In the Name of the King (R)

[NYC300Z]

what a run up to Bruce and Lois's wedding! Looks like things are looking up for Bruce...how far off is Clark's wedding? When is Mara coming back?

PPMS!!

[The Black Cat]

Awesome chapter! PPMS!!!

[Cardinal]

Chapter 87

Brois

Bruce quickly found Lois and pulled her aside to explain his jitters and their cause. Kal-El was close enough to see them but purposely didn’t use his super-hearing in order to allow them some sort of privacy. Still, he saw the moment Lois drew Bruce into her arms to comfort him. Kal-El smiled when he saw that; it was nice for him to see another proof of Lois’ softer side before she married his best friend.

After that, Bruce and Lois disappeared for most of the morning to share some private time before lunch. That was fine with Kal-El, as that allowed him to go for a walk atop the walls of the castle with Lana. She was bundled up in her fur robe once again, as were the ladies that were following them at a discreet distance.

“I’ve never seen Lois this consistently happy before,” Lana said. “With the way she burbles with excitement whenever she talks about Bruce, you’d almost think she’s turned into Alicia’s twin.”

“That would take some getting used to,” Kal-El said. “I can’t imagine two sisters who are less alike than those two.”

“Yeah, and to complete the personality switch, Alicia’s been a little bit moody ever since both Lois and I were betrothed.”

“Really?”

“Mmhmm,” Lana said. “I don’t know if she’s jealous of us, or if it’s just because she hasn’t heard anything from Prince Harold since we left Krakovia.”

Kal-El cracked a smile then which he tried to quickly hide, but Lana noticed it. “Are you laughing at Alicia’s pain?” Lana peered at her man more closely. “Or is there something going on that you haven’t told me about yet?”

Kal-El shot Lana a look of pretended annoyance. “It’s a good thing we’re getting married. You’re too good at discovering my secrets.”

“So what’s the secret that involves my little sister?” Lana and Kal-El stopped on the parapet over the gatehouse and looked down at the dizzying drop to the narrow, twisted road that led up to the castle.

“You really want to know?”

“Of course!”

Kal-El shrugged his shoulders, placed an arm around her shoulders, and gave her a squeeze. “Someone should be at the wedding today. A last minute surprise. But I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure he was here…and I haven’t seen him yet.”

“When did you have the time to talk to Prince Harold?”

“I didn’t. But when the special messenger Mother sent to Varshova returned with word that Harry would be leading the Krakovian delegation to our wedding, I asked Lois if it would be okay to invite Harry to come early to Alemannia and attend her wedding.

“When she realized my goal was to get Harry and Alicia together, even if just for a short while, she agreed and sent a letter to Bruce to make sure he included the Krakovians in his preparations. Then, I sent the messenger back to give Harry the official invite to Roskilde, with the unofficial inducement of Alicia being scheduled to be here also.”

“And Alicia has no idea Prince Harold’s on the way?”

“None,” Kal-El affirmed. “Not unless Lois let something slip.”

“Ohhhh!” Lana said excitedly. “Alicia will go crazy if he shows up. I don’t know what Father will think, but according to her, the prince treated her wonderfully after I left to come back here and build the supply base.”

“And I’m guessing the Grand Duke might finally allow Harry to seriously pursue Alicia, now that your family’s fortunes have risen so dramatically. I mean, before now, Harry was likely being shopped around to marry some princess or maybe a powerful duke’s daughter.” Kal-El chuckled. “Lord knows when he spent that year in Alemannia with my family, he tried hard enough to gain Mara’s interest. Unfortunately for him…”

“Yes, I remember,” Lana giggled. “The day we arrived at the winter palace, your sister referred to Prince Harold as ‘Handsy Harry.’”

“What I want to know is: where is he now?”

Lunch was a small affair, only for the friends and family who had spent the night in the castle. No one had much of an appetite, and as soon as the meal was over, Lois disappeared into her rooms to prepare for the wedding. Lana left Kal-El at that time and attended upon her sister, while the prince followed Bruce into his chambers. They’d barely been there a minute, when an anxious knock on the door brought word that Prince Harold of Krakovia had ridden into the castle courtyard.

“Made it after all, did he?” Bruce asked. “I was beginning to wonder.”

Bruce started to head for the courtyard to greet his high-ranking guest, but Kal-El waved him back. “Stay here and make yourself pretty for Lois.” Kal-El started to snicker. “I’ll get Harry and try to keep Alicia from discovering his presence until later…which hopefully will be after the ceremony.”

Kal-El found his friend waiting in the courtyard with his small guard. The two young men greeted each other with a hearty, back-slapping hug.

“Harry, what brings you here?” Kal-El asked. As if I didn’t know.

“I’m here to watch the first Lang girl get married, see the proof of the second one’s betrothal to you, and spend as much time with the third Lang daughter as I can manage.” Then he grinned widely. “Thanks for getting me the invitation, Kal.”

“No problem, Harry. Just don’t screw it up.”

Shortly after Harry arrived at the castle, the wedding guests who had stayed down in the town started arriving in the castle courtyard, and soon they had all been directed to the castle’s chapel. Bruce had strictly limited the guests to one-hundred in number, but even so, the smallish chapel was full when it was time for the wedding to start.

It was too early in the year for flowers to be blooming, especially at this altitude, so the chapel wasn’t strewn with colorful buds, but carefully placed ivy, holly, and mistletoe decorated the altar, the sides of the chapel, and the center aisle.

Kal-El was resplendent in one of his royal white uniform jackets with gold trim and black pants and boots, while Bruce was wearing the brand new red and black dress uniform of his small army. He was proud of the new design, and his people were slowly becoming proud of him. But the only person whose opinion mattered to him - on this day at least - was just coming into the chapel.

The crowd stood as one as Lois started down the aisle, taking measured steps, with Lana behind Lois, holding her train, and Alicia trailing Lana. Lois followed tradition exactly, as her dress was in her father’s own purple and gold colors. The dress was an elegant representation of the royal dressmakers’ art; a masterpiece that hinted without showing, while making the most of Lois’ voluptuous figure.

Lana and Alicia each wore a dress of muted lavender and pale yellow which had been designed to compliment the dress Lois wore without offering any competition. Today of all days, those girls wanted nothing more than to blend into the background and let Lois have center stage. Even so, while everyone else was focused on the bride, Kal-El found his eyes drawn to the small, slender woman who was right behind her.

Lana’s eyes, however, were on her duties. She was just trying to make sure Lois’ train didn’t catch on anything and that she herself didn’t stumble and bring everything to a crashing halt. But once Lois was standing next to Bruce, Lana snuck a peek at Kal-El, only to find him peeking back. They smiled then and turned to face the altar as the bishop took his place.

The bishop had come some distance to perform the marriage. There was a priest in the castle, and another one down in the town, but with a wedding was as important as this one, nothing would do except for the bishop himself to make the trip so he could lend the weight and honor of his office to the proceedings. Standing in front of Lois and Bruce in his richly embroidered ecclesiastical robes and bishop’s miter, the bishop gestured for the crowd to be seated, and then he proceeded with the service.

The bishop’s flowery words and long, drawn-out speech was nothing less than expected, but even so, the time for the exchange of rings and vows was on them soon enough.

“I, Bruce Wayne, take you Lois Lang, to be my wife, to have and to hold for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, from this day forward, until death do us part.” Bruce then slipped the gold wedding band onto Lois’ left ring finger.

Lois had only a moment to marvel at her ring before it was her turn to swear to Bruce before God, the bishop, and their esteemed guests. “I, Lois Lang, take you Bruce Wayne, to be my husband, to have and to hold for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, from this day forward, until death do us part.” Lois then slipped a gold ring onto Bruce’s left ring finger.

The rest of the service passed by in a blur for the Lois and Lana, as both women were teared up and on the verge of crying. Soon enough, the bishop place Lois’ hand in Bruce’s and turned them to face the crowd before he said, “It is my great privilege to introduce to you the Baron and Baroness of Roskilde, Lord Bruce Wayne and his wife, Lady Lois Wayne.”

The crowd rose as one and showered the new couple with cheers and applause as they walked back down the aisle, this time together, with Kal-El and Lana right behind them, as Lana still had to handle Lois’ lengthy train. Alicia was right behind Lana, but all she had to occupy her were her thoughts of Lois and the short and simple ceremony she’d just witnessed…until the she neared the back of the chapel and saw a formal uniform she hadn’t seen since the Harvest Ball back in the palace in Varshova all those months ago.

Alicia slowed her pace and blinked her eyes once, then twice, but still the uniform remained as she remembered. It, too, was red and black, but much different in style from the new uniform Bruce was wearing. This uniform was red and black with silver trim on the jacket’s stiff collar and all across its chest. Alicia finally risked a look up, daring to hope the face would also be as remembered. She was rewarded with the first glimpse she’d had of her prince since leaving their rented manor house in Krakovia months earlier. Her heart leapt and her suddenly scrambled mind had room for only one giddy thought: Harold!

[Nemu]

:D (I feel like im the only one that posts here lol... i miss the runs to get in #1 posts)

That was good!!! Sneaky Kal to get Harry invited... but from the moment you first mentioned Harry and Alicia I knew he would be present somehow..

Sooo.... next up is some Alicia/Harold time? or maybe strictly reception first and then the Alicia/Harry before the big Kalana wedding?

PPMS!!!

[NYC300Z]

Great job on their Bruce and Lois' simple wedding. Looks like Alicia might be getting her dream.

Yes is it now on to Kal and Lana, Alicia and Harold, or Mara and Richard?

PPMS!!

[mysteryman1]

Can't wait for more.

--Byron.

[CaptainObvious]

Nice wedding for Lois and Bruce. I'm so happy for Bruce! Lois too, but Bruce never thought he'd end up with anyone much less with a title to boot. (throwing rice)!

I'd like to hear Harold's comments to Kal about his and Lana's engagement. I don't think he ever thought Kal could pull it off. Now, because of them, he might have be able to wed Alicia.

[ilovethursdays]

happy chapter, lovely wedding :)
PPMS

[Cardinal]

Chapter 88

The Wedding Feast

The bridal couple, their attendants, and the rest of the witnesses headed directly for the castle’s Great Hall, which had been carefully decked out for this moment. Massive fireplaces on both sides of the room roared, keeping the room warm, and pine torches set in highly reflective wall sconces added a merry light. The walls were decorated with more of the ivy, holly, and mistletoe that had been present in the chapel, and the long, wooden trestle tables that filled the room were draped with snow white linens.

As Lord Bruce and his new wife Lady Lois led their guests into the Great Hall, Bruce’s chamberlain directed a bevy of servants to lead the guests to their assigned seats. Bruce and Lois took the center seats at the head table, and normally, they would have alternated men and women from there in a somewhat random order, but knowing both that Prince Harold was expected, and that Alicia would be crazy unless she got to talk to him, Lois had talked to Bruce and had the head table rearranged so that couples were seated together.

Alicia had known about the new couples arrangement ahead of time, but not that Prince Harold was expected to be in attendance, so she had been expecting to sit with her father, as Bruce had only had Kal-El standing up with him during the service. When she reached the head table, she was directed by the new Lady Wayne to sit on Bruce’s left and when she saw her father escorting an unknown lady to a pair of seats on the other side of Prince Kal-El and Lana, Alicia began to hope…and when a somewhat sheepish Prince Harold was escorted to the head table, it was all the girl could to restrain herself from leaping to her feet and waving him over to her.

Good things come to those who wait - in this case anyway - as the servant held the empty chair next to Alicia and helped seat Prince Harold right next to her. Suddenly, Alicia’s appetite went from voracious to nonexistent, and she couldn’t quite make her eyes meet his. Very conscious of the fact that Alicia had three blood relatives sitting at the table with her - one of which was his hostess - Harold was extra careful with what he said and did.

“Hello, Alicia,” Harold said. “I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to see you again.”

“Hi, Harold,” Alicia replied, as finally ventured a look at his face, only to shyly look away from him again. “I was beginning to think I’d never hear from you again.” She bit her lower lip and then continued, determined to say what was on her mind. “I noticed the lack of letters from you after our family left Krakovia.”

“That’s true. I owe you a profound apology for that and an explanation, but we don’t have the time for those things right now. Please allow me the chance to set things straight after the meal.”

“When our time is our own and we don’t have an audience?”

“Exactly,” Harold said.

“I’ll think about it,” Alicia said, “but I won’t make any promises.”

Internally, Alicia was as excited as she could possibly be, but she hadn’t been lying when she said she hadn’t received a single letter from Prince Harold in the months since she, Lewis, and Lois had left Krakovia to return to Roskilde. That was a long time for any woman, but more so for a fifteen-year-old young woman who was new to romance. Alicia fully intended to give Harold his chance, but she wanted to make him sweat a little first. She thought he needed to know she wasn’t to be taken for granted.

The wedding feast itself commenced almost as soon as the last guest was seated. Bruce stood, and thanked them all for honoring his lady wife - he gestured at Lois - and himself by making the arduous journey to this distant outpost of the kingdom. Once Bruce had thanked the guests, he looked at his chamberlain and nodded. That was all it took for a seeming flood of servants to rush in with the first course of the meal. When everyone had been served, Lois rose and stood next to her husband to perform her role as hostess.

“Be welcome, and enjoy the bounty of our table,” Lois said. “Everyone please eat.”

