, “you look amazing.”
The Kryptonian wasn’t so convinced, still fidgeting with the waistband, “Are you sure it fits?”
“Believe me,” Arisa answered coyly, “its fits.”
For long minutes the two walked in silence, each comfortable in the others company after so many months of forced confinement, and it was with a more sombre mood that the Green Lantern broke it, the two of them reaching a balcony.
“You could have killed him,” Arisa stated, it was not a question. “There isn’t a soul on that whole planet who would have testified against you.”
Kara nodded, knowing it was true.
“I couldn’t have stopped you.”
Kara was polite enough to not agree.
“Why didn’t you?” Arisa queried, leaning forwards across the railing. “Why didn’t you kill him?”
The blonde didn’t answer immediately, the breeze capturing her cloak with a small ripple, her posture momentarily as ram rod straight as her mothers.
“Because it hurts,” Kara confessed, her eyes only for the dawn. “And it always will.”
Arisa looked to her friend with a furrowed brow, not entirely understanding.
“If I start,” the Kryptonian sighed, reminded of an all new weight pressed down upon her shoulders, one that she had never realised her Mother had had always borne. “I’ll never stop.”
Arisa nodded, filing away the answer for future reference. Nodding for a second time, the Green Lantern stood up straighter, putting on her best smile. “Hey, Kara, we’re friends right?”
The young woman in question blinked, genuinely startled. “Of course,” she responded, as though the answer were obvious, “I owe you my life, I would be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
“Great,” Arisa continued smiling, despite her sudden, nervous disposition, “because in a few minutes I’m really going to need you to forgive me.”
Kara furrowed her brow further in obvious confusion.
“I haven’t been entirely honest with you...”
**********
When Kara arrived, it was to silence.
Terra, the third world of a distant sun, alone against backdrop of an endless void, utterly unremarkable, prone to extinction. Were it not for a happenstance of chance, she never would have heard of it.
Earth.
The sun would soon be setting, the horizon bathing the field of corn in the warmest of glows, Kara passing through the field at a slow pace. She hesitated, her future uncertain as she gazed upon the primitive homestead settled in the near distance, a family at play as a dog barked close by, a call ringing out for wayward children to return inside.
Kara stopped, finding herself rooted in place, her heart beating faster than she could control, the risk of disappointment almost more than she could bare. She swallowed, daring to consider that she could just leave, hating herself for it...
“Kara?”
She froze, the only witness to the fall of Krypton unwilling, unable to turn around.
“Kara?” the voice repeated, strong, full, resonating with a profound sense of warmth. “Am I saying it right?”
Finally she turned about, her knees threatening to give way, the man before her the image of her Uncle, the infant that she had cradled grown into an adult. He was everything she could have ever hoped.
“Kal?” she barely stammered, her eyes blinded by her tears, months of grief on the verge of breaking out, “Kal?”
“It’s me Kara,” Kal-El of Krypton smiled, holding out his arms without a hint of reservation and she needed no further invitation. She ran forwards, almost throwing her slight frame into her Cousins comforting embrace, wrapping her own arms about him as if she were about to drown. She cried, loud and long and utterly without reservation, the nightmare that her world had become sliding away, at least for this one moment.
“It’s ok Kara,” Kal-El soothed, just as Kara had soothed her frightened, infant cousin during the dark hours of the night. “You’re home.”
She didn’t answer, Kara lost somewhere in the embrace, grasping onto a single truth.
Alone.
She wasn’t alone.
She never had been.
She was slow to open her eyes, her body filled with warmth, the light infusing her with hope. The room hummed with serenity, steadying her troubled heart, a tiny abode housing but a single bed, a veritable mansion compared to what she had become accustomed.
She was alone, the only occupant of the small room, curled up and still half slumbering, the smallest of relieved smiles daring to grace her features before she stretched, groaning as her muscles grew taunt. She relaxed with a relieved sigh before forcing herself to sit up straight, garbed in the simple robes of a supplicant, her quarters as spartan as an aspirants.
A deep inhale was to follow, Kara holding it as she closed her eyes once more, savouring her sanctuary and appreciating its worth. She could stay here forever, within this one moment, and never have to concern herself with change again, lost between the cracks of an unkind universe.
Would it be so bad to live forever as merely content?
Was that too much to ask?
There was a chime at her door, low and comforting, urgent and yet not invasive, Kara opening her eyes as the query passed, reality catching up to her at last, the cosmos demanding she move on. She sighed, standing to her full height as she approached the door, swiping her palm over a small light and allowing the threshold to slide open.
Her mood brightened almost immediately, Arisa standing opposite her, the wellspring of the elfin young woman’s joy refilled to full upon her return home, the Green Lantern restored in both body and soul. Kara was almost forced to perform a double take, her companion of these last few months once again attired as she was born to be, in the strong emeralds of her calling and all but glowing from head to toe.
“Well,” Arisa grinned back, “you sure do like to sleep, thought I was going to have to toss you out of bed.”
Kara blinked, uncertain of her meaning.
“You’ve been snoozing for two days,” her friend confirmed, linking her arm with Kara’s before the Kryptonian could protest and pulling her from the small room. “I am now certain that you are a cat.”
