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Her cousin asks her to help with his second wedding.
He wants to do it the Kryptonian way, he says. His first wedding was between Clark Kent and Lois Lane, and it was a human wedding. He wants to do a Kryptonian wedding, now, he says, between Kal-El and Lois Lane. The last son of Krypton, and the daughter of Earth who’s claimed his heart.
“Because I, uh, had this talk with Lois. And we both thought it would be for the best. If I—if we could do this the Kryptonian way. Or with as much of the Kryptonian way as we can, here, on Earth. And I know that maybe you might not be the expert on this, and I know this is a lot to ask you—”
“I’d be happy to help,” she says, and that’s that.
It takes place in Smallville, by the farmhouse with the cows. It takes place at night. Because on Krypton, weddings would take place under the cover of night, from sunfall to sunrise. As Rao was bound by Kara to bring about the first of many nights, so must the union of two souls in love be observed during the sun’s slumber.
They meet on a flat patch of grass with the moon’s rays gazing upon them through the treeline. They’re donning the marriage robes of Krypton. Long sleeves and high collars, snowy-white at the cuffs and the neckline: woven from long winding ribbons, links of tiny scales of crimson and gold that billow in the breeze like smoke, like water, shimmering with otherworldly light. As if the wearer is cloaked in Rao’s fire.
They’re holding bracelets, each others’ bracelets. Ceremonial chains, hammered out in gold. To be exchanged. To link heart and soul in frozen flame.
As for Kara, she’s holding their son. He’s fallen half-asleep in her arms. She rocks him, whispers to him softly.
“Back on Krypton, our robes would be woven from dragonscale until some two centuries ago. When dragons were hunted to near-extinction, and so dragonscales were outlawed and a substitute was derived from zuurt wool.”
“Dra-gon,” her nephew murmurs.
“Khushom, we would call them in our native tongue. It’s said they were creatures risen from droplets of Rao’s blood. From the ancient times of chaos, iirgysh, before Krypton itself was born.”
“Kryp-ton?”
Kal and Lois, they start pacing toward each other.
“Once upon a time, there lived many gods in the heavens. But none dared show themselves: for Rao, the Red Sun, greatest of the gods, reigned supreme, and he burned to ash all that he touched. None of the gods dared defy him. None, save for Kara.”
“Ka-ra?”
“In some stories, she was the Goddess of Love. In others, she was the first mortal. Heroine of Light. I will subdue Rao, Kara proclaimed, and subdue him she did. Some say she brought him to his knees in a great battle that rent the fabric of the cosmos. Others, that she used trickery and witchcraft to bring him low. Others still, that she seduced him with love. Whatever happened, she succeeded in tempering the Sun God’s fury, and the other gods emerged from hiding, and together they brought about an era of long peace. From that peace, the world of Krypton and its people were born.”
They’ve stopped in front of one another: her cousin, and his lover. Their foreheads pressed to one another, their hands entwined; their hands moving gently, delicately, slipping the bracelets onto each other.
Kal is whispering in Kryptonian. The wedding vows, she catches over the wind. He’s been learning his native tongue. He stumbles only once over the words.
A kiss. A glint of nascent starfire.
“But that peace came at a cost. If ever the day comes, the old tales warn. If ever the day comes where the people of Krypton, children of Rao and Kara, forsake their mother’s teachings to be tempted by their father’s power—then Kara would lose her grip over Rao’s temper, and Rao would consume the planet whole.”
They’re spinning now. They’re spinning, spinning, spinning, hands in hands and on waists and feet weaving through the grass, a dance bathed in moonlight, burning bright, and they are both laughing, Kal and Lois, laughing like suns rising before the sunrise, and Kara smiles with them.
“So it is our duty, as Kryptonians, to cherish that first and most important teaching of Kara’s. To choose compassion over fury. To love, and to never forget.”