The dinner had many courses and barrel upon barrel of wine to drink; thus fueled, the celebration lasted from late afternoon well into the evening. There were many toasts to the health and happiness of the newlyweds, toasts that tended to become slurred over time. Kal-El couldn’t get drunk even if he wanted to, and Lana was being very careful to drink small portions of well-watered wine as she ate. She well knew that a lady in her position couldn’t afford to bring shame on the royal family, her betrothed, or herself. But there were enough of the other celebrants who didn’t mind what they did to keep things lively for all.

Kal-El and Lana had one more official duty that night, and that was to decide when it was time to end things so the ladies present could take Lois off to prepare for bed. It was their job because they were the ones who’d stood up with the newlyweds as their best man and maid of honor, but both of them leaned on Lana’s father’s experience to help them decide.

Lewis paid close attention, wanting to balance the desires of the crowd to celebrate with the need for people who could still walk and talk well enough to help his eldest daughter and his new son-in-law get into bed together with a minimum of fuss. When he’d seen enough, he leaned over and tapped Lana on the shoulder.

“Hmm?” Lana asked, when she’d turned to Lewis.

“It’s time,” Lewis replied.

That was all he needed to say. Lana nudged Kal-El and passed on her father’s judgment, and then he stood and raised his voice enough to get everyone’s attention. Once the dull roar of conversation had subsided, Lana stood, and said, “Ladies, it’s time we take my sister upstairs. She needs to be made ready to receive her lord and master.” Lana wanted to snicker at the very idea of any man thinking he was Lois’ master, but this wording was an old tradition in what was still a very traditional land…her own rise to prominence notwithstanding.

That was the formal signal for the women to rise and escort Lois from the room. For some of the ladies, that was as far as they went before retiring to a smaller room which was set up for their comfort as they gossiped, snacked, and had the kinds of conversations that women can’t really have in the presence of men. High on the list of topics that everyone talked about was how Lady Lois would do in performing this most essential wifely duty. Some of the more drunk women even ventured to say that after getting a good, long look at Lord Bruce, they wouldn’t mind taking her place in the marriage bed.

Thankfully for everyone involved, Lois wasn’t able to hear that, as she and her escorts were now approaching her rooms. Lana, Alicia, and several other women Lois had become close to over the winter had guided her down the halls, teasing her about what was to come all the while. The married women in their midst were both the most vocal and the most explicit. Lois knew the mechanics of what was to happen, but that didn’t help her with her nerves. This was the beginning of her primary job: to produce a male heir, and at least a couple of spares.

The idea of having children was one Lois hadn’t even seriously thought about until she began to become serious about Bruce. While she’d admitted to her sisters that she’d always been interested in the idea of sex, she’d always found the thought of becoming a mother to be rather intimidating, especially given the way women tended to die in her family. She knew her father had been married three times already and that none of his wives had survived very long after giving birth. It was just another piece of information to think about; one that she and Lana had talked over a lot recently.

But those fears were for another day. Today, she had married the man of her dreams, and as the ladies helped her out of her wedding dress and into a nightgown, her mind was racing with thoughts about what she and Bruce were about to do.

The men, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the absence of the women to draw in closer to Bruce. While the ladies had been fairly light in their teasing of Lois, the men were much more explicit and brutal as they went after Bruce. They made all sorts of comments, ranging from wondering how he could possibly hope to please his new wife with such small ‘equipment,’ to what a waste it was for such a beautiful young woman to be the bride of such a decrepit old man. Bruce took all the comments about himself with humor and good grace, while not even the drunkest among the men was stupid enough to make a teasing comment about Lois.

Once Lois was dressed, she climbed into bed, and her sisters went to work on arranging her hair on the pillow just so for Bruce’s entrance, while a couple of the other ladies went back down to the Great Hall to inform the men that it was time for Bruce to prepare himself to do his duty.

Bruce had been careful to moderate his alcohol intake during the lengthy meal, as he knew the old saying that ‘strong drink giveth the desire, but taketh away the ability.’ He was not about to be drunk and unable to perform on his wedding night. No way.

Now, as he rose to his feet, most of the men abused him with one last torrent of good-natured, intentionally useless tips on pleasing his wife, while Kal-El and a few other friends rose with him to follow him up to his room. He didn’t need any help, but this was a tradition, one that passed in silence as Bruce quickly undressed and pulled on a heavy nightshirt.

Only when Bruce was dressed and ready did he show anything other than quiet confidence, and then, the small crowd around Bruce could see a bit of apprehension on his face.

“What’s wrong, Old Man?” Kal-El chuckled.

“Can’t get it up?” another man, know to one and all as Brankovic, wondered aloud. That caused snickers from several other men in the group, and brought a sharp retort from Bruce.

“Maybe if I had married your sister, Brankovic,” the newly married baron shot back. “I can’t imagine having to service her.” The guys laughed in turn at Bruce’s comeback, as there was a running debate amongst the single men at court over which one of them would end up marrying the less than pleasant, less than beautiful girl just to get his hands on her rather sizable dowry. “Come on now men, lead me to my bride before Brankovic forgets how unattractive his sister truly is and decides to challenge me over the matter.”

Kal-El decided Bruce was right. They’d better get him alone with Lois before the already rough teasing escalated into something more. Looking at Brankovic’s red face, Kal-El surmised that the only two things keeping him from challenging Bruce on the spot were Bruce’s underserved reputation as a vicious killer and the fact that this was his wedding day.

Both of those were true, but unbeknownst to Kal-El, Brankovic had another reason: he was one of the many men at court who had suddenly decided Lady Alicia would make a suitable wife, and he figured that trying to kill her brother-in-law was not the way to interest either her father or herself.

The walk from the lord’s sleeping quarters to those of his lady wife was short, and soon Kal-El was knocking sharply on the oaken door.

“Who is it?” came the somewhat muffled words from inside. Kal-El didn’t know who spoke them, only that it wasn’t either Lana or Alicia.

“We’ve brought Lord Bruce to lie with his wife and do his duty by her,” Kal-El replied.

The door opened.

“Then let him come in.”

Bruce left his male escort and was led to the middle of the room, where Lana and Alicia met him.

“You may be thinking of Lois as the brash, confident woman you’ve always known,” Lana said very quietly, “but tonight, she’s nervous. Though she won’t say it directly, I think she’s worried about pleasing you.”

“She pleases me already,” Bruce replied, as he looked over Lana’s shoulder and saw his wife in her bed. “I don’t think she could ever not please me.”

“Then let her know that, Bruce,” Alicia said.

Lana nodded in agreement. “Give her a little reassurance. Help her to relax.”

“Okay. I think I can do that.” And thus saying, Bruce moved past his sisters-in-law and moved bedside. “Hi, Lois.”

“Hi, Bruce. Time to make a baby?”

“If we’re lucky, but what I’m here for is to make love with you. A baby would just be a bonus.” He gestured at the open space in her large bed. “May I join you?”

“Please do,” Lois answered.

The room had already emptied of watchers by the time Bruce had started talking to Lois, and everyone except for Lana, Alicia, and Kal-El had gone on ahead to rejoin the other celebrants. The only reason Kal-El and Lana hadn’t joined them was because Alicia had held them back.

“What’s up, Alicia?” Lana asked. Kal-El just took Lana’s hand and listened.

“I…I want your help. Both of you.”

“Whatever you need, you’ll get,” Lana assured her.

Kal-El figured Lana’s statement covered him, too, so he didn’t say anything, but after Lana gently elbowed him in the gut, he spoke up. “Oh, yes, I’ll be pleased to help.”

“Thanks.” Alicia was so distracted by what she was thinking about that she hadn’t noticed Lana elbowing Kal-El, and Kal-El wasn’t quite sure she’d heard him anyway. “What I need is for you two to be my escort, my chaperones you might say, when I have a private talk with Harold tomorrow.”

“What happened between you two during the meal?” Lana asked excitedly.

Alicia relayed how they’d talked and how she’d made it clear that Harold had some work to do to get back in her good graces. Then she said, “Any woman could do if all I wanted was someone to protect my reputation, but I want you two there for support. I’m not always as strong as I should be, and I’m afraid if he gets me off alone with no one but a maid watching us, he’ll turn on the charm and I’ll melt into his arms without the slightest apology or explanation from him.”

When Alicia finished, she was quite emotional and Lana quickly pulled her younger sister into her arms for a fierce hug. Kal-El watched the two remaining Lang sisters and wondered what Harry had done. Maybe he is just a jackass when it comes to women. I know Mara would agree with that assessment.

Later that evening, when the party was finally breaking up and everyone was returning to their accommodations for the night, Kal-El pulled Lana aside just long enough for Lana to catch him up on the state of things between Alicia and Harold.

“I think she’s in love with him,” Lana said, “but once she left Krakovia, she didn’t get a single letter from him. Not even after we came to the palace for the winter. It had to have felt to her like he had been toying with her affections and that once she was gone, he had forgotten all about her.”

“And yet she still loves him.” When Kal-El said it, it was a statement, not a question. He’d seen the emotional distress on Alicia’s face and had known just what this meant to the girl.

“Prince or not,” Kal-El said darkly, “he’d better be begging on his knees if he expects her to take him back. To not even write…” Kal-El rand a hand through his unruly curls. “I was in the middle of a war and I found time to write to you. Thinking of you and of what was happening with you drove me to distraction, and yet Harry, who was safe and secure at home, couldn’t be bothered to write? That’s a bunch of crap. You don’t treat the woman you love like that.”

[Nemu]

:D

Well I like Kal's reaction at the end...

Also the exchange between Lana and Kal in their support of Alicia... Kal assuming Lana was talking for both and Lana wanting his input as well and not presuming talking for him...

Lol to the Brois for some obscure reason... I dunno... maybe its the so simple way they greet each other... Hi! as they are at their bed...

Good chapter!!!

PPMS!!!

[mysteryman1]

Can't wait for more.

--Byron.

[CaptainObvious]

And here I thought our young Lady Alicia would crumble to mush at the first chance to chat with Prince Harold again! Good for her for making him earn her respect. I can't wait to hear Harold's "profound apology" for why he didn't write her during their long absence. It better be good! I enjoyed Kal's response, "That's a bunch of crap", as he couldn't fathom anyone not writing to the one they love regardless of the situation.

I'm looking forward to reading a comment about how Bruce and Lois's first night together went...even if it's just a short blurb. My guess is Sir Bruce helped Lois relax quite nicely!! Than again, with Lois, it might have been the other way around!

[CaptainObvious]

I almost forgot......who's this Brankovic dude who has his eye on Alicia? What do we know about him besides he lseems to have a big mouth for rude comments and has a not so attractive sister? My guess is Prince Harold trumps Sir Big Mouth on the hierachy tree.

[NYC300Z]

Seemed to be a very nice feast for the wedding. Bruce and Lois getting ready was kinda cute. I wonder what Harold's excuse will be and if it will be good enough?

PPMS!

[Cardinal]

Chapter 89

A Quiet Meal

The morning after the wedding, the castle’s guests shared a quiet breakfast in the Great Hall. Now that at least half of the seats were empty, the room seemed almost cavernous compared to how crowded it had been during the wedding feast. Kal-El and Lana had claimed a corner for themselves, and anyone who thought to intrude on their solitude quickly chose another place to sit after the prince glared at them. Lana giggled after the fourth time that happened, which earned her a look of slightly strained patience.

“What did I do?” Lana asked.

“Is wanting some time alone with you too much to ask?” Kal-El grumbled. “It’s bad enough these people can’t let us eat in peace, but I’d at least thought you would be supporting me.”

Lana knew she was just a convenient target for Kal-El’s irritation over the interruptions, but after a moment’s reflection she thought it might be good for her to explain. “I do,” she replied, “but you just looked so fierce when you glared at whoever walked up, and they invariably jumped like they were afraid you’d hurt them.”

Kal-El’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? I didn’t notice.”

“Of course not. You’re too bleary eyed this morning to notice much of anything, which is funny, because I always thought you couldn’t get drunk.”

“I can’t normally, which is what I was thinking all during the feast, as I drank that decent red wine Bruce was serving.”

“But…?” Lana asked.

“But you’re still wearing that training medallion I gave you for protection. I’m so used to my powers fading away when I’m near you that I forgot that also means alcohol can affect me.”

Lana leaned in to check Kal-El’s eyes. “Did you get drunk?”

“I don’t think so.” Kal-El thought for a few moments. “Not stinking drunk anyway, as I don’t remember having slurred speech or any trouble with physical coordination.”

“Me neither.” Lana patted his forearm. “But you are slightly hungover. That explains why you’re so gruff this morning.”

“Not to you though.”

“No,” she conceded, “somehow I get nothing but love from you.”

“Heh,” Kal-El chuckled. “Sometimes I think the love I show you is merely a poor reflection of what you shower me with.” Before Lana could voice her protest, Kal-El added, “But I do love you so very much, Lana.”

“See?” Lana said triumphantly. “You made my point for me. Who was first to profess love today? You were, and you usually are.” Lana leaned her shoulder against Kal-El’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around his. “I love you, too, Kal.” She squeezed his arm. “You can’t know how jealous the women of the court are that you love me, and that you are so willing to make sure I know it. And believe me, that second part is as important as the first part.”

Kal-El closed his eyes and luxuriated in the knowledge that he loved, and was loved by, the finest woman he knew. Some might think him lucky to have Kryptonian abilities, or to be a crown prince, or to have wealth almost beyond imagining, and he wouldn’t disagree on any of those points, but he was certain his greatest luck had been running into a grubby ‘stable girl’ and giving her some horses to look after. She’d taken the horses, and soon after, had taken his heart as well.