“Two days?” the young girl mumbled in disbelief, “I couldn’t have...”
“And yet,” Arisa cut her off, not missing a beat as she led the way down the corridor, “you did, an impressive feat by all accounts. We can add it to your growing list.”
Kara didn’t reply, unable to find the words as effortlessly as her companion, astonished by how quickly she had recovered. It was as though the Lantern had never been imprisoned at all, her spirit as indomitable as the sun.
“Come on,” Arisa urged, her enthusiasm infectious, “I have to show you something cool.”
**********
It was said that Oa sat at the centre of the Cosmos, and Kara was inclined to believe it, guided through its gilded towers by her companion and in awe of its majesty. It was a city built from light, or so it seemed, every structure radiating purpose and its citizens, the Green Lantern Corps, filled it with industrious life. Upon this soil was raised a lynchpin of the Universe, and never had Kara seen such unparalleled drive within a population.
Arisa took the wonders about them in her stride, as only a native of any given culture could do, and she filled the silence left by Kara with her own chatter, more than willing to explain every detail. Every structure had a story, and more than once the Kryptonian was forced to question whether or not the elfin Lantern was making any of it up.
She chose to believe her at face value, it would be rude not to, and she was a grateful guest.
Shortly after the Mountain had been liberated, the slaves seizing control and declaring a state of freedom, Arisa had made true on her own promise. Finally reunited with her ring, the Lantern had called upon her compatriots and the Corps had arrived in force, a sea of emerald descending upon the despot’s world and solidifying their victory, lending aid where it was needed.
Many of the former slaves, now refugees, had returned home, finding families who had long thought them lost. Others had chosen to stay, claiming the Mountain for their own and founding a new settlement, one under the stewardship of the Corps. Kara had found her way here.
She had no-where else to go.
Given the circumstances, the Corps had been more than willing to provide sanctuary, although the Kryptonian was uncertain if the decree had been handed down from the Guardians or the Guard, and she was thankful for their hospitality. Never the less, the question remained.
Where to go from here?
“Kara?”
She looked up, feeling suddenly foolish, realising that her thoughts had been drifting. She looked about to re-establish her surroundings and found herself inside, the great hall some manner of museum.
“Sorry,” Kara muttered her cheeks tinting before she could regain her composure, “I was...”
“Drifting,” Arisa chuckled at her expense, “I noticed. Fortunately I am the forgiving sort, and you can make it up to me later. For now,” the Lantern swept out her free arm, “anything strike you as familiar.”
Kara looked again, uncertain as to her meaning, before the heritage of the heirlooms around her became blatantly apparent. They were all Kryptonian. She was speechless, unable to form words even if she wanted, the handful of remnants from her extinct culture as precious to her as the stars themselves. Somehow they had survived the death of her species, fleeting fragments scattered across the cosmos, echoes of a dead race, a remembrance that they had ever existed at all.
“We save what we can, when we can,” Arisa explained, still guiding her friend through the chamber, “not just people. Some of it turns up in the damndest places, this one however,” she explained, coming to a stop before a man sized cabinet, “was already here.”
Kara covered her mouth, her heart threatening to beat right out of her chest as her eyes fell upon the glass case. There within, pristinely preserved, lay presented the attire of her people, the reds, blues and yellow accents of her families colours vibrantly bringing the outfit to life and, at its centre, sat embezzled a Shield embossed with her House’s mantra.
She knew her family’s history, and she could scarcely believe that it had found her now.
“This,” Kara finally spoke, her reflection staring back at her from across the generations, “this was my Grandmothers.”
“Actually,” Arisa spoke up, her tone mischievous as she looked about, “between you and me, I’d say this is yours...”
**********
By every official record, Vartox had not died during the rebellion, but a man did not live the life that he had without knowing better. His rule toppled, his power stripped, his freedom snatched away, the man that once was the Lord of the Mountain sat alone within a tiny cell, his confinement as complete as it could ever be. He had become an afterthought in the bureaucracy of the Universe, a tally in someone else’s ledger.
He was already dead.
Vartox sat in silence, his mood toxic, arms folded across his lap with his head bowed. Anger simmered beneath the surface, impotent rage forcing the muscles of his shoulders to twitch and spasm, his temperament spiralling towards self destruction. He would wring the necks of every Lantern on Oa, if he could but escape this one, tiny cell.
He had become irrelevant.
He was already dead.
Vartox looked up as the doors slid open, a violent tick contorting his right eye and, as he looked upon his visitor, it was all he could do to not voice his rage. There before him stood the Kryptonian, reborn from the fires of her forging, attired in the vibrant blues and bold reds of her people, a cloak of crimson sat imperiously across her shoulders as if she were born to royalty. Stunning, majestic, as radiant as the sun...
Kara Zor-El of Krypton.
Infuriatingly perfect.
“Well,” he finally formed words, his lips curling with distaste, “aren’t we the pretty, little Princess.”
It was intended as an insult, and yet Kara’s steady stare betrayed no irritation, exasperating Vartox’s own.
