Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Peace and Firelight
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The hum of a tractor blended with the buzz of cicadas as Clark Kent steered the rust-red machine across the back field of his parents’ farm. He didn’t need it—truth be told, he could’ve cleared the entire crop with a few lazy loops in the sky and a controlled burst of super-breath—but it wasn’t about speed.
It was about rhythm. Familiarity. Earth.
The sun dipped lower behind the treeline, casting golden light across the fields. His blue flannel shirt—one of Pa's, worn soft with time—smelled faintly of hay and something warm he couldn’t quite name.
He parked the tractor and hopped down, boots kicking up dry dust as he stretched. Out in the distance, a weathered figure waved from the porch.
“Done pretending to be a farmer?” Jonathan Kent called out with a grin as Clark jogged back toward the house.
“Some of us like to earn our sunburns, Pa.”
Jonathan chuckled and held out a beer. Clark accepted it, knowing full well he wouldn’t feel the effects but appreciating the gesture, storing this moment with his Dad in his mind.
“Lois check in yet?” Jonathan asked after few sips.
“She’s in Geneva, tracking a trade summit for the Planet." Clark smiled faintly. “But we’re doing the whole video-call-goodnight thing."
Martha stepped onto the porch with a tray of peach cobbler and spoons for her son and husband.
Clark’s chest warmed in a way no solar energy ever could. He sat on the porch swing, sinking into its familiar creak, and took a bite of the cobbler. It was still too hot, and still perfect.
It has been one year since Lex Luthor tried to smear Superman's reputation and the conflict between Jarhanpur and Boravia. There were lingering debates of metahumans, but there was no denying Superman's growing popularity and the public's steadfast adoration.
For the week, Clark made a deal with Perry White to “work remotely”—sending in drafts from the farm, Zooming in for meetings when needed, and leaving Superman duties on call only for major disasters. The world hadn’t ended in the last three days, and Clark had faith in the Justice Gang to handle any crises Metropolis Police Department couldn't. He was beginning to think he might get through the week without hearing a missile launch or an interdimensional rift. A nice break and get back to his roots.
He should’ve known better.
The moment came just after sundown.
It started as a shimmer in the sky—brief, violet, and unnaturally fast. At first Clark thought it might be a meteor. Then it corrected its trajectory. He stood slowly, the peach cobbler forgotten.
Jonathan noticed the shift in his son’s expression and rose too. “What is it?”
Clark’s eyes narrowed, scanning the upper atmosphere with a quick flicker of heat vision and x-ray. “Something’s coming in too hot. Not debris. A ship. Small.”
A shrill whine split the air as something tore through the clouds, trailing smoke and plasma. It was headed straight for the east field—too fast, too unstable. Clark was gone in a blur before his father could say a word. The crash lit up the sky like a second sunset, and Jonathan held a hand up to shield his eyes.
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When Clark reached the crater, the grass had already caught fire. Flames danced in a rough ring around the impact site, but he contained them with a focused gust of breath.
At the center of the blast, embedded halfway in the earth, was a small, fractured escape pod—burned silver, its markings alien and scarred. The door groaned open. Smoke hissed out.
Clark hovered forward, cautious. “Hello?”
No answer. Then—movement.
A figure spilled from the hatch, coughing and gasping. Not a machine. A person.
A girl.
She looked maybe seventeen, tall and wiry, with bronze-toned skin that shimmered faintly under the moonlight. Her hair was wild and bright—bright auburn with streaks of gold that looked almost alive. Her armor was scorched and torn, revealing glowing orange lines that pulsed faintly beneath her skin, like molten veins.
Her eyes met his.
They were green. Not just green—luminous, bioluminescent, blazing like twin emerald stars. She opened her mouth, and a string of words tumbled out—harsh, fluid, completely foreign. Clark considered his Fortress, if it contained an intergalactic translator for times like this.
She took a shaky step toward him. Then stumbled. Her hands braced against the dirt, glowing brighter. Her whole body trembled.
“Hey,” Clark said, gently. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
She looked at him again, face twisting in panic, and suddenly the glow intensified. Her body lit like a flare. Solar energy burst from her skin in wild pulses—uncontrolled, pure heat. The ground beneath her scorched black. Without thinking, Clark stepped forward and absorbed the brunt of the blast.
It hurt—not the heat, but the rawness of it, like trying to catch a newborn sun. He gritted his teeth and reached for her, placing a hand over her shoulder.
Her eyes widened. The glow faltered. She inhaled sharply. Then the fire faded, and she collapsed into his arms.
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Clark flew back to the porch with the unconscious girl in his arms. Martha came out the front door moments later, a worn blanket in her arms and concern in her eyes. He thanked his Mom as she draped the blanket along the girls length, tucking it under the girl's chin. Jonathan linged at the door, fire extinguisher in hand just in case.
