Her parents are giving her that look Clara has noticed throughout the years. They always have certain looks she's grown to recognize. The look when Clara managed to sneak into the cookie jar, amused more than anything. The blustering joy in their expressions when she graduated middle school, full of pride and happiness.

This was the look she never could quite grasp. Pitiful but not, loving but tragic. The sort of look parents gave when their lips burned with a secret the child couldn't understand, not yet. This look burns into her in the few rare times it takes residence within her life. The first time had been when she was younger, and asked if her parents could lend her the family tree for a school assignment. A few more idle questions after that regarding her different colored hair and eyes finally led to them sitting down with a younger Clara, and explaining the concept of adoption.

And Clara understood just fine what it meant to be adopted. She accepted it. Blood or not, she was their kid, no need to linger on questions when she knew their love was definite.

Yet... that look persisted. A look that carried on throughout the years, so bittersweet that she could never quite place what caused it. Clara always felt an inkling of confusion in the back of her head, trying to place where that very look may spawn from. And now, years after that look should have dissipated, it's there again.

She's not normal. She knows she's not. She's stronger and faster, and she thinks she just set the biology class on fire with her eyes alone. Clara is everything she doesn't think she should be.

And judging by those looks, pitiful and harrowing... she thinks her parents know, too. And that they know even more than she does.

"Honey, you should... go grab it. The writing," Her Mother says. Clara can only watch in confusion as her Father stands up, gently ruffling her hair before trudging off upstairs. For a moment, silence fills the room, with only the heavy footsteps of her Father going up the wooden flight of stairs before Clara finally breaks it.

"The writing?"

Her Mother, the sweetest, kindest woman Clara has ever know, scoots closer to her. The woman sweeps both of Clara's hands into her own, gentle and slow. As if she were approaching a small, shriveled kitten in the streets. Bound to skitter away at the slightest touch.

"We believe your biological parents left it for you," Her Mother admits, tilting her head down as a distant smile crosses her face. "We found you with it."

Clara knew she was found. Never how. Just... found. Simple as that. Her parents always dodged around the topic. Whether it be they couldn't talk about it, or simply couldn't find the words, the details were always distant and vague. A murmured tale never truly given to her. Until this day, it seemed, with her Mother having a stern look. It was finally happening.

"I was found with something?" Clara whispers out. That was news. She thought her birth parents had left nothing for her, just a simple basket her Father insisted had grown old and tattered. But they left something for her- no, they wrote something? For her. And her parents never told her? "Something written?"

"We... we think it's writing," Her Mother elaborates.

"Think?" Clara repeats.

That's when her Father returns back downstairs, his footsteps even and heavy. As if measured to perfectly rhythm, until he reaches the ground floor again. Instead of an old tattered piece of paper, he's holding a thick piece of stone. Clara stares at it, her eyebrows furrowing. An old, battered rag dangles from the bottom, likely one wrapped around the object to preserve it.

"I..."

Her Father sits adjacent to her, gently handing Clara the metal object. A rectangular piece of metal, with thick, black lines detailing out... nonsense. It's not a language she even recognizes. Clara gently tilts the object under the light, staring at it blankly before she looks up at her parents.

"What does it say?" Clara asks, her voice straining.

"I've..." Her Father, a man usually filled with confidence, rubs at the back of his neck. He's got that darn look on his face Clara is struggling to decipher. "I've tried to translate it for years, but whatever language it's in isn't... isn't known to man."

"What do you mean?"

A sigh. "Your... real parents weren't exactly from around here, Clara."

"What? From where, then?"

Clara's Father doesn't say a word. He doesn't need to. A distant, glazed look crosses his eyes are he stares out of the window he was sat next to, up towards the sky. Immediately, Clara huffs, a light smile crossing her face.

"Like outer space?" Clara giggles, trying to lighten the mood. Her Mother smiles at her gently, so pitiful that Clara finds herself frowning at his words. "As in, I'm from another planet?"

"Yes," He breathes out.

Another giggle. "So what you just- you put my spaceship in the attic or something?"

"Actually," The man says, moving to stand yet again. He stretches out his shoulders before turning to his one and only daughter, a hand reaching out for hers. "It's in the storm cellar."

He's joking. He has to be. Clara can't believe in such words, and yet, his voice is painfully honest. His eyes gleam with integrity, focused on his child.

Clara doesn't want to believe it. She doesn't think she can believe it. Her hand, unsteady, lands into his.

