Chapter Text
When the pod landed, it was a ball of fire in the sky that drew the eyes of every animal in the forest, including the gorilla tribe.
Only the oldest female of the silverback’s troop was brave enough to investigate, though.
He watched her go down into the crater, oblivious to his low hoots of warning, and blew air out, smacking the ground as the rest of the troop watched from behind his back, making distressed grunts and pants. He didn’t trust the sky fire, or the way it fell. No one liked the smell of it, either—it was burning still in their sensitive noses. Acrid, strong. Not a leopard smell, but not good, either.
But the female was curious. She thought she’d heard an infant’s wailing, and, having recently lost one of her own, she was of the mind to be dogged. She made her way slowly, knuckles brushing the scorched ground, and sniffed. Ah. There.
There was a click, and a hum, which alarmed her, and she hooted at it, chuffing air and scraping dirt, backing quickly away. But the thing only slowly opened, revealing the warm, pinkish bundle that squirmed and squealed. It had golden fur at the top of its head, instead of her own lost baby’s lovely dark brown coat, but otherwise it was naked, like a rodent.
It looked sickly. Maybe it had come out wrong. The female turned to go, but the infant rolled, wiggling free of its wrapping. And it began to squall, because it was cold. The tiny chest, exposed to the air, stretched and arched and wailed, heartbreakingly.
Every mother, no matter the species, knows that cry.
The male issued a low warning, blowing out his breath threateningly. But the female ignored him. There was no threat here. Just a baby thing that would die of cold and fear and loneliness before night’s end, if the leopard did not get him first. Her great, solid heart twisted in her chest, and her finger grazed the edge of the wrappings.
The baby, cooing in interest, grabbed at her finger, twice the size of its chubby fist. Grayish-blue eyes looked up into the dark face of the female gorilla, and the baby chirped, raising its arms to be held.
Carefully, with the gentleness of a creature half her size, the female gathered the wrappings up, and nestled the baby to her chest with one arm. She made her way out of the crater, picking silently over the smoking ground, and ignored the indignant grunts of her mate. He would get used to it. A new baby was good for the troop, anyway. Everyone loved babies.
Later that night, in the nest she had made of folded branches and flattened leaves, the gorilla lay back with the baby on her chest, and encouraged it to suckle. The baby nudged and mouthed against her breast, and she pushed her nipple into it’s seeking mouth. When the infant latched and began to nurse, she sighed, contentedly, and settled on one side, stroking the delicate curls of blonde fur with one giant finger.
If it lived, she decided she would name it Ka-Ra.
The Golden One.
***
“Lena! You know you’re not allowed in Papa’s study!”
Lex grabbed her by the back of her pinafore, but she wrenched free, leaving him clutching a taffeta bow. He stamped his foot on the hallway rug. “You wretched little hobgoblin! Mother will tan your hide!”
Lena threw a face at him and sprinted for the door, ducking around the edge just as Lex’s fingers reached for her. She tumbled onto the thick, green carpet and crawled behind one of the stuffed bears, giggling.
“Lena!” Lex hissed, trying to keep his voice low, even as his schoolboy’s voice cracked. He had only presented as an alpha two weeks before, and was taking his role very seriously already.
He spotted her behind the bear and hauled her out by one ankle. “There you are, now you’re in for it—“
“What’s all this then?” The elder Luthoer alpha peered over the edge of his golden spectacles, examining his two pink-cheeked offspring.
“Sorry sir.” Lex dropped Lena’s ankle and helped his sister to her feet, brushing down her pinafore as he tried to re-fix her bow. “She’s supposed to be in elocution lessons. Mother said for her not to bother you.”
“My children are not a bother. Lillian should know that by now.” Lionel told his son, benignly. He swung his chair out and patted his lap. “Come here, Lena darling. You too, Alexander.”
