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“Wait, careful! Kon El gets sick when he partakes in too much of this potion,” Osul sputtered frantically as he tried to take back the bottle of amber liquid from his sister.
“That is because Kon El does not know to pace himself!” Otho hissed back, pulling the bottle behind her. “We are not here to indulge. We are here to mark a serious matter!”
Osul grimaced, which should have been a normal look on a thirteen year old, but Osul was supposed to be more composed than his sister. He was supposed to be calm during her storms, but tonight, there wasn’t anyone to perform to.No one was in the Lane-Kent penthouse save for the twins.
They’d been living with Superman and his family for two and a half years now. They were old enough and had acclimated to the point where they could be trusted to look after themselves when they were alone. Trust had been built gradually, of course, and now the twins dressed more like the Metropolis citizens they went to school with than the Warworld refugees they first studied with at Steelworks Institute.
But the outside world was a different matter. At home, they were Warworld refugees first.
On this quiet January evening, Lois Lane and Kal El were both at the Daily Planet working overtime, while Jon El was in Gamorra with his betrothed. Krypto was in Keystone City with Kon El, visiting the Impulsive One. Kal El and Lois would return home for dinner, but the rest would remain where they were, enjoying their Tuesday off with their loved ones. After all, it wasn’t as if this day marked anything special for anyone else except for Otho Ra and Osul Ra.
Otho brought the bottle back into view once she determined her brother had calmed down, and poured the pungent liquid into two tall glasses. They’d swiped the bottle from Kon El’s not-so-hidden stash in the Kent family barn back in Smallville. He wouldn’t miss it, and if he did, Otho Ra planned to tell him a half-truth about having stolen it to experiment with it, thus taking the brunt of the blame and evading any serious questioning as to why the girl twin stole enchanted alcohol from her adoptive uncle. Otho Ra was good at that, twisting words so that they fit her agenda. She had a temper but she wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t have survived ten years in Mongol’s court had she been that daft.
Osul cupped one of the glasses in his hand while Otho screwed the cap back on the bottle. “Has it really been six years?” He asked softly, peering at the shimmering drink in his hands. “It doesn’t feel like it, Sister. It feels like-”
“-forever,” Otho finished for him. “It feels like we’ve been here for most of our lives, but we haven’t. Trickery of the mind, Brother. It does things to you when you’re enjoying the life given to you.”
Osul blinked away tears but Otho still saw them drop into his glass. She took her own into her hands and let her brother weep. He had that right. After all, it had been six years since Otho had received her inheritance, with her brother as witness.
“Do you think they survived?” Osul whispered. “Do you think… Do you think they left with Kryl Ux? He’ll be back, you know. He had Father in the palm of his hands. He knew Superman would sa-”
“-it doesn’t matter,” she clipped, cutting him off. “What’s done is done. All that’s left are the consequences.” She thought about the moment when her blade cut through supple flesh to paint her the color of that creature’s life. It had drenched her thoroughly. There had been so much that it had splashed on Osul too. Such was the power of deadly devotion to one’s own family. Mongul didn’t like devotion to anyone else but himself, but Otho and Osul were different. They were each other’s, so when Otho had been thrown into her first fight, she’d made sure to make the most of it too.
Her first fight had been where she’d taken her first life.
And now, six years later, they were remembering the bloody battle on its anniversary, as was the custom in Warworld. It was important for Warzoons to celebrate their first murder. For Mongol, one’s first was one’s most precious kill, and Otho had killed her first when she was seven years years old. Her first also led to her second, third, and fourth in relatively quick succession. She’d been a little demon. She’d had the speed, the rage, the conviction to do what needed to be done in order to secure both hers and her brother’s survival.
That first battle, Otho Ra killed four children her age from four different tribes. That meant four different sets of families that might one day return for head, if they’d survived Superman freeing them from their chains. She’d bested their children, but even then, her kills hadn’t been deemed her worthy enough for chains. That would come later, as her skills were polished, and her opponents began adult creatures of the various species enslaved on Warworld.
Six years ago, Otho Ra had, had to kill to secure her and her brother’s future. She’d continue to kill for many years until a man with an ‘S’ on his chest came to rescue them from their bloody pit, and guide her away from the killing acts she’d perfected over the years.
“May the chains never find them again,” Osul murmured the first half their personal toast, the one they’d agreed upon once Superman took them in as adoptive children. They weren’t celebrating, after all. They were remembering. They had to. Osul held his glass to her mouth and gave her a mournful gaze.