“Do you think you’re won?” he continued, refusing to be cowed, “do you think this is over? Do you even understand what the Mountain was? You cost people money, powerful people, people who own this Universe! They’ll come for you, all of you, and when they do,” he paused, fingers clenching into fists, “they’ll take back what’s owed.”
Kara remained silent, unmoved and undaunted.
“Is that it!?!” Vartox stood up sharply, infuriated by her indifference, the sheer lack of regard that he was being held in. Not even the sour dignity of contempt. “Say something, damn you! SAY SOMETHING!!”
Nothing.
Not even a narrowing of her gaze.
For a moment, Kara Zor-El opened her mouth to speak and then, as the moment lingered, she chose to say nothing at all, instead turning on the spot with a flourish and leaving the ‘Lord’ of the Mountain behind her.
There was nothing left to be said, his part in her life was over.
Vartox was already dead.
**********
“Daaaaaaaaaamn,” Arisa exclaimed in admiration as Kara exited the cell block, a grin plastered across her features. “You just didn’t want to leave him with any dignity at all, did you?”
Her companion resisted the urge to blush even as she exhaled deeply, feeling as though a weight were being lifted from her shoulders. “I’m just glad I’m done with him,” she confessed, “its over; I never want to see that man again.”
“No problem there, of that I can assure you,” Arisa asserted with unshakable conviction, “if nothing else, paper work will keep him buried for the rest of time. Do you know how many crimes he committed? Salaak’s going to have a field day.”
Kara nodded, perhaps not feeling quite as imperious as she now appeared.
“He was right about one thing though,” Arisa linked her arm with Kara’s, leaving the undesirables of the Universe in the rear view mirror, “you look amazing.”
The Kryptonian wasn’t so convinced, still fidgeting with the waistband, “Are you sure it fits?”
“Believe me,” Arisa answered coyly, “its fits.”
For long minutes the two walked in silence, each comfortable in the others company after so many months of forced confinement, and it was with a more sombre mood that the Green Lantern broke it, the two of them reaching a balcony.
“You could have killed him,” Arisa stated, it was not a question. “There isn’t a soul on that whole planet who would have testified against you.”
Kara nodded, knowing it was true.
“I couldn’t have stopped you.”
Kara was polite enough to not agree.
“Why didn’t you?” Arisa queried, leaning forwards across the railing. “Why didn’t you kill him?”
The blonde didn’t answer immediately, the breeze capturing her cloak with a small ripple, her posture momentarily as ram rod straight as her mothers.
“Because it hurts,” Kara confessed, her eyes only for the dawn. “And it always will.”
Arisa looked to her friend with a furrowed brow, not entirely understanding.
“If I start,” the Kryptonian sighed, reminded of an all new weight pressed down upon her shoulders, one that she had never realised her Mother had had always borne. “I’ll never stop.”
Arisa nodded, filing away the answer for future reference. Nodding for a second time, the Green Lantern stood up straighter, putting on her best smile. “Hey, Kara, we’re friends right?”
The young woman in question blinked, genuinely startled. “Of course,” she responded, as though the answer were obvious, “I owe you my life, I would be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
“Great,” Arisa continued smiling, despite her sudden, nervous disposition, “because in a few minutes I’m really going to need you to forgive me.”
Kara furrowed her brow further in obvious confusion.
“I haven’t been entirely honest with you...”
**********
When Kara arrived, it was to silence.
Terra, the third world of a distant sun, alone against backdrop of an endless void, utterly unremarkable, prone to extinction. Were it not for a happenstance of chance, she never would have heard of it.
Earth.
The sun would soon be setting, the horizon bathing the field of corn in the warmest of glows, Kara passing through the field at a slow pace. She hesitated, her future uncertain as she gazed upon the primitive homestead settled in the near distance, a family at play as a dog barked close by, a call ringing out for wayward children to return inside.
Kara stopped, finding herself rooted in place, her heart beating faster than she could control, the risk of disappointment almost more than she could bare. She swallowed, daring to consider that she could just leave, hating herself for it...
“Kara?”
She froze, the only witness to the fall of Krypton unwilling, unable to turn around.
“Kara?” the voice repeated, strong, full, resonating with a profound sense of warmth. “Am I saying it right?”
Finally she turned about, her knees threatening to give way, the man before her the image of her Uncle, the infant that she had cradled grown into an adult. He was everything she could have ever hoped.
“Kal?” she barely stammered, her eyes blinded by her tears, months of grief on the verge of breaking out, “Kal?”
“It’s me Kara,” Kal-El of Krypton smiled, holding out his arms without a hint of reservation and she needed no further invitation. She ran forwards, almost throwing her slight frame into her Cousins comforting embrace, wrapping her own arms about him as if she were about to drown. She cried, loud and long and utterly without reservation, the nightmare that her world had become sliding away, at least for this one moment.
“It’s ok Kara,” Kal-El soothed, just as Kara had soothed her frightened, infant cousin during the dark hours of the night. “You’re home.”
She didn’t answer, Kara lost somewhere in the embrace, grasping onto a single truth.
Alone.
She wasn’t alone.
She never had been.