"Alright. Have fun." 

Xan follows Clara out.

He exhales a bit shakily. "That went well."

"What are your Kents like?"

"...They care about a lot of things. Civil rights, mostly, various stripes; their shelves are all Communist literature and To Kill a Mockingbird. They're Evangelicals, and I don't think they buy everything Pastor Carmichael's selling but they still took me to church every week and on the holidays. They might've been hippies, if the movement came a couple decades earlier, but they're too set for that now."

He grits his teeth. "They think I'm... wrong. I said a lot of shit - did a lot of shit - as a kid before I knew what people are supposed to be like, and it scared the hell out of them."

"...Oh geez. I'm sorry." 

"Thanks. I'm well clear of them now, much good may it do us both."

"I've ever been inside a church building but pretty much everyone in my family is agnostic of some stripe and, like, my dad worries any about me hurting people but if I actually did I'm sure he'd lecture me a lot but he wouldn't think I was wrong. We argue a lot but it's--always from a place of mutual love and respect. I'm really sorry you didn't get to have that." 

"In fairness I was a pretty fucking awful kid. How are we getting to these caves, anyway? Walking, driving, flying?"

"I like running for getting places people are liable to spot a flyer." 

"Cool. I'll follow when you're ready."

She grins at him, and then she is a blur in the general direction of the caves. 

As is he, a fraction of a second after.

Running is fun, even if it isn't as much fun as flying. Pity it's over so quickly.

Yep. 

She stops just past the entrance, out of sight of the guards: they'd probably let her bring a guest, but why risk it? 

The caves are...cavelike. There's art on the walls, and Kryptonian writing. 

The writing on the walls tells of a "warrior from the stars" who had the strength of ten men and could start fires with his eyes, who saved the tribe from some kind of terrible peril and promised that one day his descendant, "Naman," would return to the Earth. 

"...How did your Jor-El know he was going to send you away and still not have time to go with you? Or are they talking about some other descendant?"

"I'm not sure about the exact details but I'm pretty sure this is a more distant ancestor than Jor-El, considering that Jor-El was youngish in 1961 and these are way pre white dudes. And I think visiting Earth might have been some kind of...family tradition? I don't know what the whole Naman thing was originally alluding to for sure, but you know what, I'm here on Earth, I'm friends with any Kawatche, Naman is me even if it wasn't supposed to be."

"Ah, I was confused about the timeline. If visiting Earth was a family tradition it makes sense that Jor-El would want to send you here, higher chance of a positive reception. I think in my timeline he did it because - reading between the lines of what Green Lantern says, my Earth is kind of a galactic backwater? Somewhere nothing happens, so his kid would have a chance to grow up without too many alien troublemakers."

"Makes sense, I guess. Also we look very human! That's probably not that common. Two species on unrelated planets that look identical is weird enough. And my boyfriend is a biology nerd slash doctor-to-be and let me tell you, on the chemical level we're very different, but on the macro level? You can get very thorough and not find a difference." 

"I've never had any complaints either. What's your boyfriend like? Besides thorough."

"He's sweet. And he gets so enthusiastic about medicine, it's a joy to watch. And he's so smart, and he's incredibly loyal to the people he loves. And he's thoughtful, and he's sincere, and he's usually really bad at lying but he's very good at keeping secrets." 

"That's sweet. I've never had anybody last longer than me sucking him off under the bleachers, but maybe I'll have better luck in the twenty-first century."

"No idea. He's the only boyfriend I've ever had, and I wasn't exactly looking when I found him, so I don't really know how one goes about acquiring a significant other on purpose. I had a crush on a girl once, but she was tragically straight." 

"Girls are complicated. I always wanted to try, but they talk shit behind your back instead of to your face, so I never had a plausibly deniable opening."

"Also there's all these obnoxious social scripts that praises guys for having lots of sex and shames girls. Makes it a lot more--threatening--to proposition one out of nowhere."

"Oh, nobody got praised for having sex with me. S'why it was always plausibly deniable and under the bleachers."

"Yeah, but--as a girl, even in this comparatively enlightened day and age, if I am approached by a boy I don't know very well and he asks me for sex, especially if he has a reputation for being trouble, before I can even think of how I want to respond I have to weigh the possibility that if I say no he might try to rape me. One in three women experience sexual assault at some point in their lives. Now, me in particular, I don't so much have to worry about that, on account of being a Kryptonian surrounded by squishy humans. But, uh, it's been tried. Admittedly also in the other direction--there was this woman this one time who mind controlled guys, it wasn't pretty--but, yeah."