Chapter Text
It is a sacred house that I have come to,
It is a sacred house that I have come to, Holaghei.
Now I have come to the House of the Earth.
--Navajo song
A raucous scream broke the hushed silence of the garden. Smiling, Kal broke off another piece of bread and threw it to the peacock, who gobbled it down greedily then fanned its tailfeathers in a display of braggadocio. It stretched its clipped wings as if it somehow had the ability to sail over the walls of the garden to freedom, then subsided to peck at the ground.
Kal-El, heir of the House of El, sat on the edge of a white marble fountain in the middle of the paradisical garden of the El plantation, filled with exotic flowers and graceful trees. Peacocks strutted along the white-pebbled paths, their iridescent feathers gleaming in the sunlight. Kal smoothed his midnight-blue robes and contemplated the symmetrical perfection of his aunt's garden.
The El plantation had been founded twenty-two years ago, when the Kryptonian race, fleeing the imminent destruction of their planet, had created the wormhole in space that allowed them to come to Earth. They had fled here as refugees and found the planet beautiful, the sun a benison. Its light gave them powers beyond imagining. And it turned the crimson iao-flower, a humble herb on Krypton, into a drug that could add decades to the Kryptonian lifespan.
Under the benevolent yellow rays, they had leveled Earth's cities to dust and summoned from the ruins the vast and fruitful Plantations, binding the humans to them in a mutually beneficial arrangement that would, over time, raise the human's level of civilization to something resembling Kryptonian.
Kal had just been a baby when they came to the El plantation. He had never seen the grimy, filthy city that had been destroyed to make way for the plains and gardens of his family's plantation.
He wondered, sometimes, what Gotham had looked like.
The peacock screamed again, glaring at him. Kal tossed it another bit of bread. As a child, he had been irrationally afraid of the peacocks in his aunt's garden, despite Lady Allura's assurances that they could never hurt her beloved nephew. Their sheer and simple spite, their avian malice, had overwhelmed him and reduced him to tears. But he hadn't been in this garden for almost twelve years now. He had received the education due a prince of the lost planet of Krypton, training at the finest schools and universities in the galaxy. His family had come to visit him at times--he remembered with chagrin Zor-El telling him to stop blubbering the first time they had come to visit on Darro IV, Aunt Allura's faraway smile, Kara's ready sympathy. But he had never returned to Earth until yesterday.
He had dreamed of it sometimes, of its endless azure skies and rolling fields, but he told no one. Kryptonians were supposed to miss Krypton, not Earth.
A motion at the edge of his vision caught his attention, and he looked up to see Kara Zor-El enter the garden, floating the requisite three inches above the ground, her long robes fluttering behind her. Behind her walked a man in light silken clothes, their bright blue-green vivid against the white stone of the pathways. That his feet stirred the pebbles was proof enough that he was human, even before Kal saw the shining silver chain between him and Kara. "A good day to you, cousin," called Kal in Kryptonian.
Kara turned and smiled at Kal. "A good day to you as well, cousin," she responded as Kal rose to greet her, careful to keep his feet from touching the ground. He bowed to Kara, the proper depth and duration for an older relative. Kara was one of the most promising young Senators on the Council and Kal felt a bit overwhelmed around her. In his childhood, their relationship had been warm and close. When Jor-El and Lara had perished in the cataclysm of Krypton, Zor-El had taken Kal to raise, but had never tried to replace his parents. Kara had been almost like a mother to him, letting him bob around the compound after her, coaching him in how to truly fly and control his powers as they had developed under the yellow sun. When he had been sent away for schooling, he had missed her terribly, writing her almost every day. At first her letters had been warm and chatty, but in the last few years her correspondence had become more distant, cooler, and it pained him. He hoped that returning to Earth, having more time to spend with her, might re-establish their old bond.
Kara shook the chain and it jangled sweetly, a silver sound that blended with the splashing of the fountain. "Do you like my new acquisition? I decided it was time to admit that my Senatorial duties will occupy me too much for romance for a while and get myself a companion to keep my bed warm." Kara had been eligible to own personal slaves for years, but had never had one until today. Kal realized with something of a shock that since he had just turned twenty-two, he could now own personal slaves as well.
The man stood with his head bowed, hands properly folded in front of him. He had no definite way of knowing they were speaking about him, of course--the human brain simply wasn't complex enough to understand Kryptonian. He didn't look up as Kal took in his athletic form, his dark, shaggy hair. "He's quite pretty, cousin," said Kal after a moment. "I'm glad you'll have a diversion for your nights. You work far too hard." Kara's purchase kept his hands folded, his eyes cast down. "He seems like a docile enough plaything," Kal said with a smile.
At that, for just a moment, the collared man lifted his head to reveal a sudden flash of azure eyes, looking straight at Kal for the briefest instant. Then Kara was tugging at the chain and leading her new companion away. "I shall see you at dinner, Kal," she called back over her shoulder.
Kal murmured some kind of response, but was fairly sure it hadn't carried to her. He felt distinctly nonplussed all of a sudden, thrown off-balance by that brief gleam of sapphire. The new slave's glance had been opaque and unreadable, and yet...
The peacock screamed, breaking into his thoughts and scattering them. He went back to the fountain and threw the last piece of bread to it, dabbling his fingers in the clear water to cleanse them. The peacock spread its tailfeathers and shrieked again, beating at the air with its useless wings. "All out," Kal said apologetically, and the bird twisted its neck and glared balefully at him, stalking toward him as if to attack him. Kal laughed and moved toward the dining hall, ignoring the bird's vain threats.
After all, nothing born of Earth could ever harm a Kryptonian.