“As far as the hangover goes,” Kal-El finally murmured, “I can get rid of it pretty easily once we leave here. All I have to do is step away from you and get a bit of direct sunlight. That’s the theory anyway, but I’ve never been hungover before, so I’ve never gotten to test the idea.”

Then Kal-El opened his eyes and looked down at Lana. “You know, I’m going to have to speak to Mother when we get back about putting you and me through ‘the procedure’ as soon as possible.”

“Why?”

“It just occurred to me that while your training medallion keeps you safe from being messed with by Kryptonians, it puts me in real danger every time you’re near me.”

Lana sat up straight and immediately tried to wrench the medallion from around her neck, but Kal-El held her arms down at her side. “Stop it, Kal! Stop it!” she shouted. “Let me take the damned thing off!”

The hall was only half full, but everyone in it turned briefly to look at Lana as she screamed. When they realized it was a personal matter between the prince and his lady, they quickly returned to their own meals and conversations, because while everyone wanted to know the prince’s business, no one wanted to be caught looking.

Meanwhile, Lana was still struggling against Kal-El. In her mind, she was imagining a torrent of scenarios where people who sought to harm her beloved Kal were able to succeed because of her nearness to him, and she couldn’t stand it. She kept trying to raise her arms, and rid herself of the medallion, but he wouldn’t allow it. When he started rocking Lana from side to side on the hard wooden bench while trying to soothe her by whispering quietly into her ear, she broke down and began to cry, once again leaning against his shoulder.

“You know I’ll take it off and throw it away once you’re out of sight,” Lana sobbed, “so quit fighting me, you big bully.”

“If you do, I’ll borrow another from Bruce’s swordmaster, and wear it everywhere I go. At least that way, you’ll be protected whenever you’re near me.”

“You fool!” Lana hissed. Her anger at Kal-El’s stupidity was growing by leaps and bounds and quickly leapt past the strength of her initial emotional reaction. “You can’t afford to do that. In case you’ve forgotten, you are more important to the kingdom than I am.”

Kal-El hated that she’d made this argument, mostly because it was one he couldn’t refute. He knew as well as Lana did that if she died, he would be crushed, but the kingdom would move on. If he died, on the other hand, it would cause chaos that would end with his parents forced to divorce, and his father having to marry a girl who would likely be not much older than Mara, just to give him the best chance of fathering heirs.

There was also the likelihood, which Lana hadn’t mentioned yet, that the threat to her was one of humiliation, with the goal of preventing her from marrying him. The threat to him was generally judged to be slim, but it was definitely of the life-threatening variety.

“I could have gone all day without being called a fool, but when you’re right, you’re right,” Kal-El said ruefully. “But, you’re not taking that off until we can get a lead-lined box to store it in. If we give it to a servant now, there’s no telling who might end up with it…and that someone could use it against me when I wasn’t expecting it.

“And as for why I gave you this thing in the first place…I guess I’m just used to being invulnerable. When I gave you the medallion, I knew being near you would take away my abilities, but it never occurred to me that I would also lose my protection.” Kal-El turned fully toward Lana and took both of her hands in his. “I made a mistake, a big mistake. I never should have given you this medallion and put you into the position of putting me at risk just by wearing it. It was a ridiculously thoughtless thing to do on my part and I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

Gone were Lana’s tears. All that was left for Kal-El to see on her face was a tremulous smile. “Yes, of course I’ll forgive you. Especially when you ask so nicely.” She caught sight of Alicia out of the corner of her eye and added, “We can only hope Harold apologizes half so well to Alicia.” Then she looked around the room for Harold, but didn’t see him. “Where is he?”

“Walking,” Kal-El said, “and thinking.”

“About Alicia?”

“Sort of…more like thinking about how he’ll try to apologize.”

“How do you know that?” Lana asked.

“I ran into him on the way down. It seems it occurred to him just this morning that this may be his one and only chance to make things right with Alicia.”

“Did you offer him any encouragement?”

“No,” Kal-El replied, “he screwed up, so I think he should have to sweat it out on his own. The only person who should be offering him encouragement right now is Alicia, and only when she thinks he’s earned it.”

Lana and Kal-El each took a sip of from their cups and sat quietly for a moment. He was contemplating what his old friend Harry was facing, but she was thinking about something different.

“Kal?” Lana asked, as she looked up and fluttered her eyelashes at him in a very dewy, doe-like manner. It was a look that had always worked on her father. She had hopes her future husband was just as susceptible.

“Hmm?” Kal-El looked down into Lana’s eyes, and could feel himself being sucked in. He didn’t know what she was about to ask for, but he had a feeling it was going to be big…he also had a feeling he was going to be granting her request, no matter what it was.

“Do you think you could fly up to the palace and ask your mother to fly back here with you so we could do ‘the procedure’ here? Because once that’s done, we won’t have to worry anymore about what might happen if I do or don’t wear that thing.” As Kal-El mulled over Lana’s proposal, she added, in a small, hopeful voice, “Besides, I’ve been itching to fly again ever since you took me for that first flight back in Krakovia.”

“Hmm…Mother won’t be swayed by arguments about either romance or convenience…but safety concerns will make flames start licking her fingertips.” Kal-El smiled as he remembered the night Sir Bruce had led his new squire away from the summer palace. His mother had torched two tall trees as a warning to the knight about what would happen to him if her son was not returned to her in the shape in which he was being sent out. Kal-El reflected that his mother could be difficult at times, but when her family was in danger, everything else became secondary.

“Flames licking her fingertips?” Lana asked.

“Not literally, but she does like to make use of flame,” Kal-El replied, “just ask Bruce. During my magic training, she always said fire was one of the showiest things that could be done with magic. She said the fear and respect everyone has for fire makes it easy to use it to reinforce important points.”

“Reinforce? You mean make threats.”

“I prefer the term promises in Mother’s case. She always follows through on what she said she would do after someone crosses her.” Kal-El used a fingertip to stir the crumbs of his breakfast on his plate. “After we support Alicia during her meeting with Harry, I’ll go see Mother. But keep your schedule clear for the rest of the day. If Mother decides we need to do this, she may come back with me and do it tonight.”

[Nemu]

:D

Well that was interesting... Lana made him realise things...

I like the parts about Lara that will likely make her fly to Roskilde asap to do the procedure...

Now I can't wait for the Alicia/Harold meeting... should be interesting...

PPMS!!!

[NYC300Z]

lol Lana and Kal's argument....let me take it off Kal...could have been overheard to mean something totally different.

I wonder if Kal's mother will see it in the same light or just tell Kal to have Lana remove the necklace....

Will Harry be forgiven?

How much longer til Mara makes it back?

[Cardinal]

Chapter 90

Chaperones

Alicia, Lana, and Kal-El stood together on one side of the audience chamber that her father had used when wanting to make a meeting feel more personal than was possible in the spacious Great Hall. Alicia had tasked a servant with finding Harold and escorting him back to the audience chamber, and the three of them were talking quietly while they waited.

“You’ll do fine,” Lana assured her sister. “Just remember that he’s the one that’s in the wrong here.”

“Harry’s basically a good guy,” Kal-El added. “But like me, he’s not used to having to explain himself very often, so he may be a little bit awkward.”

“In that case, awkward’s okay,” Alicia replied, “in fact, it may be preferred.” When both Lana and Kal-El raised their eyebrows at that, Alicia said, “If he’s being awkward, then maybe he’s not going off some script he’s prepared beforehand.”

Lana nodded her head in agreement, as she wondered at how maturely her little sister was reacting to this whole thing. She’d half expected Alicia to race into Prince Harold’s arms as soon as she saw him, and then she’d sort of expected Alicia to accept any attempt at an apology that the prince managed to make, but now it was clear Alicia was serious about this. Lana realized this Alicia was not quite the same girl as the one that had traveled to the royal palace at the beginning of winter.

Lana was chagrined to realize she’d spent so much time with Kal-El and on her various duties that she hadn’t spent much time with her sisters. Lois had obviously been busy with Bruce, but she had little idea of how Alicia had been spending her time. All Lana knew for sure was that a winter in the big city had helped her sister grow up. She wondered if Prince Harold had any idea this was not the same Alicia he’d last seen several months ago. If not, Lana thought, he’s in for a rude awakening.

Harold made his way into the room a few minutes later. Alicia’s eyes lit up upon seeing him, but she quickly mastered her emotions and turned to Lana and Kal-El to say, “Wish me luck!”

“You don’t need it; not now.” Lana said. Kal-El just smiled supportively and slid an arm around Lana’s shoulders. Alicia walked far enough away from Lana and Kal-El to gain some privacy and then waited. She was going to make Harold come to her.

When Alicia had walked far enough to be out of hearing range, Kal-El put his lips near Lana’s ear and asked, “Would you like me to listen in on their conversation?”

Lana’s first reaction - the reaction of a protective older sister - was to say yes. She wanted to know what the prince said in case he tried to pull a fast one, but that thought didn’t last long. Alicia had shown remarkable maturity in dealing with Prince Harold to this point; Lana figured Alicia had earned the right to be allowed to handle this by herself. Still, if Alicia decided she needed support, she knew Kal-El and Lana were ready. That will have to be enough, Lana thought.

“No, don’t listen in,” Lana said at last.

“Okay, she’s your sister.”

As Harold approached Alicia, his head was held high and he favored her with a confident grin, but he couldn’t keep his hands still, and that was a dead giveaway to Kal-El. “See the way Harry’s twisting his hands?”

“Yeah. What about it?” Lana replied.

“That just confirms he’s really nervous about this.”

“Good. Alicia deserves someone who appreciates her.”

Lana and Kal-El settled in to watch as Harold offered Alicia his arm. She accepted it and together they walked to the far end of the room to gain a little more privacy.

“Thank you for seeing me, Alicia,” Harold said, as he turned to face her. “I am sorry.” The words were said slowly and carefully by a man who was not used to needing to apologize or explain much of anything to anyone. “As a man who has strong feelings for you, and who hopes those feelings will grow into something more, I should have written you, often, to keep the embers of our relationship alive. Instead, I am ashamed to admit I allowed palace politics and my own indecision to keep me from writing.

“There is nothing to excuse my behavior, nothing to absolve me of responsibility. I made a mistake that hurt you, and for that, I am truly sorry.” Harold sank to one knee then, surprising everyone in the room. “Will you forgive me and allow me another chance to show how much you mean to me?”

Alicia was stunned into silence. She had steeled herself for some big snow job about how he had been prevented from writing to her, but his abject apology had just cut the legs out from under her. Harold waited breathlessly on bended knee, as she struggled to calm her thoughts. Even Lana and Kal-El were paying close attention once Harold’s knee hit the floor.

“What do you think he said?” Lana murmured.

“No idea,” Kal-El replied. “You told me to not listen, remember?”

Lana was tempted to elbow Kal-El in the gut, but settled for rolling her eyes.

“But,” Kal-El said, “seeing Harry on his knees makes me think he’s begging for mercy.”

“Poor Alicia looks shocked.”

Alicia swallowed hard and gathered her composure. “I don’t know if I can, Harold. You hurt me…hurt me a lot. I waited day after day for some small token of your regard. At first, I assumed I hadn’t received anything because we left Roskilde for Königsberg too soon for the mail to catch up to us. And when nothing came to me at the palace, I told myself that the winter weather was slowing your letters. But neither excuse was true. I was just fooling myself.

“I understand the politics of royal marriages; spending this winter in the palace has been eye-opening in that regard. I know now that your father was unlikely to allow us to be together, but…damn you!…you could have said something. After a few months of waiting, I began to give up hope.” Tears were filling Alicia’s eyes, as she quietly said, “All you had to do was send one little note telling me what was going on and why we couldn’t be together. That’s all I would have required.”

“Please…” Harold pled, as he reached out and grasped Alicia’s hands. “I know I messed up and don’t deserve a second chance, but what do you want? Don’t choose for me. Choose for you. What do you want, Alicia?”

When Harold put it to Alicia like that, her choice was easier. “I want a man who wants me more anything. I want the man I thought you were back in Krakovia. I really do.” Harold ventured a hopeful smile, but Alicia continued to speak. “So I’ll give you another chance; the same chance every other noble in the kingdom has. Prove yourself to me, Harold. Win me all over again.”

Lana and Kal-El watched with bated breath as Harold rose to his feet. When he offered Alicia his arm and they walked toward their ‘chaperones,’ the tears in both sets of eyes were plain to see.

“What happened?” Lana asked anxiously.

“No hug…maybe she dumped him,” Kal-El replied. He couldn’t read the expression on Harry’s face as he and Alicia approached. “Maybe I should go with Harry while you talk to Alicia.”

“Good idea. I’ll meet you in the Great Hall for lunch.”

“Do you think Bruce and Lois will have left their bed in time for lunch?”

“Kal!” Lana exclaimed, “we’re supposed to pretend they don’t exist until they come back amongst us.”

“I know. I know,” Kal-El said. “It’s not polite to mention the newlyweds for fear of mentioning what they are doing.” He grumbled lightly and then added, “It’s a stupid tradition. I can’t help but think of what they’re doing.”

Lana blushed and was kept from replying by the arrival of Alicia and Harold.

“Harold and I have reached an understanding,” Alicia said. “He apologized, and I decided to give him the chance to win me back.”