“May the chains never find us again either,” Otho finished, pressing her glass against his mouth.
They drank the glasses in one shot. The alcohol of Earth was much kinder to their stomachs than the potions on Warworld. After they’d wiped their mouths, Osul poured himself another glass and drank with urgency. Otho grinned and poured herself some more as well, but she wasn’t as hasty with her second cup. This was a remembrance session, after all, and Otho did like to think – despite the temper.
She remembered the brews that used to be produced in their cell block. There were always one or two on the block that perished the morning after. Poisoning deaths were common. That’s where the pleasure of drinking came from back on Warworld, knowing death could take you before Mongol. It had been a personal challenge for many. Otho had, had her first brew after her first battle to mark her four kills, and the drink had made her heave and throw up the entire night.
But here on Earth, the enchanted liquor fit to knock out a Kryptonian tasted almost like apple juice. Perhaps there had been apples added to its mixture. Otho didn’t know for sure but she enjoyed the taste, and so did Osul, it seemed. The Earth brew had been made with love, unlike the drink of Warworld.
“If they come for us,” Osul slurred softly, after his third glass, “then I want to apologize.” He wiped the tears from his eyes with a small sniffle.
Otho punched him gently on the shoulder. “Why should you apologize, silly? I’m the one who killed their children. I’ll apologize to them.”
Osul shook his head. “It wouldn’t mean anything coming from you, Sister,” he whispered through trembling lips. “You only did what you had to, to make sure we survived. It’s me they’ll curse, as is their right. You only did it to save us.”
“We argue about this every year,” Otho sighed. “Eventually, you’ll need to relent.”
“I’ll fight with you!”
“Why? So Superman can bow his head in shame?” Otho retorted with a huff. “He took in a murderer. If anyone has to answer to those families, it’s me. I made the decision to kill, Brother, and I’ll do it again, if it means protecting you and the rest of our family from harm.”
“Even after everything Father has taught us?”
“Father was born out of love and raised with love. I don’t have any such luxury.”
“But perhaps, when the time comes, we can ask for his guidance!”
“Why, so he can fight on my behalf?” She gave him a bitter grin as she patted his head. “I couldn’t allow that. He wasn’t there to save us at the time, and I forgive him for that. He’s not a god, brother. As much as this world thinks him to be, and as much as Mongol thought him to be… He is but one man. Kryptonian by blood, but human in action. He would fight those families to save me, and I couldn’t do that to him. He did not birth me. He shouldn’t have to take responsibility for my fate.”
“What about me? Why can’t I share the burden? He brought me back from the dead because he loves me. Doesn’t that mean I can fight by your side because I love you?”
Otho dragged her brother into her arms and let him weep into her shoulder. Otho patted his braid and rubbed circles into his back. She wouldn’t insult him by calling him a child. He was simply in despair. Despair could do things to people. It could make a seven year old girl child take up her weapon and kill other children similar in age. It could make monsters out of slaves. For a time, Otho thought she’d crack, so different was this world. It still had its monsters, but its monsters were quieter. There were Mongols on Earth too, but they didn’t cause as many problems, and weren’t nearly as loud. Earth’s monsters seemed to sit in the bellies of men. They were monsters in making. They would only succumb to their nastiest bits if pushed to the edge.
But Otho, Osul, and the rest of the refugees of Warworld were born fighting for their right to live. Otho and Osul had fought and killed until the day Superman arrived, and even then, they’d killed and fought some more until Kal El of Earth started to make sense.
That despite it all, even born monsters had a chance to redeem themselves.
That even those who’d killed and killed relentlessly were capable of change.
They finished the bottle with pizza they ordered with a contactless drop-off in the lobby of their building. The twins didn’t want the deliveryman sniffing alcohol on them, so they had given the money to the receptionist in advance. They came down after the call, and hurriedly grabbed their pizza before hiking it back to the penthouse in giggles.
They drank the rest of the enchanted alcohol with pizza and leftover Cheetos. After the clock struck 7PM, they cleaned up the empty cups, plates, bottle, and boxes on the floor, thus marking another year of remembrance. There was no celebration in the act, only contrition and lamentation. Otho had first drawn blood, the only thing in Warworld that was worthy of being remembered.