Clark moved into the house and gently laid the girl on their couch. She whimpered and Martha instinctly reached out.
“Who is she?” Martha asked, brushing soot from the girl’s cheek. The skin beneath it was bruised, but steady.
“I don’t know, Ma" Clark murmured. “But seems she came a long way. And she’s not here by accident.”
The girl stirred again, murmuring something unintelligible. Her fingers curled weakly into the blanket.
Martha tucked it tighter around her, voice soft. “Poor thing looks half-starved. And scared to death.”
Jonathan exhaled slowly. “Well. She picked a good farm to crash into.”
Clark looked down at her—an alien, a stranger, no doubt powerful but wounded. Something in her posture—how tightly she held that blanket, how her shoulders trembled—hit him with a pang he hadn’t exexpected.
She reminded him of himself.
“I’ll keep watch tonight,” he said.
Martha handed him a thermos of coffee. “She’s yours now, honey. You know that, right?”
He nodded, just once, and without hesitation. “Yeah. I do.”
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The smell of something sweet stirred Koriand’r from unconsciousness. Her body ached—deep in her muscles, where Citadel restraints had once burned, and in her chest, where memory lived raw and bruised.
She blinked awake slowly, lashes parting to reveal an unfamiliar ceiling: white, some paint chipped away, and shimmering shadows of leaves against the morning sunlight. There were birds cooing outside. And not far away, the scent of warm bread.
Not a prison.
Not a cell.
She bolted upright.
Pain lanced through her side. Her hands glowed instinctively, a flicker of green energy building in her palms—but before she could react, a deep, calm voice carried from the other room.
“It’s okay. You’re safe.”
The man from the crash stood in the doorway. Tall, broad-shouldered, kind, blue eyes. Still in his flannel, a thermos in one hand and a pair of reading glasses hanging from his shirt pocket.
“You’re on a farm,” he added. “In Kansas. With people who want to help.”
Koriand'r eyes narrowed. She spoke, cautious, in her native Tamaranean. “Where... is this? Who are you?”
Clark tilted his head and exhaled softly, stepped closer. “I’m Clark Kent. This is my family’s farm.” He gestured gently behind him. “My mother’s making pancakes. If you’re hungry.”
She stared blankly. No translator. Of course. The pod had shorted out in the crash.
He crouched next to her, careful not to make sudden moves. “Can you understand me?”
Her eyes flicked down to his wrist. She reached out slowly and touched his hand.
It took less than two seconds.
Her fingers shimmered with pale orange light as the language-absorption bond kicked in. Clark felt the tiniest zap of energy pass through his skin—like static electricity, if it carried intent. She gasped. The words rearranged in her brain. Earth’s tongue unfurled itself across her thoughts.
“Clark Kent,” she repeated softly, her voice raspy. “Your name... I know it now.”
He smiled. “That’s a neat trick.”
“Not a trick,” she said as she sat up, still guarded. “Survival. I had to learn many tongues where I was taken.”
Clark’s expression sobered. He motioned to the couch and sat beside her, letting silence bridge the moment.
Koriand'r stared out the window for a long time. Then: “I am Koriand’r. Of Tamaran. But I do not know if it still lives.”
Clark nodded in understanding and pursed his lips, “What happened?”
She hesitated. And then, slowly, haltingly:
“I was a princess once. There was peace. Then... my sister betrayed our people to the Citadel. They took me. Used me.” Her voice caught. “I was trained. Made into something bright and terrible. A living weapon.”
Clark didn’t press her. He just listened.
“I was under the Gordanian's watch. I escaped." she continued, playing with a snag of the blanket. “There were stories. In the camps. Of a protector—not just a warrior. Someone who flies, who glows like a yellow sun. Who makes tyrants retreat just by looking at them. The Citadel fears him. He lives on Earth. Kal-El.”
She turned toward him now, eyes wide.
“Superman.”
Clark blinked. “…Yeah. That’s me.”
He could see in his mind's eye of Lois shaking her head, "always so trustworthy!" she'd say.
Koriand'r stared at him, mouth open slightly, and a blush blooming along her cheeks, “You are...not how I imagined.”
He grinned. “You’re not the first person to say that.”
She surprised herself by laughing. It was short and sharp—like someone remembering how to smile after forgetting for years. It faded fast, but the warmth lingered.
Clark stood, offering a hand. “Come on. You’re safe now. You’re not alone.”
She looked at his hand. Then, after a heartbeat, took it.
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“You don’t eat the shells, Kory,” Martha said gently, sliding the bowl of peanuts away, slipping the girl's nickname in with warmth and mirth.