“And I,” Harold said, as he gave Alicia a grateful look, “am happy to have that chance.”

Lana took Alicia then and headed off to find somewhere private and comfortable so they could have a some much-needed girl talk. Kal-El waited with Harry and watched the two Lang women disappear from their sight.

“Good job,” Kal-El said. “I thought you might mess that up. What did you say?”

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “When you have no defense, the only way forward is the truth. I told her I messed up and pleaded for another chance.”

Kal-El folded his hands behind his back. “I don’t have so much experience with women, so I don’t feel like I can give you much in the way of advice. I’ll just limit myself to this: don’t ruin this chance; I suspect it’s your last one.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to waste a moment.” Harry peered up at Kal-El. “In fact, with your kind permission, I intend to return with your party to the palace. Officially, I’m staying in Alemannia to attend your wedding, but I fully intend to use those six months to pursue Lady Alicia. One way or another, she’ll know what I feel. I can only hope that’s enough.”

“I’ve got one more piece of advice, Harry.”

“Oh? What?”

“Go to your room and write a love letter to hand to her just before we leave for home tomorrow morning,” Kal-El said. “Pour out your heart to her. Give her something she can read, savor, and reread all the way home.”

“That sounds good, Kal. Thanks. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Keep writing her all the way home. Keep her on her toes. Make her wonder what you’ll do for her next.” Harry grinned in anticipation of beginning his campaign to win Alicia’s heart, as Kal-El added, “Look at this trip back to the palace as a headstart for you to win her back.”

Meanwhile, Lana and Alicia had found a suitable room and had sent off for a pot of piping hot tea to sip on while they chatted. A merry fire burned brightly in the fireplace, and the girls sank into a pair of comfy chairs.

“So,” Lana began, “tell me what happened.”

Alicia was proud of herself for standing up to the prince and happily related every moment to Lana in loving detail. Lana stopped her a couple of times to ask questions, but she mostly provided a rapt audience of one for Alicia. When the story came to the end, a servant showed up with a tray of tea, sugar, spoons, and cups. Once the girls had made their cups the way they wanted, they returned to Alicia’s story.

“That was a very shrewd compromise, Alicia. Very nice. Halfway between taking him back and kicking his behind out the door.” Lana took a sip of her hot tea. “I’m proud of you, and Father will be, too.”

“Thanks,” Alicia replied. Before she could fully bask in her older sister’s approval, the mention of their father brought another idea to mind. “Who was that woman he was with at the wedding dinner? She wasn’t with us on the trip down here.”

“No, she wasn’t, and I don’t know who she is either.” Lana shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “He’s an adult, and he’s been alone for well over ten years. Now that Lois and I are spoken for, and he only has one daughter left to marry off, maybe he’s finally looking after his own needs.”

The two girls sipped their tea and traded comments on the wedding until something that had been bothering Alicia finally came to the forefront of her mind. “You don’t think Father has…”

Lana quickly picked up on Alicia’s concern, and finished the sentence her more delicate sister had been unable to complete. “…has slept with one or more of those widows he’s been seeing?” Both girls shivered at the thought of their father doing that with anyone, whether that person was his wife or not. “Next subject please. Quickly!”

[Nemu]

:D

Very well played by both Harry and Alicia... It will be interesting to see just what extent Harry will go to win her back...

And that closing of the chapter had me laughing... scary and scarring thoughts for those 2 girls...

PPMS!!

[NYC300Z]

next topic please quickly! lol

Seems Alicia is playing hard to get for sure.

Bruce and Lois ha ha
.
How long before they return to the Palace tomorro was it?

PPMS!

[Cardinal]

Chapter 91

The Procedure

Lord Bruce and Lady Lois didn’t come down from their bridal bedroom until late-afternoon. Lana later found out they’d had a massive lunch sent up to their room, a happening that had been the cause of much mirth amongst the guests, especially the older ones who could still remember that first morning. The older guests had been chuckling and making quiet comments about how Lord Bruce was likely going to need that much food to regain his strength if his young bride was keeping him occupied for that long.

Bruce and Lois hosted another sumptuous evening meal for their guests. This one was a farewell feast since most of the guests were leaving for their homes, or for the royal court, in the morning. Lana and Kal-El, however, were not able to attend the farewell dinner, as Kal-El returned with his mother in tow less than an hour before the meal.

Annoyed by her son’s stupidity in giving Lana the training medallion in the first place, and secretly annoyed at herself for not picking up on the security risks herself, Queen Lara arrived in what could only be described as a foul mood.

Even by her standards.

That bad mood did not, however, extend to Lana. Lara had worked hard at improving her relations with her son’s intended bride and had no interest in damaging that fragile relationship with an intemperate remark. Plus, she admired the forceful stand Lana had taken with regard to Kal-El’s asinine insistence that she continue to wear the damned thing. Everyone else got the rough side of her tongue, however, and Kal-El was most definitely on top of that list.

“Come on, Boy,” she growled at her son. “Go find Lady Lana so we can be about our business.” Lara nervously fingered a small lead box as Kal-El disappeared into the castle proper in a flash.

While Lana was waiting for Kal-El to return with his mother, she was in her room with Alicia, where the two of them had been talking about Lois for some time now and had just started in on Harold. “He’s been locked away in his room all afternoon, Lana,” Alicia said. “You’d think he’d be out here trying to win me back. Maybe…maybe he just doesn’t want me that strongly.”

Lana could hear the fear in Alicia’s voice, and she did what she could to soothe her without revealing any confidences. “I think he’s busy with something important,” Lana said. “Something you may very well like.”

“What?” Alicia asked eagerly. “You know something! Tell me!”

“Sorry, Kal told me what little I know, and I promised him that I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Lana said. “I only told you what I did because I know you’re still hurting.” Lana patted Alicia on the shoulders. “Trust me. Your Harold isn’t done with you yet.”

Just then the girls heard a rapid knocking on the door. When they called out to give permission to enter, a maid stepped into the room. Lana then signaled for the maid to speak.

“Lady Lana, His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Kal-El, commanded me to tell you that it is time.” The message didn’t make any sense to the maid, but she was used to the weirdness of the nobility.

Lana, of course, knew exactly what Kal-El was referring to. Talking with Alicia all this time had been a fun way to catch up with her little sister, but it had also been a way for Lana to take her mind off of the possible arrival of the queen and what that would mean for her.

Lana rose from her seat. Alicia rose with her, and asked a question she’d been dying to ask ever since she’d learned about this procedure to which Lana was going to be subjected. “So…if this procedure thingy works out as planned, then you’ll come back as strong and as fast as one of them?”

“Yes,” Lana replied. “As I understand it, I will be one of them, abilities and all.”

“Will you be able to perform magic spells?”

“I guess so,” Lana replied. “Kal says he and his father rarely use their magic abilities, as the use of their energy for spells reduces the energy they have available for their physical abilities.” She saw the maid almost bouncing on her toes with nervousness. Oh yeah, Lana thought, she’s nervous because I’m keeping the prince waiting. “Sorry, Alicia, I’ve gotta go.”

The sisters kissed each other’s cheeks and then hugged fiercely, before Alicia spoke one last time. “I’m so afraid you’re going to be as different in your thoughts and actions as you’ll be in your body.”

“You and Father share the same worry; one for which there is no foundation,” Lana assured Alicia. “I’ll still be Lana; I’ll still be your sister. Nothing’s going to change the person I am, except to change me for the better.”

Lana kissed Alicia’s cheek one more time and then left her to head toward Kal-El and her new life. She’d seen her father briefly before retiring to her room with Alicia, and he had been much more worried about the upcoming procedure than Alicia was. His concern over her suffering a possible personality change had just been the tip of the iceberg for him. Lana replayed the last part of that conversation in her mind as she went to meet Kal.

“It seems like only yesterday that you were a brand new baby being held up for my inspection,” Lewis said, as he clasped Lana’s shoulders and looked down proudly into her eyes. “I insisted on taking you into my arms, and was able to hold you in the crook of one arm. You were so small! During the years since then, I’ve wondered what would become of you, wondered who would see the special girl you became, wondered who would be worthy enough for me to give you to…but never did I dream this. My baby girl is in line to be the next Queen of Alemannia…my grandson will one day be king. And today, my not-so-little Lana will take the first irrevocable step on that path.” Lewis leaned in and kissed Lana in the middle of her forehead. “This is all rather sudden,” he admitted. “I wasn’t expecting this ‘procedure’ to happen until just before the wedding.”

“Are you anxious, Father?” Lana asked.

“About something other than how this transformation might change who you are as a person?” Lewis asked. “More than you can ever know, Lana Bear…at least until you’ve had that first child of your own.”

“Lana Bear? You haven’t called me that for years.” Lana smiled fondly at the sudden childhood memory. “Why did you ever start calling me that anyway?”

“You were always so protective of your little sister - even though you weren’t much larger than she was - that you made me think of a mama bear guarding her cubs. The nannies could never get you to go to bed until Alicia was asleep.” Lewis suddenly pulled Lana into his arms to give her a fierce hug, while Lana hugged him back just as hard. “You’re going to be such a great mother.”

It took Lana a few moments to realize Lewis was shaking, but it wasn’t until she heard a muffled sob that she realized her father, the man who’d been her source of strength for as long as she could remember, was falling to pieces in her arms. Lana held on tight to her father and became his strength for a change, his rock to hold on to.

“Promise me something, Lana,” Lewis begged.

“Anything.”

“Promise me that when you go to perform this procedure…” Lewis’ voice cracked and he choked back another sob. “Just promise me you’ll come back alive. I’ve lost three wives; I can’t afford to lose you, too.”

“I promise,” Lana said. She had no idea how to ease her father’s fears; she supposed worrying about your children was a permanent condition for a parent. That made her wonder what kind of parent she was going to be. Was her father right? Would she be as good with her kids as he had been with her and her sisters? The one thing Lana did know was that Kal-El was going to be a wonderful father.

When Lana left the women’s quarters and reached Kal-El, he snapped her out of her memories by pulling her to him and giving her a thorough kissing. “Something on your mind other than becoming a Kryptonian?” Kal-El asked, when they moved back to catch their breath.

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because you were distracted enough to forget to bring your fur robe, Lana,” Kal-El pointed out. “There’s no way you’ll survive the extremely cold temperatures you’ll be exposed to while we travel unless you’re wearing a thick fur robe.”

Lana already knew why they needed to travel to perform the procedure. The queen was going to use up all of her power to cast the lightning spell that would start the procedure, but to do so, she needed to be near a bank of storm clouds so that conditions in the sky would be just right for the spell.

The maid that had come to get Lana scurried back to her room to collect her fur robe. Once Lana had it in her hands, and had thanked the girl, she and Kal-El made a beeline for the main courtyard just inside the castle gates where Queen Lara was waiting. Having lived in the castle all of her life, Lana knew the most direct route - which was through the kitchens - and used it to get back to the queen faster. Lana’s need for speed didn’t have anything to do with the queen’s temper - Clark hadn’t told her about that yet - but because she was super anxious to get started.

When Lana and Kal-El burst into the courtyard, they were spotted immediately by Lara, who looked at her son and said, “Go find us a likely storm while Lana and I stand here and chat.”

“Yes, Mother,” Kal-El replied, before leaning down to collect a kiss from his lady love. “Mother’s as mad at me over this mistake of mine as you were earlier,” he whispered.

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse. You at least let me apologize. Mother, on the other hand, just won’t let it go.” He kissed Lana once more. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t let Mother get to you.”

Kal-El stepped a few feet away from Lana and launched himself into the air. Lana watched in awe as he quickly disappeared from sight, and she wasn’t the only one. The soldiers and servants within sight of his takeoff had their mouths gaping wide open. Getting used to seeing people fly was apparently a work in progress for the people of Roskilde.

“Hello, Lana,” Lara said warmly, after Lana approached and curtseyed. “How was your sister’s wedding? Did it give you any ideas for you own nuptials?”

“It’s good to see you, Your Majesty,” Lana replied. “The wedding was sweet and to the point. Nothing extraneous.”

“Definitely not like what we’re planning then,” Lara chuckled.

“Definitely not,” Lana agreed. “There’s nothing simple about my wedding.”

“Of course not. Yours is not only a marriage of two people, but also an instrument of State, as well as a cause for a kingdom-wide celebration,” Lara said. “The only occasion during the rest of your life that will generate as much enthusiasm amongst the populace as your wedding will be the birth of your first son.”

Lana nodded her head in agreement. “The continuation of the royal line. Heirs mean stability, and stability means prosperity.”

“And thus you will be loved: first as Sir Lana, the hero of Dru-Zod’s rebellion, and a second time as Crown Princess Lana, Queen Lana, and the mother of kings.”

“The Lord grant that day is many years from coming to pass,” Lana said fervently.

“You are kind to say so, Lana,” Lara replied. “The fact that you can say that and mean it - even after the way I treated you - is just another mark of your suitability to become the next queen. Kal-El has chosen well, even though I still say he lucked into meeting you.” Lara couldn’t help but smile. “That boy should be on his knees giving prayerful thanks to God three or four times a day for allowing him to meet you.”

“As should I. Whatever luck he received to meet me was also my luck in meeting him.”

Kal-El came back to the castle at that moment, cutting off any further conversation between Lara and Lana. “I’ve found a spot that should suit us just fine, not more than half an hour’s slow flight away.” He could make the flight in a couple of minutes and so could his mother, but Lana was limited by the frailties of the human body. Kal-El smiled when he realized that frailty would only last for a bit longer.