As promised, her Father leads the two most important woman in his life to the storm cellar. A dainty little room where they mostly stored odd items and emergency rations if a nasty tornado landed. Clara has been in here on occasion, but those times were rare and lacking. Mostly to drop off boxes that were a bit too heavy for her aging parents to bother with. The air is thick and heavy with dust when her Father leads them to a corner Clara never ventured to, where a large object covered in a thick, green tarp was.

A moment passes. The last moment of her life that Clara would ever have that last remaining hope that while she certainly is odd, at least she's... human.

And that hope is disproven when the tarp flies off the object. A hope that shatters as Clara can only stare at what remains underneath the now revealed space. What sits is a round black pod-shaped... thing. The surface engraved in intricate designs she images took ages to carefully sculpt. Nothing that suited their town of middle-fucking-nowhere. Even with age, the outer coating practically glistens under their single fluorescent light dangling from the ceiling.

"This is how you came into our world, honey," He draws out slowly, every word practiced as he drags a steady finger across the outer shell of the object. "During the day."

"During the -" Clara stops dragging a hand through her hair. Her Mother, a simple bystander, comes over to smooth a nurturing hand over her back, rubbing it in small circles. Clara feels a half hearted laugh die within her throat, never quite reaching the light of day. "You're joking. You have to be."

There's no way. She doesn't want to believe it. And yet, she can't help but dwell on it. Kids just don't arrive in ships.

Yet, kids don't have super strength. She's stronger than kids her age. Faster, too. And she thinks she saw through the wall earlier that day, and might have set fire to the classroom with her eyes. Clara isn't normal. She never has been, no matter how much she struggles to be. Normal was never a word that suited her, no matter how desperately she tried to stuff herself into that mold.

"We didn't want to tell you until you were old enough," Her Mother insists, her hand the only thing grounding Clara into that moment.

"What?" Clara asks. Her voice hiccups, and she feels a sense of dread wash over her.

They were telling her she wasn't even from earth. Of all origins she had expected herself to have, coming from another planet was not one of them.

"We were trying to protect you," Her Father follows up. Clara turns on her heels to look at him, wide eyed.

"From what?" She gags out. The man stutters before falling silent, as if unsure how to quite answer such a question.

Fat, rolling tears cascade down her face as Clara feels her chest tighten. She takes an uneven step back, gasping for air she feels like isn't enough as she starts crying hysterically. Instantly, her Mother is upon her, hugging her daughter close and tight while she smoothes that same hand down her back again.

"Come here, honey, let's go back to the house. Get you some tea."

Her parents do just that. While Clara is a blubbering mess of tears, they brew some tea and get her a snack, staying right by her side while Clara desperately tries to get herself back under control. Her eyes burn from the stress, so she keeps them locked tight until she's sure she won't accidentally set anything on fire again. When she finally does crack them open, her tears have subsided and there's a warm cup of tea pressed into her hands.

"So I'm an alien," Clara finally says, the words bitter on her tongue.

"First and foremost," Her Father says, moving to crouch in front of her. He cups her hands, as if she was the most prized person he's ever laid his eyes upon. "You're our daughter. And you will always be our daughter. No matter where you came from. Do you understand?"

Eyes red from tears, Clara nods gingerly. She finally does take a sip of the tea, sweet from honey and lemon juice.

"Yeah," Clara murmurs.

"Good, good. I'm glad." He reaches up, and sweeps aside loose hair strands in front of her eyes. "And we'll have to sort out what's going on with those eyes of yours. Does it hurt?"

"No," Clara sniffs. "But I do think I can set things on fire, and I keep... I keep accidentally looking through things."

"Alright. That is an issue... I'm not sure what we can do for the fire eye stuff, but I think I have an idea," He murmurs.

"I think we have a few spare scarecrows we don't use anymore," Clara's Mother points out. She ruffles Clara's hair afterwards, a warm and pleasant smile on her face. "We can practice using those to make sure you get a handle on this. We'll get through this, Clara, I promise."

And they do. When her Father comes back that night, he's carrying a plethora of different boxes and materials from around the farm that he places into the living room, sheepishly admitting he thought there might be a possible weakness to her newfound enhanced vision. After Clara finishes her tea and manages to calm down enough, her parents organize all of the materials in the living room for her to try and look through. One by one Clara is able to look through the material with ease all sorts of woods, stones, and metals unable to stop her.

At least, when she's able to get a handle on her power. Trying to willingly choose when the x-ray vision (what she decided to call it, since there wasn't any other proper name she could bother to muster up), is difficult when she barely has control over when it does flare up. She barely manages to get a handle on it when, finally, the discovery is made. In the form of a small, lead lined box her Dad used to stash his extra ammo in before he upgraded to a bigger and nicer safe he keeps in his closet for emergencies. After a few more test runs, Clara ends the session with a pounding headache and a guarantee that she can see through everything but lead.