“Papa!” Lena went to her father’s open arms and clambered into his lap. He kissed the silken top of her dark brown head, and she nestled into his chest, which smelled, as always, of tobacco and musky leather. Lionel absentmindedly smoothed down the bow in her hair as he held her close, showing her the map spread across the desk as he beckoned Lex closer.
“See here, children? This is an island just off the coast of Africa. And here is where your Papa shall make his fortune ten times over.” Lionel chuckled and nudged Lex with an elbow. “Enough to keep your mother in opera furs for the rest of her life, and then some.”
“She’d like that.” Lena said, solemnly, and Lex giggled.
“Why this island, Father?” Lex asked, intelligently, as Lena’s chubby finger followed her father’s across the map to the tiny dot in the Indian Ocean. “Are there diamonds?”
“Son, there are diamonds in every crevice of Africa. But the Belgian King has already begun looting, and soon after there will be not much to be claimed.” Lionel’s laugh was rich with dark knowledge. “No, this contains something far more valuable. A meteor. A metal from space. One fell about five years ago, and no one has yet had the gall to go looking for it.”
“Space?” Lena asked, tilting her little chin up at her father’s glowing smile. “How did it come from so far away?”
“It fell, dear heart.” Her father kissed the top of her head. “It fell from the sky. And with it, in that island, rests all our hopes and dreams. Can you imagine that?”
He placed her tiny hand over the island on the map. “A star that fell from space.”
“Magic star.” Lena whispered, looking down between her spread fingers at the longitude numbers. “Magic.”
***
The child Ka-Ra lived. And grew.
And grew.
Golden-haired and bright eyed, she was taller than a gorilla, and definitely larger than a rodent, by a long shot. She was strangely pink, gawky-limbed, and got cold easily, so she had to use the wrapping she’d been found in—a soiled blue and red that stood out in the forest like a target for predators—tied around her waist like extra fur. She also didn’t walk well on her knuckles, preferring to half-stand, half-stoop as to fit in. Still, she ate the same food, and spoke their language, and slept in their nests, so most of the troop accepted her just fine.
The silverback had his reservations, though, and they were only reinforced by her strength. Ka-Ra was strong. Even at an early age, she could throw another juvenile twice her size over her shoulder without the slightest bit of effort. She could pull up a tree and hold it one-handed while the troop picked out squirming grubs at their leisure. When the elephant tribe had one of their calves stuck down a ravine, Ka-Ra simply hauled him out by his tail, lifting him without even grunting in exertion.
Unfortunately, though, this great strength was not without drawbacks. Ka-Ra grew to juvenile stage, and, even in her naive innocence, began presenting as a challenge to the silverback. She smelled of testosterone and musk, and when she had a bad day, she could haul gorilla-sized boulders out of the ground and fling them around at will. Though she never directed her ire at the dominant male, the silverback did not like having such an aggressive force in his troop. He constantly displayed at her, knocked her over, put his canines in her face and roared. But no matter what Ka-Ra did, she could not appease him.
Until one day.
The troop had been feeding on some new shoots in the clearing made by the elephants a few weeks before—when the bull had gone through the woods in a musth-drunk haze, looking for the herd and the females. His dung had made potent fertilizer for the saplings, and their green growth was what the troop was feasting on now, silent and focused. There had been four new infants among the younger females this year, and the group needed all the calories they could get, with so many more mouths to feed. The silverback had his attention drawn by a particularly tasty root, and had a momentary lapse in concentration, allowing his exhaustion as a father to overweight his alertness.
Which was, of course, when the leopard struck.
One of the youngsters had strayed too far to the edge of the clearing. His inquisitiveness and youth had led him into a nice patch of mushrooms, and he hooted eagerly, stuffing his face before the rest of the troop could find them. Duly engrossed, he did not notice the flash of dappled hide behind him in the thick brush.
But Ka-Ra did.