“Are we ready to go?” Kal-El asked.

Lana’s reply was to bury herself as deeply into her fur robe as she could, while Lara checked her lead box one last time. “Let’s go, Son.”

“Are you ready to go flying again, Lana?” he whispered. “One last time with me before you can do it on your own?”

“Yes, please.” Lana giggled in anticipation, as this flight was going to be fast, for her anyway, and she’d actually get to go somewhere this time.

Kal-El picked her up and cradled her next to his body before leaping skyward once more, with Lara close behind. Between Lana’s fur robe and Kal-El’s heat vision, the soon-to-be princess stayed toasty warm as she snuggled against his chest. Once they began to approach the menacing wall of storm clouds, Kal-El dropped down low to the ground, before landing in a farm field that had not yet been planted for a summer crop. The field was miles from the nearest town, and even the farmhouse was not within sight of where the three of them were standing.

Lara was looking skyward, trying to gauge the storm clouds. Finally, she nodded and smiled slightly, before looking at Kal-El. “Looks like you’re not a complete screw up today after all.” Then she turned her gaze to Lana. “Promise me you’ll keep my son under your watchful gaze once you two marry. He’s usually so dependable and smart, but sometimes he acts before he thinks.” Lara looked back up at the sky, and started to mutter to herself. “Having your intended wear a device that makes it possible for anyone with a kitchen knife to kill you while you are in her presence, is possibly the dumbest stunt you’ve ever pulled, Son. You’re such a complete moron!”

“I know, I know,” Kal-El replied. “I said I’m sorry. How many times do I have to apologize before you’ll let it go?”

Lara took in a deep breath, held it, and then slowly let it go. “I think that’s the last time.”

“Huh?” Kal-El asked.

“I just had to get it out of my system before I cast this spell. Being upset about something else just causes me to have my focus in the wrong place…and that could be dangerous.”

That statement settled everyone down. From here on out, everyone knew they had to be focused on what they were doing. Kal-El and Lana linked hands and gave each other a squeeze while they waited for Lara to arrange things.

“The reason we needed to do this near a storm was not to help me cast the lightning spell…not exactly anyway,” Lara said. “What the storm will do is make it possible for me to cast the spell with less of my energy - due to the nearby lightning potential - so that I’ll have enough of my solar energy left to direct the lightning to where I want it to go. It’s the only way I can guarantee the lightning bolt will hit Kal-El instead of it haring off in another direction and wasting our time.”

Lana flinched upon hearing that her beloved was the one to get hit by the lightning bolt. She had been told the procedure was painless, but some part of her still didn’t like the idea of her man getting hit. She squeezed Kal-El’s hand again, harder this time, and he murmured back, “It’ll be okay, Lana. This is a tested process. It works.”

“I know that, Kal,” Lana replied. “But how would you feel if she’d just said the lightning bolt was going to hit me?”

“Good point.”

Lara smiled when she saw how Lana and Kal-El drew comfort from each other. They did it so naturally that it would have been hard for her to believe they’d not quite known each other for a year, if she hadn’t known it to be the truth.

“But Lana,” Lara said, “the lightning bolt will hit you.” It was Kal-El’s turn to flinch, which earned him a ‘told you so’ look from Lana, and caused him to stick his tongue out at her in reply. “Once the lightning bolt hits Kal-El, it will pass through him and jump the short distance to your body. That will link the two of you with the chunk of Kryptonite you will be holding. That link is what will change you and make you into one of us.”

Lara held the lead box up and gestured for Lana to take it. Once she had the box in her hands and had returned to Kal-El’s side, Lara said, “This next part will be the most difficult part for you, Lana. I need you to open the box and watch what happens to Kal-El when you do.”

“Oh thanks, Mother,” Kal-El said sarcastically.

“She needs to see how you react to the Kryptonite now, so she won’t be surprised and do something stupid during the actual procedure.” Lara directed her attention to Lana once more. “Open the box now, Lana, and hold the stone in your hand.”

Worried about what was about to happen, Lana obeyed the queen and opened the box. She could feel Kal-El flinch and growl under his breath. When she dug the glowing green stone out of the box and held it in her hand, Kal-El gasped in agony and collapsed onto the ground. Lana’s eyes widened in horror as she witnessed what was happening to Kal-El, and she immediately threw the stone back into the box, without waiting for the queen to order her to do so. As soon as the stone was secured, Lana fell to her knees and showered Kal-El’s neck with kisses as she apologized for doing that to him.

“Are you all right, Darling?” Lana asked, when she was finally able to make herself stop kissing him.

“All in all,” Kal-El wheezed, as he regained his strength, “a few seconds of pain are a fair price to pay for one moment of paradise.”

“Now you see why I had you do that, Lana,” Lara said. “Seeing my son in pain hurts me, too, but you need to know what to expect so you won’t do what you just did, and in doing so, ruin everything.”

“How so?” a bewildered Lana asked, as she helped Kal-El to his feet.

“The procedure works like this: Kal-El will stand just out of arm’s reach from you. I will be on the other side of him from you, and I will be quite a distance away to make sure the lightning goes nowhere but into you after it has hit him.

“In the last moment before I cast the lightning, you will open that lead box and hold the green Kryptonite in your hand. Kal-El will start to react to the stone as you have just seen, but you must not touch him!”

“Why not?” Lana asked.

“Because, if you are touching him when the lightning strikes, you won’t just get a copy of his powers, you will drain him of his powers.”

“Holy…” Lana started.

“…sh*t!” Kal-El finished. He’d already known some of what his mother had said, but the idea of him being completely drained of his powers was a new one to him. “That wouldn’t happen to be a permanent draining of my powers, would it, Mother?”

“Oh yes. Quite permanent,” Lara said. “That’s the one real danger of this procedure, especially when the two people involved love each other so much. If she can’t be strong enough to ignore your pain for just a few seconds, then this might end up being a big mistake.

“So, once I see that Kal-El is completely under the effect of the Kryptonite, I will cast the lightning spell and use the rest of my solar energy to guide it, making it hit him. What happens after that I’ve already told you.” Lara eyed the angry-looking clouds. “We’d better get this over with before those clouds open up on us and make a mess of everything.”

As Lana picked up the lead box, she eyed it with revulsion. “How are we supposed to get the Kryptonite back into the box once the procedure is complete?”

“Very carefully,” Kal-El snickered. Lana couldn’t quite believe him finding humor in a situation like this one, but she rolled her eyes at him and then joined his laughter despite herself.

“Okay, everyone,” Lara said, “time to line up.”

Kal-El stayed where he was and Lana moved next to him, being careful to stay just out of his reach. She was mentally steeling herself to watch Kal-El flop around in agony; anything to be able to be near him without putting him in danger. Once Lana had chosen her spot, Lara walked off in the other direction until she was a good thirty feet away from them.

One last look up at the sky was all it took to convince Lara that they needed some extra protection. “Kal-El, would you please cast a physical barrier around the three of us. It wouldn’t do for one of us to be hit by a random lightning strike now.”

“Yes, Mother,” Kal-El replied. It only took him a few seconds, and once the barrier was raised, nothing could get in or out of that circle until Kal-El dissipated the barrier.

“Are you two ready to do this?” Lara asked. When both Lana and Kal-El nodded their heads yes, Lara said, “Open the box, Lana, and dig out the Kryptonite.”

Lana hesitated just a second before performing her job. She ripped open the box, grabbed the Kryptonite, and dropped the box at her feet. Kal-El’s body instantly twisted and his mouth twisted into a rictus of pain. Lara saw that and waited a second just to make sure Lana wasn’t going to chicken out on them before pointing one arm directly toward Kal-El and muttering a short incantation. Immediately, a searing hot lightning bolt shot out of her hand and struck Kal-El full in the chest, hammering his Kryptonite-weakened body to the ground, even as it leapt from his body and into Lana’s.

The future princess felt a surge of power rushing through her body, followed closely by excruciating pain caused by the Kryptonite which was still in her hand. Lana dropped the Kryptonite stone on instinct and staggered away from it to try to get away from the pain. When she was far enough away from the stone, she took a couple of deep breaths and looked back at Lara and Kal-El.

The queen’s eyes were shut tight as she tried to recover from the temporary blindness caused by the bolt of lightning, and Kal-El was flat on the ground, momentarily stunned by the combination of the lightning and his proximity to green Kryptonite, so neither one of them could see Lana, who was blinking away bright spots of her own. She could see slightly better than the queen only because she had been looking away from Kal-El at the moment the lightning struck.

Everything appeared to be okay to Lana until she heard Kal-El groan with pain. It was then that she realized she’d dropped the Kryptonite only a few feet from her sweet Kal. Luckily, she’d nearly dropped it right on top of the lead box, so she dove to the ground and grimaced in pain as she stuffed the glowing green stone into the lead box. Lana sighed as the pain left her body, and she and Lara both rushed to Kal-El, who was just beginning to work himself into an upright sitting position. Once the two women were satisfied that Kal-El was fine and just needed a few moments to recover from his ordeal, Lara turned her thoughts to Lana.

“Lana dear, do you feel any differently now?” Lara asked, as Kal-El used his magic to lower the physical barrier he had erected around them, as he knew the next thing to do would to be to fly his mother up above the clouds to recharge her power so she could fly home, while he began to tutor Lana in the use of her powers.

Both Els listened intently as Lana said, “Umm…I’m not sure. Let me see.” It didn’t even occur to her to mention that she had felt pain from the touch of the Kryptonite; what first told her that something was different, that she was different, was the weather.

I’m not cold! Lana thought suddenly. I can still feel the cold, but it no longer bothers me.

[Nemu]

:D
And so begins the adventures of Lana-El Lang... the newest Kryptonian in the kingdom...

That was interesting!

Good work!

PPMS!!!

[NYC300Z]

Great update!

That was an interesting explanation of the procedure very well thought out!

Sounds like it went very well!

Lana should have a good time figuring out how to use her new powers.
I wonder if she'll show off to her sisters?

Maybe they can go and visit Mara?

PPMS!

[Cardinal]

Chapter 92

Whoops!

Once Lana realized she wasn’t cold, she got excited.

Really excited.

“It worked!! It worked, it worked, it worked!!” Lana screamed. She jumped for joy then, which was a teensy-tiny miscalculation on her part, as that little jump sent her rocketing more than three-hundred feet straight up into the air.

Kal-El and Lara shared a grin and a quick one-armed hug as Lana went skyward, but once she got over her shock, she started screaming as gravity took over and pulled her back toward earth. He was tempted to let her smack into the ground so that she’d at least learn how invulnerable she was, but easing her terror was more important to him at the moment; she could learn about her new abilities some other day.

As Kal-El prepared to launch himself into the air to catch Lana, she had quit screaming fearfully because she was too busy flailing around as she tried to push down her skirts, which were being blown up around her ears by her rapid descent. She just knew she’d die of mortification if Kal-El saw her bare legs, not to mention the even more private bits higher up. Lara saw the problem before Kal-El looked up and she told him to just catch her from the ground, without looking up.

“A little bit to the leefffffft…” Lara coached, “hold out your arms…and…”

Lana fell right into Kal-El’s arms.

“Very good,” Lara didn’t smile at her son’s blind catch. Instead, she nodded her head sharply as if he’d only done what was expected of him.

Lana’s nerves were shot by her unexpected venture, and she quickly wrapped her arms around his neck. “Nice catch,” she mumbled into his neck. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Kal-El replied, as he shifted her weight onto one hand and ruffled her windblown hair with the other one. After a few moments together, Lara cleared her throat and Kal-El set Lana on the ground and turned away so she could arrange her dress and make herself presentable. Once her skirts were properly down, she walked around Kal-El and stopped in front of Lara.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Lana said, as she curtseyed deeply.

Lara wasn’t sure where Lana’s sudden burst of court formality was coming from, but years of practice made her response almost automatic. “Rise, Lady Lana. You are very welcome.” Then she stepped forward and enveloped the younger woman in a tentative hug. “I know the wedding is still six months away, but unofficially, welcome to the family, Lana. You’re one of us now.”

Lana blushed prettily at the welcome. She was very happy with the way things were progressing with the queen, and for that matter, so was Kal-El. These were the two most important women in his life. He loved them both and desperately wanted them to love each other. While they didn’t appear to be there yet, they both seemed to be trying hard, and that was all for which he could really ask.

“Next up, Lana,” Lara said with a faint smile, “is teaching you how to use, and most importantly, how to control your new powers.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” she agreed, “it would be nice to only end up in mid-air when I want to go there.”

“But I can’t stay to teach you. That’s a process that’s going to take days, so I give the responsibility for teaching you to you future husband.” Lana and Kal-El both smiled widely, which drew a caution from the queen. “Teaching a loved one can be a frustrating exercise for both the teacher and the student. Be patient and understanding and everything will work out fine.” When both youngsters acknowledged her warning, she added, “Now, let’s get you two back to Lord Wayne’s castle so I can go home.”

Lana now had the physical ability to fly, but she didn’t know how to do it yet, so Kal-El took her into his arms and leapt into the air. Lara was right behind, and because Lana now had the strength to withstand a high-speed flight and the resistance to extremely cold temperatures, the flight home was over much faster than the flight out. Once Kal-El and Lana had landed in the castle courtyard and Lana’s reputation was intact, Lara swung around to the north and headed off.

