2013.06.10 - Blondes Of A Feather

Central park in the late evening was moving from the safe part of the day rapidly towards the dangerous. Last-minute joggers, dog-walkers, strollers, and food-cart vendors could be found still, but not in the abundance they were during the peak lunch and afternoon hours. Once the sun finished setting, almost everyone would be gone, in order to avoid the crime that plagued the park at night. A young, teenaged girl here alone could find a lot of trouble.

But a young, teenaged KRYPTONIAN girl could also handle a LOT of trouble.

Kara Zor-El, Last Daughter of Krypton, just happened to be such a kryptonian lass. She was wearing a light-blue, thin, long-sleeved pull-over that clung to her torso and a pair of hip-hugging skinny jeans. She currently crunches a bit of gravel on the path under her sneakers, her arms folded tightly across her middle, under her chest, looking at a mother coralling a group of kids away from feeding pigeons by the pond to get ready to depart. The sun was baking the blue water a bright, blinding orange as the rays bounced off and lit everything from the trees to the park benches.

She was a lot more at ease than she had been the last two times she'd run into her other-dimensional alter-ego. She'd held onto the blonde's number for days on end, agonizing over whether to call on the promise to 'talk'. What were they supposed to talk about? Who knew! But she'd eventually pulled out her phone, dialed, and asked the other woman to meet her here in Central Park. She wanted, NEEDED to understand this other woman, this other 'her'. If for no other reason than they were two of the last of their kind, aside from a cloned boy who lived with the Kents, and her, or kind of /their/ cousin.

Kara Kent, as she had yet to think of a better name for herself, watches the herd of children shoo'd away as she bites her lip and wipes away some hair getting toussled by the wind. More than that, she kind of needed some advice hopefully an older, supposedly wiser, and hopefully more assured alternate-future version of herself might be able to give!

Karen Starr has made a late trip to Central Park, as she agreed to upon receiving a call from 'Kara Kent'. Work is done for the day, even if she'd normally be finding some extracurricular 'work' to do as a certain super heroine on most evenings, so it's not like she has anywhere to be. So, after swinging by her apartment to feed her Cat, whom she has yet to actually name, though she's leaning towards 'Stinky', she has taken a taxi to the park in a dark-blue dress-suit (or is it suit-dress?) with paler-blue around the the edges. Underneath is a red blouse with a very low neckline. About her throat is a lavendar, segmented necklace of some kind of metal or ceramic. Dark-blue, open-toe heels on her feet complete the outfit. Her hair is pinned up and back with a pair of chopsticks, and she has some dark-pink lipstick on. This may be a casual meeting, but hey, dress for success! Karen finds Kara readily enough by both going to where they were supposed to meet and making use of various sensory capabilities, and raises a hand to wave once she is sure her young-alternate-self has seen her. "Good evening, Kara!" she greets. "I hope you weren't waiting too long?" She takes a moment to glance up at the sinking sun and the effect it has on the water of the pond before turning her attention back on Kara. She refuses to take any of this for granted. She did that once, and lost it all. So sometimes, she just has to pause in and take in the world around her... Appreciate it and tuck each memory of Earth's beauty away for another time.

The super-powered blonde can hear each breath people are taking within a hundred yards of her, hear the cricket getting ready to emerge from its subterranean lair a few feet to her left, smell the questionable meet the hotdog vendor across the small lake was peddling. Her mind flashes back to how this world had first assaulted her with an assortment of senses she wasn't ready for. She'd known coming here that the yellow sun would affect her, her father had told her that much. But she hadn't really been READY for it. That first day had been amongst the most terrifying of her life. But then, according to her senses, that had just been a continuation of the day her entire world, and people, had come to an end.

Her eyes sweep the park again and she's just about to check her watch when they pass over the approaching Karen. She almost misses her. She'd specifically mentioned that they could leave the capes at home, but she'd been mentally unprepared for meeting Power Girl in anything other than her white leotard! She didn't have all that much of a super social-life outside of the Titans.

"P- Karen. Hey." She smiles softly, tightly, as her sneakers take her in the direction of the other woman. "Uh, just a few minutes." Or hours. Because she'd gotten here early. Way early. Because you could do that sort of thing when you didn't have a job. "Thanks for coming. I know this was kind of out of the blue, I just, well, needed to talk. And I didn't really know who to talk TO. I didn't really want to ask any of the team and, I thought since..." She gestures uncomfortably, arms still mostly-crossed.