An odd specific, but she doesn't care, because she at least has something to stare at and practice with if her powers go haywire again.

The next morning, when Clara walks outside, her Mother is wearing a big grin while dragging one of their old and dusty scarecrows to the open corn field just past the barn. Clara trugs along after her Mother, a shot of worry drowning out her other thoughts.

"Shouldn't we be figuring out how to turn it off?" Clara asks.

"To find the off switch, honey, we need to find what exactly powers it on in the first place," She explains, planting the scarecrow into the middle of the field. Close enough to the fence to easily be put out if needed, but far enough to not smolder Clara's face if she did manage to light it on fire. "

Clara takes stage right behind the fence, her Mother right by her side, as always. There's a lingering sense of doubt and fear that grasps at her chest, making it feel tight and suffocating. As if she might light the whole world ablaze if she didn't get this under control. Her Mother, as if able to sense the shift in mood, gives Clara a small nod and a thumbs up.

Nothing. She strains for a few minutes, before looking towards her Mother and offering a half hearted shrug.

"Why don't you try thinking about what was going on at the time when it happened?" The woman suggests.

Clara's cheeks turn red from the memory, but she quickly pushes it down in favor of looking at her Mother. "Will it work?"

"I'm not sure, but sometimes emotions can power so much in our lives. Why not whatever you can do with your eyes?" She pats her daughter's shoulder, and takes a few steps back. "Just try, sweetie. I see no harm in it."

Hesitantly, Clara turns towards the straw stuffed imitation of a man and sighs. A familiar, bubbling up of heat builds in her chest before her eyes flare, and suddenly, the scarecrow is engulfed in flames. Instantly, a wave of passion and success rolls through her, satisfying and filling all at once. Clara did it. Her Mother, always prone for hugs, sweeps her into one, laughing the whole way. Clara returns it, a smile on her face.

___

Clara is given the crystal, she's gotten her heat vision under control. Not perfectly, as expected, but there's no more random outbursts anymore. Whenever she does find her emotions flaring, her heat vision bubbling up as a result, she's able to quickly put a lock around it and keep it suppressed until it fizzles out. As if covering a stove fire as to remove the oxygen and let it die out. She can recall that image fondly, as her Father always taught her that trick from a young age. Brought her into the kitchen and showed her where all of the pot lids were, insisting water on an oil fire would bring nothing but pain.

The crystal had been tucked into the interior wall of the ship she had landed with when she was just a tiny infant, underneath some plush white lining made of materials none of them could quite understand. Her Father had not breached the sanctuary of the inner chasm just yet, saying it was her birthright to be there when he did so. If anyone deserved to have any clues on where she came from, it was Clara.

The crystal, cold to the touch, was neatly packed into a compartment just behind where her head would have been when she was an infant. It's still startling to look at, to know this is where she came from. To know she crash landed from the sky and found her parents, alien and odd yet loved all the same.

Her Father takes out the crystal from it's little nook and cranny, bright green with power. It's something she's never seen before, but a sudden wave of familiarity tightens at her chest. Instinctively, as if she was born to be in contact with this crystal at some point. The tightness constricts more as she realizes she has no idea why it matters so much to her.

Her hand, soft yet strong, reaches out. And she touches the edge of the crystal, lettering her fingertips drift across the cold, exterior surface of the gem.

Instantly, her mind shifts elsewhere.

Physically, she's still in their living room, pressing her hand against the item that seems so distant yet familiar to her. Her mind, though, is elsewhere. Swiftly stolen away, as if she was projecting elsewhere in the world. The vision feels muffled, soft and dreamy, and somehow so alive all at once.

She sees blurred faces. Two of them hovering over her, whispering sweet goodbyes to their daughter. That vision is brief, and still fills her with grief and loss she would never quite understand. Before she could quite dwell on it, she's swept away elsewhere. To a symbol, one that matches some light symbol she remembers from that tablet her Father had shown her before. Writing in a language neither of them could comprehend. There's a whisper. A soft murmuring voice, sweet and honeyed, humming out the words "Kayla-el" followed by an insisting tone to come to them. As those words wash over her, a calm understanding follows as a cold bitter image of an arctic wasteland comes into view. Ripe with white snow and beautiful crystal water. Again, the voice calls out, calm and somehow pleading in the same tone. "Come to me."

And she understands. She has no idea why she does, yet Clara instinctively knows this is what she needs to do. This is her calling.