“So,” Lana said, as soon as the queen left, “when do my lessons start?”

“Do you still have those leather pants you wore into battle during the war?” Kal-El asked.

“Yes, of course. I make sure they’re buried in one of my clothing trunks with the rest of my armor.” She gave Kal-El a cheeky grin. “After all, a dragon knight has to be ready in case the kingdom needs her sword.”

“I pray to God that your sword will never be needed again.” Kal-El took Lana’s hand and they headed inside. “I don’t mind telling you that looking up to the mountain pass and not being able to see you was the scariest moment of my life.”

“At least now I’m pretty much invulnerable to anything except another Kryptonian.”

“Just don’t forget what a training amulet can do to you now.”

Being reminded of the item that had started this whole little drama sobered Lana up. “I can’t afford to rely on my new powers too much, can I?”

“Nope, and as long as you remember that, you’ll be fine.” Kal-El shook his head rueful disbelief. “I have you to thank for reminding me of that.” Then Kal-El went back to the topic of her training. “As long as you wear those leather pants under your dress, we can start training tomorrow when we head home. Most likely we’ll do it at the end of our travels each day.”

Lana couldn’t help an excited, “Yes!”

Her enthusiasm for her new state in life made Kal-El laugh, but he did have a warning of his own. “Until you have full control of your abilities, Lana, you’ll need to think about the littlest things you do.”

“Like?”

“Don’t get in a hurry to go anywhere. Don’t even walk fast, or else you might end up with a burst of super-speed and end up running through thick castle walls. No slapping anyone who offends you…”

“Because I might knock his head off.” Lana could see where this conversation was leading. “So, think before I do?”

“Oh yeah. And just when you’re sure, think again just to be safe. I don’t want to deal with potential murder charges because you killed someone on accident with an ill-timed burst of power.”

Lana blanched upon hearing the word ‘murder.’ “M-m-maybe I should wear the amulet again until I’m trained.”

“Nope. Nothing doing. That’s what got us started on this in the first place. Remember?” Lana sighed in agreement, and Kal-El added, “Just remember what my old Uncle Ben used to say to me when I was little: ‘With great power comes great responsibility.”

“You have an Uncle Ben?”

“Used to. He was my mother’s oldest brother.”

“It sounds like he was a wise man,” Lana said.

“More so than most,” Kal-El agreed, “but then again, I was just a little kid when he died, and all adults sound wise at that age.”

Before Lana and Kal-El got very far, a servant approached and bowed low before informing them that by the order of Lady Wayne, a meal had been kept hot for each of them. Lana and Kal-El each thought for a second, then looked at each other. No words were exchanged; none were needed. That one look was all it took for them to know that a quiet, shared meal would be the perfect end to a long day.

“If Lord and Lady Wayne haven’t yet retired to their rooms for the evening,” Kal-El said, “let them know Lady Lana and I have returned.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the servant said. “Lord and Lady Wayne, however, have already been informed of your arrival. Lady Wayne has commanded me to inform you that they will come see you once you’ve completed your meal.”

“In what room will the meal be served?” Lana asked.

“The family’s private dining room, Lady Lana.”

Lana clapped her hands in delight, and dragged Kal-El off toward the former Lang family quarters, which were now occupied by the Waynes.

“One last meal for you in your old dining room,” Kal-El said. “That’s very thoughtful of Lois,” Kal-El said. “It seems she’s picking up the subtleties of hospitality faster than I would have thought.”

“She’s always known how to treat a guest, Kal,” Lana replied. “She’s just never wanted to play the role of the ‘lady of the house’ before. But while that kind of stuff doesn’t matter much to her, she’ll do it now because any poor performance on her part…”

“…will reflect poorly on Bruce,” Kal-El finished.

“Exactly,” Lana said, glad that Kal-El understood. “Lois will do all sorts of things for his sake that she would never do otherwise.”

“That’s a very gratifying thing for me to hear. With Bruce being new to the nobility, he’ll be looked down upon by a lot of the more established noble families. They’ll be looking for him to make the kind of social mistakes that you and I were taught to avoid from an early age. He needs Lois to support him, to be the kind of woman she’s never wanted to be, and if she already realizes that, then they’re off to a good start.”

Lana started to snicker then at the idea of two unmarried teenagers passing judgment on the suitability of someone else’s union. Kal-El joined in the laughter for a moment, but then pointed out that they weren’t passing judgment on their personal or romantic suitability, but on how suitable they were in a social and political manner.

“And that is something you and I are qualified to judge,” Lana said.

“Definitely.”

“Thanks, Kal, that makes me feel better.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kal-El said. “You and I are already being judged on how suitable we are as a couple. None of them will ever say a word to us, but it’s happening anyway.”

“I bet we get high marks,” Lana said confidently.

“Perfect marks, and yet…” Kal-El said, as he pulled Lana to a stop and kissed her thoroughly right in the middle of the hall, “…I would settle for less than perfect marks in exchange for me taking more time to ensure you know how much I love you.”

Lana allowed Kal-El to pull her body against his as his mouth ravaged hers again, and when he finally released her so they could continue to their meal, a happily dazed Lana rubbed at her eyes - which were burning slightly - as she asked what she had done to deserve that.

“What other people think of what we do shouldn’t really matter, as long as I don’t compromise your reputation, but I don’t kiss you like that often enough, mostly out of fear of what those ‘other people’ might think, and that’s stupid.

“I should just be concerned about you and what you think and feel. I promise to focus more on you and less on ‘them’ from now on. If they want to pay attention to us, the one thing I want them to judge correctly is that we are in wildly in love.” Kal-El wiggled his eyebrows at Lana. “Think you can handle more of me?”

“More kissing? More touches? More affection?” Lana scoffed. “That’s one challenge for which I was born ready.”

The meal was delicious and the company was better. As it was one of their increasingly rare meals alone, with the distant company of one servant for propriety’s sake, Lana and Kal-El would have found ways to stretch the meal for hours had they not both wanted to talk to their newlywed hosts. So once their dessert pastries were finished, Kal-El signaled to the servant who stuck his head out the door to send another servant to alert the Waynes and then he cleared away their dishes while they waited for Bruce and Lois.

When the Waynes made their appearance, Lana and Kal-El leapt to their feet and applauded the newly married couple before engaging in a series of ferocious hugs. Everyone wanted to talk at once, with Lana and Kal-El eager to know how it felt to be married, and the Waynes, Lois especially, curious to know if the procedure had been successful.

Lana and Kal-El ended up telling the story about Lana’s accidental leap into the sky to prove that she had successfully made the transition from human to Kryptonian without her having to resort to punching a hole in the wall. Lois and Bruce both started laughing once Lana got to the part of the story where she was went from panicked about her safety to being panicked that Kal-El would see up her dress.

“I can just see you flailing around trying to make your skirts behave,” Lois snickered.

“What was funny was how Mother had to direct me on where to stand to catch her,” Kal-El added.

“In any case,” Lana said, “I’m now under a royal command,” she shot a sly look at Kal-El, “to think carefully, and do so twice, before I do anything physical until such time as my prince has been able to complete my education.”

“We’ll start instruction tomorrow at the end of the day’s travel,” Kal-El said. “Having those abilities doesn’t help much unless you can use them, Darling.”

“It’s a good thing then,” Bruce replied, “that Lana’s most important new ability doesn’t require any training at all.”

Kal-El nodded his head in definite agreement. “True. That invulnerability is important, but we’ve already had a short discussion on it’s limitations.”

“I know that my brains and the loyalty of the people around me are still my best defense,” Lana said. “Now, that’s more than enough about me. I think it’s high time we get to hear about the first day of marriage for you two.”

Bruce and Lois looked at each other and smiled. Lana was kind of expecting the big, goofy smile she saw on Lois’ face, but when she saw the exact same smile on Bruce’s normally stern face, she knew the night had been even more successful than the wedding had been.

Kal-El had come to the same conclusion, and knowing that Lana had to be dying for some private girl talk with her sister, he gestured to the door and asked Bruce for a personal tour of his castle.

“A knight’s tour mind you. Show me the defenses, not the reception rooms.”

“A knight’s tour I can give you,” Bruce replied, before he turned to his wife and kissed her. “Have fun with Lana, Dearest. I’ll be back.”

“Don’t be gone too long, Bruce,” Lois said. She had a wicked gleam in her eyes that raised his blood pressure all by itself. And then she added, “We still have some unfinished business to attend to.” That left Bruce tugging at a suddenly tight shirt collar and both Kal-El and Lana blushing furiously, looking at their toes, and sneaking quick peeks at each other.

When Bruce and Kal-El finally slipped out of the family dining room, Lana turned to Lois, who was chuckling under her breath. “How long do you think he’ll manage to stay away after that last comment?”

“Hopefully, not very long at all. I’ve found I like sharing a bed with that man.”

Lana sighed and said something she’d not let anyone else in the world hear her say. “I can’t wait until Kal and I have ‘unfinished business.’”

“I know you’ve heard stories from the maids about what it’s like,” Lois said, “but stories are nothing like the real thing. It’s like the difference between reading one of your history books and being there to see things for yourself.”

“Which is why you, with the memory fresh in your mind, are going to tell me what it’s like.” Lana looked up at her sister expectantly and settled in to hear a story that would feed her fantasies for six long months.

[Nemu]

:D
First of all.. .Merry Christmas and I hope you feel better soon.

Uncle Ben... nice ref to Spider-man...

That was good!!! And funny the bits with Lana jumping in the air. and the married couple.

Nice to see Lara warming up more and more to Lana.

PPMS!!!!

[CaptainObvious]

Happy Holidays and thanks for the update. Glad that no problems arose as a result of the procedure.....aside from Lana flying and falling unexpectedly from her joyous jump. Everyone finally seems a little more relaxed in this update...even the Queen. Of course Lois and Bruce are more than relaxed, and then some. Even Kal and Lana were all smiles and kisses during the private dinner.

Training will prove to be interesting. Let's hope she can follow Kal's instructions.

[Cardinal]

Chapter 93

Gonna Fly Now

Lana was having her first private chat with Lois since the older woman’s wedding and bedding the night before, and she was intent on getting all of the juicy details. She wanted to have some idea of what it was like for a woman to share her love with her man in that most intimate way, because she was deep in preparation for her own marriage six months hence to Kal-El. Lana wanted to have something specific to fuel her fantasies during those long months ahead, but Lois was going to disappoint her.

“No, Lana, that’s why I’m not going to tell you what it’s like.” When Lana shot Lois a disgruntled look, Lois said, “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Stories are nothing like the real thing.” Lois patted Lana on the shoulder. “Right now, there’s no way you could possibly understand…and after you marry Kal-El, you won’t need to be told.”

Lana grumbled again, but she accepted Lois’ refusal in the spirit in which it was intended. “Okay, soooo I have to wonder on my own for a few months longer. This trip has been nice because it’s gotten me away from the sometimes suffocating presence of my ladies-in-waiting for a few weeks, but I’m going to be glad to have them with me once we return to the palace.”

“Why?” Lois asked. She thought she die if she had that many ladies hanging on her every word. She really didn’t understand why Lana put up with them.

“They protect me from my basest desires, Lois. They protect me from myself.”

“You want him that much, do you?”

“With every breath,” Lana replied simply.

Lois pulled Lana into a hug, “Lana, Lana, Lana…it’s a good thing that man of yours is as crazy about you as you are about him.” Lois rubbed Lana’s back. “You do know those ladies-in-waiting are supposed to be to protect you from men, not the other way around, right?”

“Says who?”

Lois adopted a preachy tone of voice that sounded exactly like their father’s former chaplain. Both girls had seriously disliked the man in their younger days, but hearing his voice coming from Lois’ mouth gave Lana a case of the giggles that only got worse with each word Lois spoke. “Well…everyone knows women, especially noble women, are paragons of virtue who would only fall from grace because some wicked man enticed them.”

“Oh, God, Lois, stop!” Lana said, as she was holding her sides from laughing too hard. “Whoever said that had to have been a man.”

“A single man at that,” Lois agreed.

“What am I going to do?”

“What they always tell young ladies to do: if unattended, only see a man in a public place. If attended, be careful anyway.”

The next morning Lana waited in the castle courtyard after a quick but hearty breakfast as she, Kal-El, and Alicia waited for the ladies’ carriage to be brought up. Just as the carriage was driven through the open castle gate and into the courtyard, Harold came bursting through the door to the central keep, looking a bit disheveled and wild-eyed.

He trotted up to the three of them, nodded a quick hello to Kal-El and Lana, and then offered a hand to Alicia as he asked for a few moments of her time. Most of the rest of their party was standing behind them in line waiting to board their own carriages, but when Alicia looked pleadingly at her sister and future brother-in-law, Kal-El waved her away.

Harold led Alicia just far enough away to be out of hearing range of everyone else and then pulled a folded and wax-sealed piece of thick, creamy paper out of his coat and handed it to her. Both Lana and Kal-El were watching intently, but neither one could tell what was being said.

“And don’t worry,” Kal-El whispered to Lana, “I’m not listening in on them.” Then he paused when he realized something. “And you’d better not be listening to them either, Lana.”

“I don’t know how to yet,” Lana mumbled.

“Well don’t focus in on them, or else you’ll discover how the hearing works awfully quickly.”