"Do you want to sit down or something?"

Yeah, there's the whole awkward issue of 'two of the same person (kind of)' in the same place at the same time, but Karen is actually feeling a lot less awkward about it than she did at first. She was older than Supergirl when SHE started off being Supergirl, so that helps some with the lack of teenage confusion, but even so, this is not an issue most people are prepared to deal with. What helped was realizing that she doesn't have to try to guide or teach or be anything for Kara. Kara is her in a slightly different situation, at a slightly younger age, but they're still both very similar. And if Karen felt nervous about it, the fact that Kara did too is almost assured (even if body language hadn't made such pretty obvious on both of their parts). All she can do is trust in herself, and to trust in who Kara is, and show that there's nothing to be nervous about.

And she even has a strategy for doing so. "Would sitting down help?" she asks lightly, with a small, simple smile. Her voice is calm, without an indication of too much friendliness or jovialty, but also without a lack of emotion or similar. It's casual. She is seriously asking if sitting down will make Kara more comfortable. Because that's why she's here. She wants to help however she can.

If the answer she gets is yes, then she'll sit. If not, then she'll stand. "Whatever you want to talk about, I'm here." the older blonde says.

"Well... not really." Kara admits, bending down to pick up a rock about half the size of her fist out of the grass. It was flat-ish, and she frowns at the pond as she balances it on the top of her middle finger, the tip of that finger tucked under her thumb in the conventional flicking gesture. And then she gives it a flick, that flick holding more power than most grown men could throw, and the rock goes skimming across the surface of the water. It jumps over the liquid in defiance of gravity, before crossing it completely and then sinking below the surface just a few feet shy of the far shore.

"It's not really the kind of thing you talk about with someone you just met, even if they're kind-of you from another time or dimension or whatever's going on," She gives a sideways glance at Karen to gauge her reaction. Kara also wonders in the back of her mind if she's going to be that tall when she gets older, or if she'd stay the same dimunitive height the rest of her life. It would sure make intimidating bad guys easier if she didn't look like she was barely old enough to start her first babysitting job.

"You just have this life, a career, something to go 'home' to outside of the capes and costumes." The younger kryptonian shifts uncomfortably. "And I... don't." She says it with finality, keeping most of the self-pity out of her voice. "Ever since I arrived here, trying to do good is all I know. Earth still doesn't feel like home, I barely have friends, and it's not like I can just go to the local science or art academy and enroll. My legal documentation is a pretty transparent joke, Kara Kent is a name on a mailbox on a pretty crappy apartment and not much else."

She'd spent the last several hours trying to figure out how to go over all this in her head for when Karen got here, but now it just seemed to pour out, and she could feel her cheeks heating. "You have your own whole identity and life, Kal has his right here in Metropolis. Heck, he GREW UP here, had three decades to build his own life, and even Connor's got his own thing going on. Not that Aunt Martha and Uncle Jonathan haven't been great and everything, but..." She turns those crystal blue eyes from the scenic park to the other blonde. "Earth still doesn't feel like home. And I desperately want it to. So how did you do it? How did you start a life from nothing here on Earth?"

Karen listens. Her face isn't blank or anything, but she's not showing all of what she's feeling. Instead she's paying attention, focusing on what Kara is saying, nodding briefly when she's looked at, but mostly just... Listening and showing real interest. Inside, yeah, she's still paying attention, but she also feels a little bit guilty for having a place to go 'home' too, and so on. She also feels what she felt before, when SHE was new to Earth. She listens to Kara, but she also is making sure no one is near enough to eavesdrop -- not even with super hearing. If anyone acts suspiciously or comes to close, she'll know it and do something about it. But for now, it seems they're in the clear. So she takes a few moments to think, and then starts talking. Whatever speech she had in mind rapidly crumbles as she just starts saying what she feels -- what comes to mind. Much like Kara.

