Chapter Text
I don't know why I am feeling
So sorrowful at heart.
“So what are we looking at, Gideon?
Captain Sara Lance clapped her hands together, eager to begin the next mission. The rest of the Legends had gathered opposite her, on the other side of the central console in the middle of the bridge, and were looking up at Gideon’s disembodied head expectantly.
“A magical creature alert in 1966 Santa Cruz, California,” Gideon announced while a picture of the Santa Cruz shoreline appeared on the numerous screens embedded in the central console. As the Waverider’s AI continued her explanation, the image was overlaid, one by one, with various newspaper clippings detailing the events that had set off the Legends’ magical bones-powered alarm system.
“It appears that the male inhabitants of the city have taken to the sea to gain the attention of a blonde female who is in all likelihood the magical creature in question,” Gideon explained.
“Sounds like business as usual to me.” Sara shrugged. “Surfers will be surfers after all.”
“Not quite,” Gideon replied as shaky black-and-white footage from a Super 8 camera appeared onscreen.
Sara recognized the scene’s location as Santa Cruz beach with the Giant Dipper, the amusement park’s huge wooden rollercoaster, looming in the background. A woman with long, blonde hair was walking along the boardwalk, away from the camera. Even from just the receding view of her back, Sara could tell that she was a knockout.
“She’s hot!” Mick Rory agreed loudly. In an unprecedented show of interest in anything mission-related, he had removed the beer bottle from his lips and was leaning over one of the monitors, studying the video intently.
Ray Palmer, Nate Heywood and John Constantine were similarly absorbed in the footage, while Zari Tomaz rolled her eyes and then shared a long-suffering look with Charlie, their resident shapeshifter.
Onscreen, the woman continued walking towards the Dipper as the footage became even more shaky – the person holding the camera had obviously started running after her.
Along her way, the blonde passed various surfers, an ice cream vendor and two police officers on patrol, all of whom turned their heads to gape after her. The lone other woman on the boardwalk, a mother taking a walk with her toddler, appeared as bemused as Zari and Charlie by the effect the blonde was having on the men.
After a few more seconds during which the camera was steadily gaining on the blonde, she finally turned around towards it. The camera’s shaking came to an abrupt stop as its operator screeched to a halt, and when Sara got her first good look at the woman’s face she could certainly sympathize: the blonde was breathtakingly gorgeous.
Her face was accentuated by pronounced cheekbones, full lips and a sharp jawline. Sara could imagine how silky and smooth her skin would feel just by looking at it. Her hair was so sleek that, even through the black-and-white filter of the camera, it glowed almost golden in the California sun. It was falling in soft waves over one of her shoulders and drew Sara’s gaze to her slender neck which was adorned with a delicate gold necklace. Her expressive eyes were fair, blue if Sara were to guess, and even though her overall expression was one of annoyance, Sara was struck by how sad they looked.
Like Sara, the men who had already been entranced by the woman to begin with seemed even more enchanted now that they had seen her face. They started to move towards her until she was all but surrounded by them. Sara noted with concern how the woman’s expression shifted from annoyance to anxiety.
Instead of saying something to stop their approach, the blonde pressed her lips together and held out her hands in a defensive gesture. The men, including the camera operator, took no note of it but continued to advance on the woman, who was looking more and more distressed, until she finally opened her mouth.
The shouted stop was clearly legible on her lips even without the benefit of an audio track.
As soon as the word had left her mouth, her face scrunched up in horror and she pressed both hands against her lips as if to keep in anything else she might have wanted to say.
While the woman remained frozen like this, the group of men erupted in a sudden frenzy of motion. The footage became shaky again as the camera operator along with the others scrambled off the boardwalk, down the short embankment and across the beach until they reached the water’s edge. Instead of stopping there, they flung themselves, fully-clothed, into the ocean and started to frantically swim away from the shore.
The camera soon disappeared beneath the waves, and the male members of the Legends finally snapped out of their trance as soon as the video flickered out.
Sara blinked. Although nowhere near as affected as the men, she still had to shake her head a little to regain her focus.
She cleared her throat. “Definitely not your average surfer babe, then,” she said, affecting a broad California accent to cover her dazed state.
“Definitely not,” Nate agreed, looking a little worse for wear. “Gideon show us a translation of Die Lore-Ley by Heinrich Heine, please.”
“Really, squire? Poetry?” John scoffed. “How’s that going to help us catch this bird?”
Nate’s intent became clear, however, as soon as the first words of the poem appeared onscreen.
“According to 19th century German folklore, numerous shipwrecks on the river Rhine were actually the work of the Lorelei, a mythical creature taking the form of an exceptionally beautiful woman. She supposedly haunted a section of the river that was famous for its eerie echoes, craggy reefs and treacherous undercurrents, making ship’s passage extremely dangerous. The Lorelei sat on a cliff that overlooked the reefs, singing and combing her golden hair and, like a siren, enchanted passing fishermen with her beauty and song.”
Nate paused for a moment to point out a specific verse of the poem.
The boatman is seized by wild yearning
While guiding his small craft downstream.
His eyes from the rocks ahead turning,
He looks up, lost in a dream.
“They all drowned,” Nate concluded succinctly, and Sara felt the hair at the back of her neck stand up.
“Just like those men at the boardwalk,” she murmured and was suddenly overcome with memories: the unbearable burning sensation in her chest as she tried to hold in her breath; the stabbing pain in her eyes and ears as the water pressed into them; the terror when she finally couldn’t keep herself from swallowing anymore, when she felt liquid seep into her lungs and the inky blackness of the ocean flooded her mind.
She balled her hands into fists, pressing her fingernails into the callused skin of her palms for several moments before releasing the pressure abruptly. As always, rubbing her fingertips over the crescent-shaped indents she had made had a calming effect on her.
“Thank you, Gideon,” Nate said.
The poem disappeared, leaving the monitors to show the topmost of the newspaper clippings: an article from the Santa Cruz Sentinel featuring a large photograph of their Lorelei.
Despite the grainy quality of the black-and-white image, Sara was again overwhelmed by the woman’s beauty. She very deliberately pressed her fingertips into the indents in her palms and thought back to the fate of the men at the boardwalk.
This was no woman, but a monster that killed men in the cruelest way imaginable, and Sara vowed to herself, then and there, that she would do anything to stop that monster.
With a resolute flick of her hand, she wiped the newspaper clipping offscreen and looked up to address the Legends, “You heard the man. With what we’re facing, this is gonna be a ladies and shifters only mission. You boys stay on the ship and keep radio silence – I don’t want that creature mesmerizing you via our comms.”
All eyes remained fixed on the captain, waiting for her requisite snazzy send-off, and although Sara really wasn’t in the mood, she didn’t want to disappoint.
“Alright, dudes, put on your baggies and wax down your boards, we’re going surfin’ USA!” she exclaimed to appreciative grins and nods from the Legends.
Not her best effort, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to go for the more effective drowning-themed pun.