When Alicia opened the sealed paper she began to read it, they could see her eyes brighten almost instantly, but then Harold began to speak and Alicia looked up at him with wonder in her eyes, and avidly followed what he had to say until he reached the end of his speech. Then she returned her gaze to the paper in her hands and continued reading it.

When Alicia was done reading, Harold escorted her back to the waiting carriage and handed her up into it before taking his leave and going off to find his waiting horse. Lana and Kal-El both shrugged their shoulders before he handed her inside to sit across from her younger sister.

While Lana asked Alicia about the paper and Harold’s little speech right away, Kal-El had to wait until the procession got on the road to find Harold and pull him to one side. “Harry,” Kal-El asked, “was that thing with Lady Alicia what I think it was?” Kal-El asked.

“A love letter?” Harry smiled. “Oh yes. I spent hours on that. And then when it was finished, I spent more hours committing it to memory so I could say it to her as she read it.”

“From what Lana and I could see,” Kal-El said, “it looked like she paid the letter no attention one you began to speak. So it appeared that speaking the contents of the love letter touched her more than just the letter itself.” Kal-El smiled widely and reached across to slap Harry on the back. “That looked like a good start.”

Alicia seemed to agree, as the letter and its contents were all she could talk about all morning long. And when the party finally stopped for the evening, the effect seemed to continue as she went off to spend the time before their evening meal sitting with Harry in the common room of the inn they had rented out for the evening.

Kal-El and Lana, on the other hand, had different plans. Lana scurried up to her room and into her pair of brown leather pants, an old dress, and her good riding boots so she could go outside with Kal-El to begin practicing her new Kryptonian powers.

While getting a handle on Lana’s new strength or speed might be seen as the most practical course of action, she and Kal-El chose to work on flying first because it was her long-cherished ambition to fly on her own. So, Kal-El and Lana went back to the edge of town, along with a suitable escort, and paid a local farmer for the use of his field for a couple of hours until the evening meal was ready at their inn. Lana looked a bit strange to anyone who saw her, as the leather boots looked ridiculous coming out from beneath the hem of her dress.

“Okay, Lana,” Kal-El said, as he looked down at his eager student, “flying is all in your mind. It’s very simple once your brain catches onto it, but it can be hard to put into practice what I’m telling you to do.”

“I’m ready!” Lana enthused.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Kal-El mumbled. “Anyway, most of the other abilities you now have are easy to use, as you learned yesterday when you went for that accidental leap. Those kinds of abilities you just have to learn to control, like strength, speed, and x-ray vision. Heat vision and frost breath have specific triggers, and once you learn those triggers, you’ll have two more abilities that you’ll just have to establish control over.

“And speaking of x-ray vision, please don’t start thinking of seeing through anything until we can practice that one. You won’t do any harm, but you’ll likely embarrass yourself to death.”

“Soooo, no imagining what…anyone…looks like under his or her clothes?” Lana was being as delicate as she could and still get her point across. Kal-El knew exactly what she was getting at and he reflexively turned sideways to limit her view of him before he caught himself doing it and sheepishly smiled.

“You’re a bad girl, Lady Lana,” Kal-El jokingly admonished her.

“Just because I don’t do bad things doesn’t mean I don’t have bad thoughts,” Lana licked her lips and gave Kal-El a sultry stare before returning to her normal bright and cheerful demeanor. “That’s something you might want to remember in say, six months or so.”

“So noted.” Kal-El looked at Lana one more time and shook his head. “Back to your training.”

“Sure.”

“You would choose to start with the hardest ability to master.” Kal-El paused as he tried to think of a way to describe the feeling of flying. “You remember your leap yesterday?”

Lana shivered as she recalled her accidental jump into the sky. “I’ll never forget that. That was scary and embarrassing all at once.”

“Well, today you’re going to be doing that a lot, until you catch on to what it takes to get into the air and then stay there.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. You see, I wasn’t joking when I said flying was all in your mind. You start to fly just as you jump, exactly like you did yesterday. But with flying, that’s just the start. From then on, flying is achieved by concentrating on staying in the air, and having your mind tell your body where it would like to go.

“The hard part seems to be convincing your mind that it really can stay in the air once it gets there, which is why you’ll be jumping into the air a lot, and falling a lot, until your mind catches on. According to Mother, it can take a while to break through that particular mental block. People can end up doing a lot of falling before they understand.”

“How many times did you fall?” Lana asked.

“A couple of dozen at least,” Kal-El sighed. “And that’s a boy who had grown up with the knowledge that he would eventually be able to fly.” He looked Lana over carefully. “I’m so glad the invulnerability is the one ability we have that takes no training before it works properly.”

“Me too,” Lana said fervently.

Lana and Kal-El spent the rest of their two hours practicing. Lana leapt into the sky a full fifty times, and crashed to the Earth fifty times, before getting the first twitch. She wanted to keep on going, but Kal-El overruled her as it was dinner time and because the old dress she had worn was in tatters from all of the crash landings. Kal-El took off his fancy dress uniform jacket and handed it to her to cover the damage to her dress before they returned to their inn.

It wasn’t until the next night that Lana finally got a shaky control over her ability to fly, and when she did, she let out an ear-splitting scream of delight that could be heard for miles around.

Of course, she then had to learn how to land without falling and tearing gaping holes in the ground. That ended up taking another two nights. Just when Lana was feeling comfortable enough with her flying skill to consider showing off for her father and sister, Kal-El took a break from her training to ask her for something that was important to him.

“How would you and your family like to take a side trip to Borussia to see the the ducal palace?” Kal-El asked. He’d only seen parts of the palace when he’d been there during the war, and was looking forward to taking the full tour with his future duchess by his side.

“This is where we’ll live after we marry, right?” Lana asked. When Kal-El nodded yes, her smile widened. “Then I would love to, but you’ll have to get father’s approval before I can go.”

“Don’t you think he’ll say yes? To see his favorite daughter sizing up her new home?”

“I don’t think he’ll be able to resist.”

“Good,” Kal-El kissed Lana’s forehead. “I’ll go ask him. If he says yes, we can be there in a few days.”

[Nemu]

:D

Nice touch of using KK's quote....

Nice touch of Harry to write the love letter and especially to memorize the letter.

soo... next chapter is the visit to Borussia?

Oh and for a second there I thought you would have Lana learn her flying ability faster than Kal just to show off...

PPMS!!!

[NYC300Z]

Great update was a lot of fun Lana learning how to fly

Next on to the Ducal palace!

PPMS!

[Kal-el 26]

I love this story you are such a good writer I waited until today to read it I am on CH 17 and loving it so far!!!!!....

[Cardinal]

Chapter 94

Fire and Ice

Kal-El and Lana spent the next few days traveling during the day and training her powers in the early evening when they stopped for the night. After the way Lana had ruined her old dress while learning the basics of flying, she gave up on trying to maintain her femininity and instead started wearing the tabard of a dragon knight along with a padded, quilted shirt that went beneath the sleeveless tabard. Once she decided to be practical and dress like the knight that she was, she also had her maids put her hair up into the triple braid of a warrior each evening.

Kal-El admired Lana’s appearance, and was thankful that her tabard hung down to her knees, both to keep him from staring at her leather-clad thighs, and to keep anyone else from getting that look. Once she had a rudimentary control of her flying abilities, Kal-El moved on to strength and speed. With strength, he was more worried about her establishing basic control so that things like her accidentally jumping three-hundred feet into the air wouldn’t happen again.

With speed, not only did Kal-El want Lana to learn how to keep from going fast on accident, but he also knew she needed to learn how to slow down and stop once she did start going fast. He remembered racing three towns away before his father had been able to catch him on the day he himself first discovered his speed, mostly because he hadn’t known how to stop.

Kal-El and Lana worked their way through the entire catalog of Kryptonian abilities in a matter of days, with Kal-El being more concerned about giving Lana a basic grounding in each of her abilities before going back to refine her control of any of them. And for reasons of propriety and personal embarrassment, the crown prince left the subject of heat vision until the very end of Lana’s initial round of training. The thing he didn’t know was that Lana had been experiencing daily near misses with her heat vision. Lana didn’t know it either, which is why she never reported the incidents to Kal-El. All she knew was that when he was particularly sweet, kind, patient, or romantic with her - anything that could make her feel a little extra surge for him - she felt a slight burning sensation in her eyes.


Thus it was on the final day of their trip to Borussia, with the city itself in sight in the distance, that Lana and Kal-El rode horses to the bank of a nearby river - the same river that flowed through the town - along with their protective escort. He dismounted and then helped her down and they walked off a short distance to maintain some sort of privacy. Not wanting anyone to hear what they were about to discuss, Kal-El then cast a silence spell around Lana and himself.

“This last ability is one I’ve avoided dealing with on purpose.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Kal-El said, as he looked away from Lana and toward the wide river. “As you know from the list I provided, your last ability is heat vision.”

“Why’d you avoid it?” Lana asked. “Is it hard to deal with?”

“No, not hard, just…embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing? How?”

“Well,” Kal-El was already having a hard time looking at Lana, and having to talk to her about what triggered his heat vision was not making things any easier, “the ability itself isn’t embarrassing. It just involves tightly-focused beams of heat shooting out of your eyes. The embarrassing part is what triggers the heat vision.”

Lana wasn’t stupid. She was beginning to recall the burning sensations she’d been experiencing pretty much every single day since gaining her powers…and now that Kal-El mentioned a trigger, she began to piece together a few ideas on what the trigger might be. Her face flamed red before he even started in on the explanation. Kal-El noted Lana’s fiery blush and wondered if she’d already had an incident involving heat vision. But he decided that couldn’t be the case, as she would have reported it to him.

“Any powerful emotion can trigger heat vision, but the one that does the trick most often for a young Kryptonian…is lust, love, sexual excitement…” Kal-El’s voice drifted off as he finally looked directly at Lana. “I thought I had my heat vision well under control…until the day I met you.”

It was Kal-El’s turn to blush, something Lana thought was charming as he did it so rarely. But knowing why he was blushing made Lana blush all over again. And now neither one could look at the other at all.

“What does this heat vision feel like?” Lana asked.

“It starts as a burning sensation that’s right behind the eyes. It feels like your eyeballs are on fire. And then, just when you think your eyes are going to explode, beams of heat shoot out of them.”

After Kal-El’s admission, Lana was fairly sure she had experienced the beginnings of heat vision on several occasions during the past week. She then explained to him that she had had a few near misses with heat vision over the past week. That caused him to blanch as he thought of the potential disasters that had been narrowly averted. “Okay, it looks like my intention to save the embarrassing stuff for last nearly backfired.”

Lana heard the word ‘fire’ and started to giggle. “I’ll say there was nearly a fire, but it had nothing to do with my back.”

Kal-El just shook his head at Lana’s attempt at making light of their situation. “The thing is, Lana, today I actually have to teach you how to trigger the heat vision when you want it. Strangely enough, that’s also the best way for you to learn how to prevent the heat vision from triggering when you don’t want it to so.”

“Trigger it,” Lana eyed Kal-El doubtfully. “On purpose.” Lana looked around and saw nothing but any empty farm field and the nearby river. “Good thing there’s nothing flammable anywhere near us.”

“Us being by the river is no accident. That was the other reason for waiting so long to handle this ability. I wanted a lot of water nearby just in case something caught on fire.”

Lana folded her arms over her chest. “So, how do you intend to make me start a fire?”

The only warning Kal-El gave Lana was a sexy smirk just before his mouth dove in and captured hers in a heated kiss. He stopped kissing Lana after what he judged to be a sufficiently long period of time, so he could ask, “How close are you, Lana?”

“My eyes feel hot,” she replied, “but I’m not quite there yet.”

“Then let me know when you get there,” Kal-El instructed before moving back in to continue their passionate kiss.

Lana was closer than she thought. It took mere seconds for the second kiss to push her past the point of no return. “Mmmmppphhhhgg!” She struggled to push herself away from Kal-El, and when she finally succeeded, all she had time to say was, “I’m th…” before beams of shimmering heat lanced out from her hazel eyes.

The field was damp and empty of crops, as it was still early spring, and there were no trees around, but there was one thing within range of Lana’s heat vision that was readily flammable: Kal-El’s clothing. Her beams of heat crisscrossed his uniform jacket and dug into the shirt beneath it, setting both garments on fire in less than a second. Lana quickly turned so the rest of her uncontrolled blast of heat shot into the river, while a shocked Kal-El watched dumbly for a few moments as his shirt and jacket burned like a bonfire, before he leapt into the river to put out the flames.

Lana watched concernedly until Kal-El stood on the riverbank and leapt back up to where she was standing. The guards had rushed over to Lana’s location when they saw their prince in flames, and at least half of them wondered if they should be placing her under arrest for making an attempt on the prince’s life. Kal-El waved them off, however, and ordered them to return to their duties.

Once the troops were gone, Kal-El looked down at his clothes and picked at the ragged remnants of his shirt and jacket. “Looks like I should have brought some extra clothes tonight.” Between him looking at the damage to his clothes and Lana moving in to check him for damage, the ruins of his jacket and shirt didn’t stay on for long. As he dropped what was left of those articles of clothing on the ground, Lana looked up and took in what was right in front of her: her Kal was naked from the waist up…all rippling, chiseled muscles from his waist to his neck, something she hadn’t seen since sneaking a peek at him with Bruce in the waryard back at the manor in Krakovia.

Not knowing what else to say, Lana gulped and then said, “You appear to be fine, but your shirt and jacket aren’t even good for cleaning rags now.”