Kory frowned, cheeks puffed slightly with a mouthful of crushed shells. “But the crunch is the best part, Martha mother”
Jonathan chuckled behind his paper. “She’s got your stubborn streak, hon.”
“I do not know what that means,” Kory muttered, brushing peanut dust from her lap.
She had taken a shine to one of Clark’s old high-school pullovers, tied at the waist over black leggings Martha had picked up in town. It didn’t match, but neither did she, and no one seemed to mind.
In the last two days, she’d learned faster than Clark could’ve imagined. She still spoke with a formal edge—Tamaranean court inflection curling her sentences—but she was curious about everything. Birds, tractors, dish soap. Martha turned on the TV, and Koriand'r was enamored, getting mist-eyed when The Notebook rerun played, asked if lightning bugs were Earth-born, and nearly vaporized the microwave when it beeped without warning.
While Clark spent half his time proofreading drafts and logging into short Zoom meetings with Perry and the team as promised, Kory insisted on helping with Earth chores.
She swept the porch unasked, repaired a leaky trough, and tilled half the back garden in a blur of enthusiasm. At one point, she tried to “massage” the cow to improve milk yield, prompting a horrified but gentle intervention from Martha. She helped Jonathan organize the shed, even though she’d never seen a hammer. And each time Martha offered a new food, she gave it her full, dramatic review.
“These ‘nuggets of chicken’ are small but valiant,” she’d said over dinner with an approving nod.
Clark spent the other half of his time with her, floating above the fields or walking the fenceline as she peppered him with questions.
“Why do you keep your eyes hidden with those spectacles?”
"What is this "working from home" that you do? How do you earn without the presence of your superior?"
“Do all Earth children go to ‘high school’? Is it a military ranking?”
“Do you truly trust this Batman creature, or is it more of a tolerated alliance?”
He’d tried to answer them all, patient and amused.
And she—this girl forged in fire—was beginning to smile more. Even laugh. Not always. Not yet. But sometimes, when she thought no one was looking.
Clark noticed it most when she sat with Martha, watching the sunset, eyes flickering bright green in the fading light. He sat beside her during her second evening post-crash as they looked out over the fields.
“You doing okay?” he asked softly.
Kory nodded. “This place is quiet. But not empty. It is…” She hesitated, grasping for the right word. “Gentle.”
Clark let out a breath, watching the sky tint orange. “Yeah. That’s what it’s always been for me too.”
She turned to look at him. “You... were the first to not fear me.”
He looked back. “Because I saw someone scared and hurting. Not dangerous.”
She tilted her head. “Most would see fire and think ‘burn.’ You saw it and said, ‘I can help.’ Truly, the stories of you do not lie.”
Clark ducked at the compliment. “That’s what family do.”
Her eyes widened a little. “Family?” The word felt forgein on her tongue.
He nodded with a smile. “You fell into our field. That’s about as close to adoption as it gets around here.”
Kory smiled back, full and unguarded, despite the deep, raw ache throbbing in her chest.
And they sat together in the golden hush of dusk—sunlight fading behind them, peace settling in the spaces between words.
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The next day, the familiar crunch of tires on gravel stirred Clark from where he was splitting fence rails behind the barn. He set the post down and wiped his hands on a rag just as the red pick-up truck rolled to a stop beside the porch.
Before she even opened the door, he heard her heartbeat—steady, grounded, and unmistakably Lois Lane.
She stepped out in flats and a travel-wrinkled blazer, her hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun. But the second her eyes found him across the yard, her expression softened immensely. She crossed the grass with that same half-grin she always gave him after too many days apart.
“You couldn’t even wait until we both got home to tell me about a teenage alien refugee crashing in your parent's cornfield?” she teased.
Clark chuckled, folding her into a hug. “I know, I know. You were in Geneva covering the trade summit. Didn’t seem polite to interrupt, but it didn't seem right to lie when you asked if anything's new.”
“Uh-huh” She got in her tip-toes and he bent to meet her halfway, sharing a kiss. “You owe me an exposé and a pie. ”
“I can deliver on the pie,” Martha called from the porch, drying her hands on her apron.
Lois grinned at the older woman. “Hi Ma, how are you?"
“Oh, Lois, always good to see you.” Martha said, beaming. "I'm sure Clark's told you about our guest."
Jonathan appeared a moment later with a rake slung over his shoulder. “We’ve got her bunked in the loft until we figure out next steps. She's polite, curious, eats like a linebacker, and vaporized the toaster yesterday.”
“I replaced it,” Clark added sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
Lois blinked. “Well. I see I missed the fun part.”
Just then, a young, jovial voice echoed from the field. “Clark! Jonathan Father! Come quickly! The eggs are attempting rebellion!”