The leopard bowled the youngster over, claw raking down his shoulder, and he screeched in mortal terror. The group looked up as one, and the silverback roared to life, galloping toward the the terrified juvenile, pinned down by the giant cat. But he was going to be too late, he wasn’t going to—
And then a blue and red flash tackled the leopard to the ground, and Ka-Ra grabbed the cat by its tail and swung it around her head like a vine. She screamed and slammed the beast to the ground, and beat her chest with both hands, hooting her dominance to the open corners of the clearing. The leopard, dazed and probably bleeding internally, flattened its ears, hissed and beat a hasty retreat, as Ka-Ra flung up dead tree limbs and hurled them after it.
The silverback caught up to the scene, and inspected the still-shivering, panicked juvenile. He had a big bloody claw mark on one shoulder, and was howling for his mother—who came scampering down to him, panting and grunting at his distress—but he was otherwise unharmed.
He would have been eaten, if not for Ka-ra, who was still beating her chest at the direction of the cat, daring it to return.
The silverback went over to the young alpha, and calmed her, grunting gently as he patted her back heavily. She looked at him, wide-eyed in surprise, and he gave her the sideways look of gorilla approval, before adding his own chest-beating. A final insult to the leopard, and a signal of fatherly pride.
That night, the silverback let her take first watch, while he rested, safe with the protection of his chosen deputy.
And Ka-Ra sat amongst her family while they snored and slept heavily, and looked up at the stars overhead, and wondered where she came from.
***
The ship that bore Lena to her destiny wasn’t a large or glamorous vessel.
The Merry Ida had seen many a better day. Her sails were battered in salt, and she had a tendency to list to one side. She was more of a fishing sloop than a passenger vehicle, but it was the only seaworthy ship with a drunk enough captain that Lex could convince to try making land on the island. The bay was littered in the corpses of other ships who had tried, but somehow, either by providence or the loose-judgement-luck of the captain, they had made it to safe anchorage.
And now, her brother was refusing to let her go ashore.
“Lena, I let you come along on this voyage out of misguided sentiment for your memories of Father, but really, you cannot expect me to allow you to traipse around the forests of darkest Africa just because our dear dead pater put your hand on a map fifteen years ago.”
“It was his dream.” Lena argued, putting her laced boot firmly down on the deck. “He wanted both of us to be there. He said exactly that, several times, before he died.”
“Darling, I really do agree with your brother.” Her fiancé-of-a-kind, Morgan Edge, inserted his opinion, as always, whether it was wanted or not. He was eating an apple, and threw it overboard before he’d finished more than two bites. “The wilds are no place for a civilized woman, and certainly not a highborn omega such as yourself.”
“What difference does my status make to whether a leopard will eat me or not?” Lena asked, simply, and rolled her eyes at the lock of shock on both alpha’s faces. “Look, you’re both wasting your time. I’ve told you already, you can’t keep me here. I’ll jump the side if I have to.”
Lex sighed, and ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “She will, you know.” He told Edge, ruefully. “We’d better let her come.”
“What if there are tribes of savages?” Edge protested, indignantly. He lowered his voice and looked significantly at Lex. “Her virtue could be at stake.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake.” Lena put her hands on her hips. “You cared very little for preserving my virtue each of the seven nights you tried to enter my cabin on this voyage, Mr. Edge.”
Lex shot Edge a dangerous look, and her would-be suitor turned a bright red and rubbed his neck furiously. “Ah.”
“Yes, very eloquent.” Lena folded her arms. “Well. Are there any more objections or shall we go to shore now? Daylight is wasting, gentlemen.”
They went to shore.
The men busied themselves over-directing the sailors at setting up camp, but Lena was itching to explore the crater. She had changed from her sea-stained skirts into a more suitable explorer’s frock, without a petticoat, and she ignored the few indiscreet looks she was receiving from the busy crew for how the fabric clung to her legs as she examined her father’s maps, comparing them to the landscape she could see from their beach.