Clara comes back to the living room, just mere seconds later, and still a changed woman. She blinks, slowly and methodically, as she sucks in a breath. Her Father, startled by her sudden movement, stares at her. Confused.

"Is everything okay, Clara?" He asks gingerly.

"I think I know where I need to go," Clara explains quietly.

"What?"

"I know where I need to go. What I need to do." She carefully cups the crystal as she brings it into her hands, holding it like a treasure. Her own personal treasure. The key to understanding herself, her origins, everything that's been lingering on her mind ever since her parents took her to the storm cellar.

"I need to go to the arctic," Clara whispers.

Her Father, a man filled with confusion at the moment, goes to open his mouth. Likely to object, she thinks. Yet, after a moment of pondering, his eyes drift across her face and he slowly presses his lips together. For a long moment, he lingers, before sighing.

"Why?" His voice barely above a whisper. "Why that far, sweetie?"

"I can't explain why, I just... need to," Clara explains, her thumb running small circles along the crystal exterior. "Instincts, I suppose. I know what I need to do. I need to bring this out there. I just need to."

"Honey," He whispers out, drawing Clara closer. "I love you, I want you to understand your powers and where you came from but... but that's so far. We're too old to be traveling out anymore. You'd... be on your own, sweetheart."

Clara feels herself swallow a lump in her throat before nodding. "I know."

His expression softens. And it's settled, just like that.

They take a few months to prepare Clara. She needs to get her passport sorted out, pack several bags, and know where to book hotels and what was and was not safe places to travel around. They teach Clara where to store her wallet, how to book flights and what people would do if they tried to pick her pockets. Soon enough, Clara was tugging on her overcoat and bidding her parents heartfelt goodbyes before she heads out into the vast world.

___

Clara finds the place from her vision within the month. She's ripe with enthusiasm, her nose red from the chill yet her body still warm enough to resist needing a thick coat as she rounds the corner. A winter wonderland of ice and snow greets her, familiar and calling to her.

She creeps forward, snow cracking underneath her boot as she glances out across the vast wasteland of nothing. Her hands itch, and the faint draw she's felt here before is blaring throughout her head. She almost wants to call out her presence, but restrains herself. The air is thin, with no sound other than the soft humming of music to accompany her footsteps and shallow breaths.

The gem feels warm, almost burning even though it was firmly tucked into her book bag. As if it were almost humming, ready to be unleashed. There's an insistent, gnawing urge to simply toss it. And she does just that, pulling the crystal out of her bag and throwing it out across the snow bank. Just far enough where she felt like it needed to land.

There's a pause. Nothing happens for just a moment. And right when Clara is about to release her held breath, the ground suddenly starts shaking.

The first crystal slides up, slow and steady as it slowly tears through the ground. Breathtakingly beautiful, admittedly. A second jagged pristine rock enters her vision, and a third. Soon enough, countless glittering rocks emerge from underneath the snow and begin to build upwards around where the glowing green crystal had sunk into the snow. Clara can only watch in fascination as the once empty, desolate area becomes something to behold.

A fortress is what greets her when the movement settles, massive and looming over her. Her birthright. That's the only word that truly suited the palace before her. Meant for her to discover.

Clara feels a sweet relief cross over her as she steps forward, and makes her way to the fortress.

The layout is new to her, but not unfamiliar. Clara easily finds her way through the entrance and down corridors she's never walked before, yet were mapped out perfectly within her mind.

The room she eventually finds herself within has tall ceilings, with large walls and mismatched, disjointed random beams of mineral and ice sticking out randomly. In the center there sits a collection of rocks, decorated in a circular pattern. For a moment, she feels a buzzing in her chest, as if she were the last missing puzzle piece for this room before it finally all connects.

There's a shimmer of light suddenly, so bright and blinding. She can only stare in shock as it begins to morph and change, twisting around itself over and over again. There's a humming in her ears, as if energy itself was twisting and morphing around herself.

"My daughter..." A woman's voice whispers.

Clara chokes on her breath.

That's her. Her biological Mother.

Her face comes into view. A woman, wrinkled with age and sorrow. The hologram hovers in the center of the room, and she looks so fond of her that it brings a stab of pain through her chest.

"You do not remember me," She continues on, to the only audience member in the room. Her daughter. "I'm Laur-el. I'm your Mother."

Clara swallows thickly, her chest tight and suffocating. Grief hitting her all over again for a woman she has never met in her life. Already, she feels tears threaten at her eyes, frantically blinking them back.