They were both more than a little drunk by the time they were finished cleaning, so they took turns showering off all the gunk before slipping into their individual bedrooms to take long, nightmare-filled naps that usually featured a clear recollection of a past sin they’d committed. The twins were used to it. If they’d been able to compartmentalize better, they could have learned to ignore the nagging itch. If they were colder in heart than Superman had imagined, they might have fooled themselves into forgetting it ever happened.
But they hadn’t, and they couldn’t. Kal El of Earth had taught them something they didn’t think anyone was actually capable of. He’d taught them how to empathize, but more importantly, he’d taught them how to feel guilty.
And because the guilt was eternal, so would their remembrance days. In Warworld, they used to drink the clear liquor to mark Otho’s inheritance, and if Osul had made it that far, they would have celebrated his too.
But Superman had arrived before that could happen. Superman had been able to save them from having to explain to him that he wasn’t just saving children. He was saving child-killers.
“They drank,” Lois told Clark in the wee hours of the night after they’d come home from the Daily Planet to a pair of sleepy twins who were magically full before Lois and Clark had even set out the cartons of Chinese food they’d picked up on the way home. After they’d been tucked in for the night, the couple found a place in the sky to talk privately. “I’ll give it to them, they did good getting rid of the evidence, but they almost never sleep so deeply. It’s got to be the alcohol, right?”
Clark shook his head. “They were crying. I could smell the tears on Osul,” Clark said with a soft sigh. “The whiskey was Kon’s. Last year, I suspected they stole something from a liquor store, but I wasn’t sure. And technically, it wasn’t stealing. There was money on the counter, but it never registered who made the purchase because it was taken overnight. I wasn’t sure back then, but I am now. I figure they learned the hard way last year that regular alcohol doesn’t do much to a Kryptonian or Phaelosian’s body.”
“But magicked drinks?” Lois pressed. “That’ll make a mess of you.” She leaned into Clark’s chest. “Why do you think they do it? It doesn’t seem to happen all the time. They don’t ask to drink beer at dinner, and they don’t sneak around for wine on special occasions. What’s so special about this date that for two years in a row, they’re drinking behind our backs, and keeping quiet most of the day? It’s like they’re mourning something – someone.”
“Maybe they’re not ready to share just yet.”
“And you’re OK with them drinking behind your back?”
“Of course not, but if I ask them… I don’t think they’ll be able to answer. I think that’s a conversation for the future.”
“So what, we pretend like our kids aren’t drinking stolen liquor behind our backs?”
“Weren’t we already?” He chuckled, threading his fingers through her hair.
“… yeah, I guess.” Lois yawned, snuggling into Clark’s embrace. “I just wish we could ask them why, and if they want… maybe share a drink with them. Mourning’s easier in numbers. Alone, it’s downright unbearable.”
Clark kissed the top of his wife’s head. “We’ll do it next year. This year… Let’s let them sleep. I haven’t eavesdropped on their conversations just yet, but I don’t think I want to. It’s privacy they want, right? We’ll let them have this year, and next year, we’ll sit down with the good stuff Ma and Pa brew personally.”
Lois nodded sleepily in assent and it was a done deal.
Otho Ra and Osul Ra waited patiently at the bus stop to get picked up for their human lessons at human school, but before the bus could turn at the light, Clark motioned at them to get into the family SUV.
“Father, you will be late to work,” Otho deadpanned.
“The bus is almost here,” Osul added softly with a look of confusion.
Clark opened the doors to let them in, and the kids didn’t deny the ride that wouldn’t need to be spent engaging in small talk with their sticky-handed compatriots of the seventh grade.
Clark smiled as he pulled into drive. “One thing, kiddos? It helps to be married to the boss,” he winked.
“Marrying into power does help one in their future endeavors,” Otho nodded sagely.
“We are happy for you, Father,” Osul added gently.
Clark burst out laughing, and then so did the children, because it was hard to avoid laughing with Clark Kent. He was a funny man, and he tried to be a good father.
And he was a good father. That’s why the option to kill was still an option to begin with. In the words unspoken between Red Son and Starchild, the lessons they’d learned through their sins hadn’t just gone away after their freedom from Warworld.
Now, there was more at stake. There were people they not only depended on, but people they loved. They had a mother now, and a brother, an aunt, an uncle, grandparents, and all the other little things they’d never had before.
They had a father. They had a father that loved them and who would jump into flames for them, and that meant something to the twins.
So, if time ever came that anyone tried to take them away from the new life they were given and the family they now had, Otho knew it wouldn’t just be her picking up her blade to do what had to be done to protect what was theirs.
She knew Osul would pick his up too.