When she cupped her hands to her eyes, she could see that there was a tall ridge in the distance, almost a mountain—the edge of which could lead down to a crater, if one existed. Her father had seemed to think it was there. And Lena wanted to believe in the memory of her father...even if the unpleasant reality of her family sometimes got in the way.
As well as alpha societal expectations.
“No. No, you cannot go alone into the jungle. I let you come along, but at this I will put down my foot.” Lex seemed inclined to mean it, judging by the narrowed expression he was giving his omega sister. “You must wait until we have finished setting up camp. And then we shall mount our expedition formally.”
“Just a little walk, Lex.” Lena was more than indignant. “I won’t even leave the campsite borders.”
“That is an outright lie, and you know it.” Her brother regarded her, unblinking.
“We can go together.” Morgan declared, smiling foolishly at her as if she would have already forgotten his earlier transgressions. “I have an eye to start tracking the game trails before dusk. That way I can get a start on bagging a leopard before the expedition’s end.”
The alpha hefted his rifle, giving it a meaningful stroke that was lost on neither Lena nor Lex. “And you’ll be assured of my thorough protection.”
“Perfect.” Lex blithely declared, even as Lena grit her teeth, releasing her most unwelcoming of scents. “Go with Mr. Edge, sister.” He instructed, outright ignoring her glare. “Be sure you’re both back before sundown. I shudder to think what primitive terrors the nights may bring in that jungle.”
***
There was a strange scent on the wind.
Ka-Ra had been lifting her nose all morning. While the rest of the troop fed on figs, contentedly snuffling amongst themselves, she sat on lookout in a banyan tree, high up enough to see a strange cloud on the horizon. It looked...stationary. And there was a strange tree, standing almost in the middle of the ocean. She didn’t know how it could have possibly gotten there.
It was fascinating. But also concerning. She looked down at her family, gorging among the figs, and frowned. No one was paying much attention. To the troop, it was mostly like any other day.
But Ka-Ra was used to being the only one interested in the unusual.
She herself was strange, to most other animals in the jungle. Waterbucks and antelope alike snorted in alarm at her alarmingly-naked skin, her weird upright gait, and her watchful, thinking eyes. Her strength was terrifying, isolating. The general consensus was that she was to be tolerated, but not, as a rule, encouraged. Her troop protected her, and she protected them, but they were not above thinking that she was a weird thing, too. It was clear that she would always be different. A strange, naked thing that fell out of the sky.
And now there were strange clouds in the sky. Sitting, or more like squatting right in the bay. And Ka-Ra wondered if perhaps the scent that had her prickling along her skin might possibly belong to more unusual beings from the sky, waiting to be disgorged from the billowing whiteness like raindrops.
It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Ka-Ra herself might have come to the jungle this way. Often she would sneak away from the troop and go examine the crater, high on the mountain where she had been found. It was no one’s territory now—the area smelled weird, to most animals, and even the chimpanzees didn’t want to feed there—and they weren’t normally picky about anything, as a rule. Ka-Ra could take handfuls of figs on her way down, and she would gorge as she looked into the empty pit that had been her entry into the world. No overgrowth touched the edges of the silvery thing that she had come from. Instead it sat, glowing and humming with an uneasy familiarity. K-Ra never quite knew what to make of it.
These clouds felt like that.
The silverback whuffed at her when she swung down from the top of the tree, offering to share his figs, but she politely declined, grunting quietly. There were other things on her mind. He turned his back on her, showing his trust in her, and went to play with one of the newer offspring from this year, showing his massive canines as he boxed with the youngster. Kara watched for a time, comforted by the pleasant routines of her simple life. But the nagging impulse kept returning, so eventually, she turned from her family and went in the direction of those clouds.
She wanted to follow this strange scent, and see where it led.
***
For all that Edge had boasted of being ‘the best tracker this side of Cape Horn’ it seemed the island’s jungle would not yield easily.