"But by now," She says, "You will have reached your eighteenth year as it is measured on earth. By that reckoning I will have been dead for so many of your years. The knowledge I have matters. Physical, historic. I'm giving it to you free on your voyage to your new home. These are important matters, to be sure, but... there are questions to be asked, and it is time for you to do so."

The words feel cryptic enough for Clara's head to spin, yet she can't look away or dare to open her mouth to interrupt this. This woman, her biological Mother, has been dead for thousands of years. And she still went out of her way to leave this for her, for her to know where she came from. Her chest aches again.

"In this fortress of solitude, we shall try to find the answers together," She says. "So, my child, speak..."

"Who am I?" Clara finally manages to choke out.

She's unsure if the hologram can hear her or not. But there's a pause, and the woman answers.

"You are Kayla-el," Her voice speaks, and that stab of familiarity is back tenfold. "You are the only survivor of the planet, Krypton. Even though you have been raised as a human being you are not one of them. Even though you have been raised as a human female you are not one of them, you must becone brave, virtuous and virginal and never mate with a human male. Human males will become fascinated by you but you must not give in to temptations of the flesh, as you are superior and your strength for out weighs theres you could seriously injure one of them."

Even though she's been well aware of this fact for sometime now, the words still bring her a headache. Not a human. Of course she's known for awhile. Humans don't see through walls or burn through scarecrows with their eyes, and aren't as strong or fit as her naturally.

Clara blinks, jolting out of her thoughts. Oh gods. Her strength, it could have... it could have killed Langdon if she had pursued her crush. If she ever gave into her temptations, let his smoldering looks and whispering lips whisk her away into temptation, she would have likely gone too far. Ended his life when all she wanted to do was enjoy sweet pleasure with him for a night.

It's a good thing she did stick to only fingers or toys that always seemed to wilt or snap under her force. That should have been plenty proof enough. The brittle toys that always seemed to bend and break whenever she got too excited, even if just for a second. That could have been Langdon. Destroyed by her desires.

Relief floods through her. Thank god she didn't ever follow her fantasies.

"You have great powers only some of which you have yet discovered. Come with me now my daughter, and discover the truth. Your powers will far exceed those mortals. It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history, yet instead let your powers stir..."

And that's how it begins.

Clara spends years listening to her biological Mother's voice. She explains her origins, her Father who smiled brighter than any sun in the galaxy and how her and her biological Father were saddened they couldn't raise her themselves. She explains of her planet, of how it was lost to destruction and how she was sent of to survive the turmoil. Her words continue, explaining of her powers and the limits, of how strong she was and had only touched the surface of thus far.

Clara listens. She listens to it all. Engrains it into her mind.

Years pass like that. With Clara learning her powers under the guide of a hologram of her biological Mothers head, who murmurs her assurances and teachers her what needs to be done. What the differences between her and humans are. And the knowledge is comforting, even more so when they begin the training.

Clara learns to fully control her vision, learns how to balance her strength and how to fly. She learns what wind feels like in her hair, whipping through the sky like a bird. Clara enjoys learning about her powers, how they rush through her and how freeing it feels to use them.

Her training finishes up soon after she's turned thirty, And, twelve years have passed since she arrived at the Fortress of solitude. Her muscles brimming and her strength unmatched. With thick long hair, just as beautiful as she was twelve years ago, just now matured and grown into an even finer woman. Her face has sharpened, but her eyes were as doughy and warm as always. Her body is that of a model, she thinks, with wider hips and perfect skin. Everything in the right place, slick black hair and perfect rounded lips. Clara has never felt so strong before. So confident. She grins to herself, a woman of power. There's pride to her image, she likes to think, all pretty and perfect.

As he time in the fortress nearly draws to an end, the hologram of her Mother insists she explore the fortress of solitude and find her birthright. Clara does, her mind easily supplying routes and knowledge she never realized she possessed until she walked through this fortress of solitude. It's a pleasant structure she finds comfort in. One that leads her away into a corner of the corridors, into a nice side room where her birthright lay. A uniform. A single uniform. The cloth feels oddly warm as she plucks it between her fingers, soft and strechable. Bright blue and red colors greet her, and she could see the outline of yellow as she turns it over in her hands. It feels nice. Coozy. Taking it out back, she takes her time to strip her clothes slowly. Standing before her reflection, she stares at her body. It might just be her new option in wardrobe, which hugs her skin tightly and only further exaggerates how large her breasts have become.

Then one day Her Mother announces the end of her training with both joy and saddness, her voice bittersweet. "My daughter, the time has come for you to leave, and rejoin the human race." "I agree, I'm ready mother" and Clara says goodbye to her temporary home, she steps up to the air, a confident smile on her face, and flies away.