Chapter Text
Perilous Lands, 909 A.D.
„Quiet, I’m done listening to you. She’s done listening to you,” the man shakes in front of Morgana, the high priestess, and takes a step back.
“Yes, of course, your highness,” he mutters, forgetting he was supposed to be silent. There’s a shift in the air and he shivers.
The Goddess is here.
“Now, my love, it wouldn’t do any good to kill him,” the priestess lowers her voice, calming the powerful deity.
She flies just above the ground, her eyes glowing fiery red, despise written all over her face. Otherwordly, beautiful, dangerous.
“Humans. You are not worth our time.” Her is voice cold despite of the warmth that radiates from her body. She tilts her head and turns to her priestess: “Do you need this one for something?”
“He could turn to be useful, yes,” she rises from her throne, black dress slithering on the stone floor, fingers crawling to lift the his chin. Green eyes so light they seem white as the bones she wears as a necklace. Still beautiful as the witchcraft she can channel. The man can’t force himself to look away from them.
“Savages, all of them,” the Goddess remarks, hoovering behind her in a protective way.
“There was time you didn’t think that, my queen,” Morgana whispers without looking at her.
“There was time I didn’t know you,” the Goddess crosses her arms on her chest.
The priestess looks up to her now and smirks. “I appreciate the sentiment, love. Still, you know I might’ve exaggerated a tiny bit back then. You do remember I’m human?” her voice turns soft and caressing.
The Goddess turns her back and shuts her eyes for a brief moment, shoulders dense.
“I remember all too well,” her voice is hushed, barely there.
“Hey, that’s not what I meant, don’t go there,” Morgana takes a step, reaching out to her, desperate to catch her eyes.
That’s the moment the man chooses to attack, taking advantage of both of them being distracted with each other. A small dagger appears in his hand and without hesitation he runs it through Morgana’s back. There is a brief second in which the Goddess doesn’t realize what’s happened and still hasn’t turned around, but a sigh that escapes from the priestess’s lips sets her into action. Morgana is still breathing, as she falls on the floor, fingers twitching to try to catch something. The Goddess kneels beside her, stroking her face with her hands, leaving kisses to her restless fingers, mumbling words that don’t make any sense. The last life force leaves Morgana and then there is silence. The Goddess is still shaking her, but nothing happens. For all her powers, healing is not one of them. Then comes the scream.
The man, who had been lurking towards the exit, falls on the ground. The Goddess doesn’t even look at him, her eyes glowing in various colors, hands fisted, beating the stone floor with all her strenght, lungs just screaming and screaming. It doesn’t take long before the stones start to crack, the walls coming apart with it. The mountain shattering and leaving all but dust in its crater. A doom for the Goddess and her priestess.
*
Present day
Lena startles awake at her ringing phone. She squints her eyes, trying to see what time it is and 3.57 am does not mean well for the person on the other end of the line. She curses and accepts the call without looking who it is. “You better have a good excuse,” she says without really expecting one, people always seem to assume she’s available 24/7.
“Lena! Lena, we found it! Can you believe, after all these years, we found the location!” Jack’s hoarse and hyper voice carries through, not even trying to hide the excitement.
Lena’s heart skips a beat and she sits up, all of the sleepiness forgotten.
“You, you found it? Tell me it’s not a prank call at 4 am, Jack!” she can hear herself talk, thoughts already flying somewhere else.
“No! You know I wouldn’t… Listen, we’ve been so close the entire time, The Lost Temple of Zor-El, it’s right there, underneath the surface, bordering the ruins of the Cave of Nimueh and listen, Lena, it is cleared of all dangers of collapsing. It used to be a,”
“A closed off area, I know, that’s why we never got close enough to dig deeper and it’s such a small area that,”
“That we didn’t consider the temple even could be there. All the signs showed it should be at least five times bigger, but I’m sure this is it!”
“You have aerials?” Lena puts the phone on speaker and dresses hurriedly in her jeans and uni sweatshirt.
“Just sending them to you, with the exact coordinates. It was a local stratigraphy group, some of their finds crossed with our preliminary ones and the reference sent our alarm blaring,”
Lena opens her laptop, “and you’re saying we’re allowed to go there now?”
“Yes!”
The excitement they both feel bubbles through the speech, interrupting each other and talking over. It’s been close to seven years since they started to look for the temple, actually believing it was real. They had always been fascinated by the mythological lost worlds like Avalon and Krypton and Atlantis, that’s what brought them together as friends when they were just kids trying to survive their families. But they never thought it could be real, not until that find seven years ago.
A woven carpet of supposedly a goddess and a priestess, the colors faded, except for the red S symbolizing the deity and the green of priestess’s eyes. It wasn’t a rare picture, there had been similar findings. Usually the goddess was pictured with horns on her head, sometimes with a bolt of lightning, but on this one she had wings instead. Not the only winged picture of Zor-El, there were two others. The wings here were made out of words though.
It wasn’t clear since the strands of the carpet were not entirely undamaged, but on the further examination Lena was able to determine the shapes as symbols or runes and words. Words that no one was able to translate or even understand what language they were in. Perhaps Zor-El had been real and had come from a place hidden from the outside world? After all, the area had once been called Perilous Lands suggesting people didn’t dare to set their foot there. It still belonged more to a fantasy book than acceptable science theories (even the popular science magazines refused to publish the idea), but it gave new energy for both Jack and Lena to truly devote to finding the lost temple and perhaps find the true origins of this particular deity from there.
And now, there is a chance to find some of the answers!