The alpha had been sweating and hacking with his brand-new machete for the better part of two hours now, and they were no closer to making headway through the thick brush than they had been at the outskirts of camp. The ‘game trail’ Edge claimed they were on was so tightly forested that it was hard to even squeeze out a drop of sunlight, let alone find a solid path. But Edge insisted he knew what he was doing, so Lena was forced to follow along, wincing as chunks of vegetation slashed past.
“Shan’t be long now, Lena dear.” Edge assured her, red-faced and puffing. His shirt was torn and he was bleeding in the upper arm, but Lena didn’t offer to patch it. She wrinkled her nose at the heavy smell of him, sweating and irritated. “This blasted brush is some of the worst I’ve seen, but I’ll have it down in a trice. You’ll see.”
“Perhaps we ought to return to camp.” Lena offered, trying her best to tread lightly on the alpha’s hair-trigger sense of masculine pride. “It is getting close to dusk now, and I don’t think we shall make very much headway by nightfall.”
“No.” Edge’s face flushed a deeper red. “Don’t be silly. You omegas are all so bloody impatient. Just wait there, on that log, and I’ll clear a path for you so your feet won’t get muddy.”
“I could hardly care—“ Lena protested, but the alpha had already turned his damp back on her, ignoring her as he whacked deeper into the brush.
Well, this is getting us nowhere. Lena sighed, and cupped her hands, looking back down the rough path that Edge had hacked out. It was haphazard and twisting—hardly a proper walking trail. But Edge wouldn’t be told what to do by an omega, even one as highborn as she, so Lena decided to leave him to it. He didn’t even turn his head as she started back down the path, determined to at least get to a place with a better view of the mountain so she could make a sketch before dark.
Edge’s path cut close to the river that wound down from the mountainous ridge to mingle with the sea. It was the only landmark easy to follow—the sound of rushing water was prevalent the closer one got. Lena made her way towards it, muttering to herself about alpha pride as she picked her way carefully down, holding her dress aloft with one hand and keeping the sketchbook tucked firmly under the other arm. She was so focused on not turning an ankle that she almost missed the tree—it was only when she lifted her head to squint at the sun’s position again that she saw it.
The tree was leaning out over the ravine and the plunging waterfall below. Its branches spread wide, almost cradling the sun, and it was the only thing breaking the surface of the canopy for what looked like miles. If she climbed out onto those sturdy-looking limbs, she should be able to get a clearer view of the mountain. And a nice place to sit while she sketched.
Mind thusly made up, Lena hitched her skirt higher and began to climb.
Unfortunately, it was only once she was precariously off the ground that she realized her mistake. Those ‘sturdy-looking’ limbs creaked dangerously even under the slightest pressure, and she was already looking for a way back down when something rustled in the foliage above. Lena looked up, startled, into the curious brown eyes of a marmoset, blinking at her as she held her sketchbook pinched between two fingers, trying to angle her foot down to the next branch without letting go of the trunk. The marmoset made a chirr ring noise, and tilted its little be-whiskered head. Lena groaned when she realized what had drawn its attention.
“No, no, not that, don’t—“ was all she got out before the little creature made a grab for her sketchbook. Lena flung out her arm to shoo it away, thoughtlessly, and the sudden jerking movement sent her pinwheeling, flailing backwards as she fought desperately to stay upright.
But to no avail.
She fell, too panicked to even make a sound, right into the churning waterfall below.
***
Ka-Ra heard the splash and didn’t think twice before she dove after it.
She had been tracking the sky people for some time. It wasn’t hard. They were very noisy. There was a male and a female, and the male had a shiny thing in his hand like a tooth that he was using to hack away at the undergrowth. He stunk , and Ka-Ra wrinkled her nose in disgust as she watched.
The female, though. She did not stink. She smelled... nice. Like a new fruit, or a bud about to flower. Something ripe and tender. Sweet.