All four turned slowly.
There, kneeling beside a wooden chicken coop, was Koriand’r, holding a visibly offended rooster by the wings and squinting at it with royal suspicion. She wore overalls now—loaned from Martha—with one strap always undone and a red bandana around her wrist like a sash of honor. Her bright auburn hair was tied back in a messy braid, and her face was smeared with dirt and determination.
“She named that one General Peck,” Clark murmured beside Lois with a chuckle. “They have a truce.”
Kory spotted them and immediately closed in on herself upon seeing a stranger. Clark spotted her nervousness and motioned her to come, the rooster long forgotten.
"Lois, meet Koriand'r of Tamaran, Kory for short." Clark motioned as the teenager approached, "Kory meet Lois Lane. She's the world's finest journalist."
Lois rolled her eyes, mirth in her voice as she glanced up at her boyfriend, "I'll remember that, Smallville." She then turned her attention, "Hi Kory, it's nice to meet you."
“Ah, yes. Lois Lane. I have heard your voice through Clark’s glowing device. I am pleased to meet you. He holds you to high regards.” Kory greeted with a practiced smile. Clark squeezed her shoulder in reassurance, and jogged away when Jonathan called out, asking about the fence rails.
Lois blinked at the politeness she was met with. Feeling awkwardness creeping with Clark's absence, Kory excused herself to move remaining hay bales as if they weighed no more than a teacup.
“She’s...strong," Lois said more to herself, her mouth slightly open in awe.
“In every sense of the word,” Martha said with fondness behind her.
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“Seems she tries so hard,” Lois murmured as she watched Kory handle another traditionally physically demanding chore without breaking a sweat.
“Every time she messes something up, she apologizes like she expects punishment.”
Clark leaned on the railing beside her. “Yeah. She’s always looking over her shoulder—like she still thinks someone’s going to drag her back.”
“She was someone’s weapon,” she said quietly with disappointment,“Now she’s trying to be someone’s girl."
“She already is,” Clark said with conviction. “Ours.”
Lois reached for his hand, brushing her thumb along his. He always finds the beauty in everything and everyone.
In the distance, Kory offered the Kent’s scarecrow a solemn handshake, mimicking what she has seen on the television.
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The sun dipped low across the Kansas horizon, painting the sky in violet and gold.
The family—Martha, Jonathan, Lois, Clark, and Kory—sat on lawn chairs at the edge of the field, lemonade glasses in hand.
Clark ran a hand through his dark curls. What was supposed to be a pretty easy, relaxing week spent on the farm with his parents and sending drafts back to Perry back at the Planet thru email, turned into something so entirely different.
Out of this world, literally.
Kori watched the sunset with a quiet reverence. “This light…” she whispered. “It touches everything. Back home, we had a sun. But it did not set like this.”
Martha passed her a blanket. “Some things just feel better when they end gently.”
Kory blinked at that, the meaning sinking in. Then she smiled. “You are wise, Martha Mother.”
“Still not sure if I’m being complimented or knighted,” Martha muttered with a chuckle.
Clark nudged the teenager gently. “You’ve done good this week. You’ve made them proud.”
She looked down. “I made many errors. I frightened the cows. I burned the waffles. I stepped on Jonathan Father’s toolbox.”
“You also fixed our broken pump and taught my husband how to say ‘you smell like potatoes’ in Tamaranean,” Martha said, sipping her lemonade.
Jonathan grinned. “Vruna kek nar!”
Kory laughed—loud, bright, unguarded.
It was the first time her voice carried joy without hesitation. Then, as the sun kissed the horizon, she stood.
She walked a few steps out into the field, where the golden light poured over her like liquid fire. Her hair ignited, glowing like a comet’s tail. She looked up.
“Is it permitted?” she asked softly. “To fly?”
Clark looked at her, then to his parents. No one spoke, but everyone smiled.
“You don’t need permission to be free,” Lois said. “Just space.”
Kori breathed in deep and nodded. And then—she launched.
A streak of orange light soared into the sky, rising fast into the air with a whoop of delight. She spun once, then twice, as laughter echoed across the fields. Her body lit the sky like a second sunset, leaving a trail of fire and hope.
From below, Clark watched silently. A passing thought came and went in his mind - he and Lois are bound back to Metropolis come morning. Tomorrow's evening sunset will look different, with the looming skyscrapers adding a shimmer in the sky.
Jonathan's voice was soft beside him. “You’ve given her something, Clark.”
He shook his head. “We all did.”
Lois leaned into his side. “I think she’s just starting to believe she’s allowed to shine.”
Above them, Kory soared higher—arms outstretched, hair blazing, face lifted toward the stars she once fled from.
This was not escape.
This was arrival.
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TBC!