"I'm assuming you mean the first time around, rather than this time. I'm not honestly sure if it was harder or easier. I was older than you were when I arrived on Earth. Not by too much, but a few years at least. Things were different from Krypton -- a lot of times jarringly so. I got used to having powers fairly quickly, possibly because I was already used to how my body worked normally. I'd already been through the awkwardness of being a teenager. But knowing how to use them and knowing how to deal with the results are two different things. I got really good at pretending, keeping my cool, not letting people see all of what I felt. But I got angry a lot, and eventually just started telling people exactly what I thought. I don't think they liked that, but I did it anyway. That made problems sometimes. I started off wanting to fit in, for everyone to like me, but there were too many things I could see were wrong -- or that I felt were wrong. And I realized I didn't need anyone else's approval. Super heroes aren't heroes to be 'liked'."

She huffs a breath upwards, blowing some of her bangs off her forehead as she folds her arms over her chest. "That attitude also didn't help. Even though I was first cousin to Superman, and he treated me great, I didn't feel like I really belonged. Details are vague. I know I went through a lot of struggles, both personal and heroic, but exact events? Faces? Conversations? Names? Whatever happened when I was integrated into this universe, it got all... Muddled. Merged together with how things are here. So even though it's a different version of Earth, I can't quite remember enough about how it was before to know in what WAY it's different exactly. I don't know how much I'm missing. If there were friends, lovers, enemies, rivals, team mates... It's mostly feelings. And being surrounded by people I may or may not have met in a world just similar enough to live in but different enough for me to know it's not 'home' is like losing Krypton all over again."

Karen looks at the pond, the ripples still spreading out from the rock that was 'flicked' into it. "Supergirl being someone other than me, is one of the few things I can tell is different. But that's not what you're asking and I'm rambling." Karen looks apologetically at the teenager and then raises a pair of fingers to pinch the bridge of her nose as she closes her eyes to concentrate. "Okay, short version: It took awhile of feeling displaced and confused. I had to go out and find my own place in the world, which was not even remotely as simple as it sounds, and I'm sure you're aware of that already. I fought, I searched, I learned, I gained and lost, and eventually I had a place on Earth crafted by my own efforts, rather than handed to me simply because I was related to someone famous. Then the universe ended in some crisis that has been erased from my memory and left a huge gap that hurts my head whenever I try too hard to think about it, and I had to start all over."

Karen shrugs helplessly as she lowers her arms to her sides. "Everyone I met, everyone I knew, everything I had worked so hard to build... My reputation and how I interacted with people went from being 'Superman's cousin' to 'that crazy feminist' to 'that outspoken but reliable and courageous heroine'--not my words--was all just wiped away. I remember things here. People, places, events, but none of those people remember me, I wasn't at those places, and didn't participate in those events. It still doesn't feel real. I still feel like maybe this is just some weird dream. And I don't think I'm ever really going to feel like this is 'home'. Neither of them." Karen lets out a brief, perhaps innapropriate seeming 'hehehe' and a wry smile crosses her lips. "So much for the short version." Clapping her hands together, Karen tries one more time. "Okay! The really real short version is that I've had a 'trial run' at life. I've already done this once, so I knew more or less how to handle getting set up this time around. You haven't had the same experiences I have, so it's not going to be easy. You are going to have to work to find your own place and identity. But you also have something I didn't have."

Karen walks forward, to within arm's reach of Kara and then puts a hand gently on the shorter blonde's shoulder. "You have me. You have a 'big sister' who will be here to help you whenever you need her. Any time you have doubts, questions, fears, or good stuff, like maybe you attend college and graduate, or you meet someone you really, really like and want to gush about 'em, or you want to brag about how you took down bad guy that was trying to eat an entire shopping mall... I'm going to be there, and I'm going to understand what you're going through better than anyone, because I've done it once before." Karen squeezes Kara's shoulder. "Neither of us is really home, as much as we'd like this world to be. But learn to appreciate it, even if it's different. Treasure everything, even the bad things. You never know what's going to happen in the future, and taking anything for granted can leave you with a lot of... Regrets." Karen's expression changes very subtly from a smile to a look of sadness for a moment, perhaps giving just a glimpse of how hard the whole 'end of the universe' thing hit her. But she's back to being supportive and big-sisterly almost immediately.

"...Also, if you want I can see about a scholarship if you're interested in going to school, and getting some better paperwork set up. Maybe you can even be Kara Starr!" Karen winks.