Ka-Ra was slightly in awe of her. She had never seen another female of her own kind before, but this female did not quite seem to be her own kind. There was a sharpness about her, a fire. Her hair, piled up on her naked neck, was dark, unlike Ka-Ra’s golden curls, and her eyes were strange—two different colors, grey and green. She had a flowing pile of fabric around her legs and waist, and it made this most delightful swishing noise whenever the female walked anywhere. Ka-Ra had been following that noise, pleased by the sibilant sound and the appealing scent that was making her feel things she didn’t quite understand, when the female had veered off the path and made a sudden climb up the marmoset’s old dead tree. Ka-Ra whuffed in alarm, looking worryingly up at the ancient branches, but the female didn’t seem to hear. She didn’t seem to realize that marmosets only nested in hollowed, dead trees.
Instead, the female had climbed. And then. She fell.
Ka-Ra dove after her without thought. The female was one of only two of her own kind that she had ever seen, and there was no way she was going to let one drown in the space of a single day. The waterfall carried her over just as her fingers closed on the bunched fabric at the back of the female’s waist, and she gripped tightly, drawing them close together as they went plunging into the pool.
When they came up, Ka-Ra dragged the female to shore, swimming hard against the current. Even at her strength, it was a challenge to do so one-handed, but she had to keep the female’s head above water, gasping for air, or she feared that the other would drown. The female clung to her arm, shuddering in the cold water, and her eyelids fluttered, but she made very little effort to swim. Her kicks were sluggish and weak. It took a strong effort to pull her out.
Ka-Ra pulled them both onto the bank of the river, and grunted, shaking herself, as the female breathed raggedly into the sand. The red wrapping she wore was soaked, and she’d need to dry it or her protection against the cold would be gone. Same for the female’s strange garb. Ka-Ra cast a look at her. She was still face down, breathing heavily. Her skin was so pale.
There was a heavy, thumping feeling in her lower body when she looked at the dark shape crumpled on the sand.
The female moaned, eyes fluttering as she rolled over. Kara tilted her head curiously, moving closer to examine, but her posture stiffened when she realized the female was definitely hurt. Her skin, which was already pale, was an unhealthy grey around her cheeks, and her breathing was labored. There was a bluish cast to the skin around one of her ankles, and her forehead had a reddish scratch.
Ka-Ra lifted the female as gently as she could, easing her limp body over one shoulder. Night was coming, and it would be a good idea to get somewhere dry and warm before too long, or the female might not wake up. Ka-Ra knew how to make fire—she had seen lightning strikes and had gleaned the idea slowly but surely—but she needed to do it somewhere where the wood would be dry. Not in the undergrowth. Her chin tilted up, and she looked for the mouth of the cave, far up ahead on the slope of the mountain. That would do.
***
Lena awoke to a crackling fire, and the soft warmth of a naked body behind her own.
Her vision was still bleary, and her heart was sluggish, slow to react, so she blinked several times before she realized she was awake.
And, improbably enough, alive.
The last thing she remembered had been the rushing swell of the water overtaking her senses. Her ears, her nose, her mouth. It had been terrifying. It felt like the end.
And yet, she was alive, aching and sore in many places, her ankle throbbing and her head pounding—but she would survive.
And— she was not wearing any clothes.
That was a bit alarming, but the sudden shock of it was muted. She shifted, experimentally, but her head seared and she had to close her eyes against the pain. As she did so, an arm pulled around her waist, tightening, and a soft grunt behind her told her she was not alone. Judging by the feel of muscles and the distinctive scent, she was being held by an alpha.
A strange, naked alpha.
Lena should have wanted to run. And there was a small, logical part of her brain shrieking alarm bells under the fog, but she was too tired and sore to listen. Her body was warm and the alpha wasn’t harming her. There was instead, a strange comfort to the strong arm around her midsection. Perhaps a familiarity. The scent of the alpha was dense and humid in her nose, like the scent of the jungle itself.
Her eyelids drifted closed, and she nestled into the arm embracing her, sighing softly as the fire spat and sizzled.
***