Information overload. Or at least that's the vibe Kara's expression gives off in waves as she stares at the other blonde with her eyes really wide and her mouth slightly open. It's really not Karen's fault, at all! The younger kryptonian just hadn't really thought about the other woman's struggle, or that it might still have been ongoing. She'd known Power Girl had faced the same trials, more or less, than she had, but she'd figured they were all behind her and way in the past. It never really donned on her that the self-assured, some might even say cocky, heroine might have her own emotional vulnerabilities.

She does her best to smile, her eyebrows upturning above her nose in her best apologetic expression. "Sorry for just dumping all that in your lap. I didn't mean to open any old wounds. Never really figured anyone had it much rougher than me. Not being able to remember... I don't know if that's better or worse. I remember everything. Everything." The powered teen hugs herself a little tighter. "Right up until my ship left orbit and the stasis took effect. This god-awful rumbling, like the universe was coming undone, and everything was shaking. Then I was just... waking up. Like I'd blinked and landed on a strange new planet."

At least the smile turns genuine when Karen's hand lands on her shoulder and she makes her the offer of support. She almost looks like she might cry, or jump into the taller blonde for a hug. She does neither, but she does unfold her arms finally. "That would be," Her voice catches in her throat for a moment, and she touches the tips of her fingers to the base of her neck lightly as she clears it. "That would be great. Talking to Kal, it's just- He doesn't remember, any of it. He was too young. Earth's been all he knows. It'll be nice having someone to talk to who might, even if it's not exactly the same."

"I think I might like being 'Kara Starr'," And now Kara's smile turns shy as she looks away. "I'd like to study art. But I think my parents would have wanted me to continue studying science. If you could help me, getting a new identity set up and all, maybe I could be your cousin, too? At least on paper?"

Karen grins, and replies, "I think I'd like that too. And hey, don't worry about it. I just dumped a bunch of my own problems in your lap, so it's not like you're the only one who needed to vent or get stuff out. Yeah, I didn't think this version knew. The other one didn't either. ...I think. It's so hard to remember. I remember Krypton, the trip, being sent after my cousin to look after him... Stasis kicked in at some point, but I don't think it worked quite right. I aged a few years along the way. But I'd been sent to look after my little baby cousin, and he was already an adult and far more accomplished by the time I got here. So... In a way... I am kind of glad I survived to see this other universe. Because whether we're 'sisters' or 'cousins', I can finally fulfill that mission I was sent. To protect and help my family on an alien world."

Karen withdraws her hand in order to attempt to 'beep' Kara's nose with a fingertip. "I mean you, incase that wasn't obvious." Grinning again, Karen takes a step back and looks Kara over. "Hmm... Well, I admit I did go into science myself, but to some people, math can be like art. The way it all fits together, forming patterns that can be appreciated as much as a painting... I don't see why you can't study art if you want to. Infact, you could study both. You've got your entire life ahead of you to decide, and there's no rule that says you can't change your mind or switch paths along the way."

Looking up at the darkening sky, the woman who was once Supergirl says, "For now, though, it's getting late. Do you have a discrete way of getting home, or would you like a ride? ...Heck, you could even stay over at my place if you like. We could talk more, or just sit around eating Haagen-Dazs, or whatever you're up for."

"I think that'd be the weirdest dual major even I've ever heard of!" Supergirl manages an honest-to-goodness grin for the first time throughout the entire exchange, blinking, with her eyes going a little cross when her nose is assaulted so virulently. "But I'll think on it a little. Not sure the whole 'starving artist' image on this planet would have went over well with my parents. And I'd like to at least do SOMETHING to make them proud. I'm not all that fond of math, but physics is okay. Even with all the math in it."

"But... thanks. For what it's worth, I'm really glad you're here, Karen. However it happened."

"Uh, I normally just zip wherever I need to go faster than people can see. But I guess if I want to try and live a 'normal' life, I should go ahead and start getting used to doing things in slow-motion. I don't even know how to drive, so, a ride would be great. There's a little donut shop not far from here," She strains up on her tip-toes as she faces towards the east, as if she could see it from here. She can't. Maybe if she flew up a few meters. "I'd like to hear more about your Krypton, if that's okay. I feel like I keep forgetting stuff. I keep worrying I'm going to forget something important, and then it's going to be gone forever. Do you ever get that sometimes?"