Kal-El shrugged his shoulders. “I know. I took them off already.” He suddenly realized he was with Lana and wasn’t wearing anything from the waist up. “In fact, I should see if any of the soldiers happen to have a raincloak or something I can pull on.”

“Why in such a hurry?” Lana said offhandedly. It took her a second to realize what she’d just said, and then her mouth fell open wide. “Oh…did I say that out loud?”

Lana was mortified and Kal-El was grinning from ear to ear as he zipped over to their escort to borrow a raincloak. By the time he came jetting back with a lengthy cloak tied into place to help shield his chest and back from her view, her hands were up in front of her eyes trying to keep her from giving off another blast of heat.

Clark saw her difficulty and blew some frost breath onto his hands. “Here, Lana, Let me help. Move your hands for me, please.” She pulled her hands away from her eyes and Kal-El placed his frozen palms on top of her closed eyelids. “Here, this will help.”

Kal-El felt the heat from Lana’s eyes soaking into his deep-frozen hands. Whenever he felt his hands thawing out, he just gave the backs of his hands another blast of frost breath. Finally, Lana’s second blast of heat vision subsided, and Kal-El lowered his hands from her face.

“First thing, Lana, is that you will have to be able to do this for yourself in an emergency. We can’t have you incinerating something just because you’re having…thoughts.”

“If you’d keep your shirt on, I might be able to control my thoughts.” Lana practiced frosting her hands and placing them on her eyes just in case. “I can’t believe I’m even talking to you about this.”

“I have the same thoughts, Lana. Trust me,” Kal-El said, “when you dress up for a ball, you make me feel things, and want to do things, that I’ve never experienced before. Even seeing you in those leather pants stirs me and makes it difficult to control my heat vision.” He flapped his arms useless at his sides. “Heat vision is an equal opportunity annoyance.”

Hearing that made Lana laugh, in spite of her embarrassment. Kal-El chose that moment to move behind her and begin to show her how to trigger her heat vision whenever she wanted. For some reason, learning to perfect turning the heat vision on was the key to gaining control over turning it off and keeping it that way. Lana spent the next half hour focusing on a patch of water in the river and turning it into columns of steam.

Once she thought she finally had a handle on her heat vision, Kal-El decided to give her a final test. He stepped up right behind her, pressed his bare chest against her back, and began to whisper into her ear. Lana wasn’t used to her Kal being so frank in discussing what he liked about her, but it was having the desired effect. She felt the heat building in her eyes, and knew it was her job to control the heat. It was a bit of a struggle, especially with Kal-El continuing to test her, but when Lana’s will won out and the heat receded, she shouted her victory and punched both fists up into the air. Kal-El then grabbed her hips and swung her around and around until they both were dizzy and he had to set her down. The young couple then staggered across the field to their escort and tried to mount their horses, which was not an easy thing to do while the Earth kept moving. They ended up resting against the sides of their horses until the world stopped spinning quite so much.

“What now?” Lana giggled.

“Now? We go back to town and that little inn that I commandeered for us.”

“Not that ‘now,’ Kal,” Lana replied. “I mean…what now with my powers?”

“Now we’ll go back through your powers, one by one, and make sure the tenuous control you have over them becomes more solid.” Kal-El tested to see if he was stable enough to get back in the saddle. “By the time we get you back to the winter palace, I want you to be very competent when it comes to each of your powers.”

“When do we start?” Lana asked eagerly.

Kal-El swept a stray strand of brown hair out of Lana’s face, tucking it behind one of her ears. “Tomorrow night, after we reach the ducal palace, because I know you won’t settle for waiting even one day.” Kal-El smiled softly at Lana. “And yes, my love, we’ll start with flying. Before we leave the ducal palace to return to the capital, you’ll soar like a bird.”

[Nemu]

:D

That was good!! and very funny... especially the first blast of Lana's heat vision...

So next up is Borussia and Lana's deeper training... Or are we going to have a glimpse of Mara and Richard?

PPMS!!!

[NYC300Z]

Fun update with heat vision. Hope to see the ducal palace next update!

PPMS!

[ilovethursdays]

beautiful.

[CaptainObvious]

Thanks for the update. If you ask me, it's a sheer wonder that Lana didn't torch everything in sight once she became kryptonian, or at least a carriage or two on the way to Borussia. An ability like that really could have backfired on them. Fortunately, it was only some of Kal's clothes.

Great story!!!

[Kal-el 26]

I am in chapther 78 so far perfect !!!!!!..... For many if your a Clana Fan like me.

[Cardinal]

Chapter 95

Home, Sweet Home

The next morning brought changes. Many changes. The white-uniformed members of the Royal Household Guard who had guarded Kal-El and Lana turned and headed back to the winter palace. Count Lang’s small guard of his own men stayed on, and the royal guards were replaced by an equal-sized contingent of green-and-gold coated knights from Kal-El’s own ducal army, as the people of Borussia were proud of their connection to the El family and insisted that he be their duke first while in the duchy, and crown prince second. That had surprised Lana a little bit, but seeing her Kal in green and gold surprised her even more as she was totally used to seeing him in the gold-trimmed white.

Every member of that Borussian honor guard was a veteran of the war against Dru-Zod, and to a man, they knew of Lady Lana’s role. They hadn’t just heard the stories second or third-hand, they knew. They’d all seen glimpses of Lana leading her crazed soldiers back into battle as they shouted their impromptu war cry. They knew her improbable effort had saved their lives. So when she stepped out of the inn that morning, the entire honor guard dismounted their horses and bowed low to her before shouting that war cry in her honor: “For God, the king, and Lady Lana!”

Lana was surprised, and touched far beyond her ability to say. All she could manage was to bow low in return and then salute the men who’d risked so much for the kingdom. She bowed, instead of curtseying, because of a decision she and Kal-El had made the night before.

Up to this point on their journey, Lana had dressed like a lady and ridden with her sisters in the large carriage with the royal coat-of-arms on the doors. Now, however, she and Kal-El had a talk about the likely desires and expectations of the people in the city of Borussia itself, and together they decided it was time for Sir Lana to make an appearance. So this day, Lana was decked out in her lightweight armor and the tabard of a Knight of the Dragon, and instead of riding in the carriage with Alicia, she rode a horse. She even had her twin daggers prominently tucked into her belt.

Several people were made happy by that change in events. Lana and Kal-El were both pleased that they would be able to spend the entire day side-by-side. Alicia and Harold were also pleased as Lana’s move opened a seat in the carriage for him to claim so he could continue winning her back. There was no risk to Alicia’s reputation, as the other two seats in the carriage were taken by maids, but Lord Lang still chose to give the Krakovian prince a stern glare before he climbed up into the carriage. The ride into the city was slow, as the day’s ride was short and they weren’t in a big hurry. Even at their current pace, Kal-El’s party expected to make it into the city, out the other side, and to the palace in plenty of time for lunch.

Kal-El, Lana, and Lewis rode at the front of the procession with the man who was both crown prince and duke in the middle. Behind them were the royal carriage with Alicia and Harold, a couple of supply wagons, and their baggage train. On the sides and at the rear of the procession were the fifty knights in the green and gold of Borussia, and twenty more knights in the purple and gold of the new Count of Albemarle, Lord Lang.

The reason for turning a short march into a virtual parade was that the people of the city knew their duke and his future duchess were coming, and the reason they knew was that Kal-El had sent a pair of riders ahead a couple of days earlier to alert the palace staff about his imminent visit. He was reasonably sure the palace staff would in turn tell the city’s mayor, and that would end in some sort of welcome.

And as the procession neared the city itself, Kal-El saw he was right. A thin line of people lined each side of the roadway starting more than a mile outside the city gates, and he could see the lines of waiting townspeople thickening in the distance.

“Are you ready for this, Lana?” Kal-El asked.

“For the crowd?” she asked in reply.

“Well, that too,” Kal-El said, “but I was thinking mostly about the adulation and the expectations. Some of those people are going to expect you to be this huge warrior.”

Lana turned her head, flipping the single tail of her triple warrior’s braid, and smiled. “You mean this and my armor won’t be enough.” Lana knew better than that by now. Months of dealing with the general public when she went into the city had taught her some people just refused to believe such a tiny woman could possibly be the famous Lady Lana who was quickly becoming a legend.

Kal-El signaled with one hand and a knight in his green and gold livery rode forward until he was just behind the young duke. Then the knight took the wrappings off a long-handled bundle he carried before holding it straight up in the air and unfurling a green silk flag that fluttered in the light wind. Embroidered on the green silk was the golden eagle that had been the symbol of the El family long before they’d taken the throne.

“This is quite a bit different than the last time I rode through the city,” Kal-El confided to Lana.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It was during the war, and it was just me, Bruce, and my ten-man bodyguard. We were dressed as plain soldiers…all except for Bruce in his Cipangan samurai armor…and we just wanted to make it through the city without anyone noticing us.”

“And now we’re entering the city like conquering heroes or something,” Lana added.

“Well…we did help win the war,” Kal-El pointed out.

Lana used one hand to tug on the haft of one of her daggers before sliding it back into its sheath, and said, “Yeah…I killed oh so many people with my twin blades.” She snorted. “By now, there are probably stories out there claiming I wielded twin swords and slaughtered hundreds.”

“Without a doubt. But there are also those in the crowd who know from talking to the knights and soldiers in my army just how many lives you saved that day.”

Once they’d reached the leading edge of the crowd, the people came alive, showering their young duke and his lady with a wall of cheers as they headed into the town itself…and that was only the beginning. The farther they rode into the city, the greater the crowds and the louder the cheer became, until they rode into the city’s main square which was choked with people, including many of the city’s most prominent citizens. Kal-El and Lana rode close to each other, nearly touching legs as they waved to the crowd. By the time their procession made it to the far side of town, even the normally unflappable Lord Lang was rather impressed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like that,” Lewis said. “That crowd had to have contained more than half the people in the town.”

“Lana’s just lucky we have a couple of supply wagons that are mostly empty,” Kal-El chuckled. “Or else she’d be carrying a load of flowers bigger than her and me combined.”

That was true, and it was because all along their winding route through town, little girls had run up to Lana’s stirrup to hand her various bouquets of flowers until she was getting overwhelmed with them. After that, the flowers were placed in one of the supply wagons. Kal-El was just happy Lana was an accomplished horsewoman who could easily ride one-handed.

The ducal palace itself was located miles out of town, and people were prohibited from building any closer to the palace for reasons of aesthetics and security. The procession approached the open gate to the expansive palace grounds and began a slow trot up the gravel lane, between a double line of towering cedar trees. Lana began to look around in wonder, drinking in as much as she could of her surroundings. The snow had melted, but no spring growth was evident as she rode toward the distant palace. She had known for months that this palace and its grounds would be her home once she married Kal-El, but this moment was when the reality of it truly struck home.

“This is it,” she murmured, as she gestured at the parkland around them. “This is going to be our home.”

“It is,” Kal-El agreed, “and I can’t wait to explore it with you.”

“You mean ‘show it to me,’ right?”

“Nope, I was only here for a few short days last year and had no time for a serious tour of the palace and grounds.” Kal-El looked straight into her eyes and smiled. “So now we get to discover our palace together.”

Lana returned her gaze to the grounds, and much like Kal-El more than half a year earlier, wondered what it would be like to go for a ride in these woods, or take a walk in the gardens. And also like him, each imagining had one person by her side sharing those pleasures, and that was her beloved Kal-El.

Nearly three miles later, the wide gravel lane finally turned left out of the alley of trees, where it opened onto an immense, open, stone-paved courtyard. That’s where Lana received her first unobstructed view of the palace. While Kal-El had only seen another in a long line of palaces during his visit in the fall, Lana marveled at the building’s intricate exterior design, the sharply angled blue tile roofs, and the way the white bricks seemed to shimmer in the noonday sun. The main building wasn’t as large as the king’s winter palace back in Konigsberg, but she could already tell this palace had much more elegance and style.

She couldn’t wait to see inside.

Kal-El, Lana, and Lewis crossed the courtyard and brought their horses to a stop. The carriage stopped behind them, but the knights continued on around the far corner of the palace with the supply wagons and the baggage train. When those first horses came to a stop, servants liveried in green-and-gold - who had been on alert all day for their lord’s arrival - rushed out to take care of every need. Grooms held the horses by their bridles as the men dismounted. Lana would have dismounted with them, but she had to wait as a pair of servants were carefully placing a mounting block for her to make a more ladylike dismount. As their booted feet touched the courtyard, the grooms led the horses away to be watered, fed, and groomed, while house servants scurried over to offer warm, wet towels so the travelers could wipe the road grime from their faces and hands before moving inside.

Lana looked up the broad but shallow stone-flagged stairway that led to a pair of massive, iron-bound oak doors and shivered. Seeing the grounds as they had ridden inside the main gate had been interesting, even exciting, but that paled in comparison to what she was feeling at this moment. Ever since childhood, where Lana had first imagined marrying a prince one day, she had dreamed of the moment when she would walk inside ‘her’ palace.

This was that moment.

And Lana was more excited than she had been for anything except for receiving Kal-El’s proposal and his parents’ acceptance. She reached over and nervously clasped his hand before almost dragging him over to the stairway in her haste to get inside. Lewis, Alicia, and Harold followed a few steps behind, while the house servants disappeared into a service door near the stone stairway.

Just like the last time Kal-El had come to his palace, their were a pair of guards on the top step. Both men stood with their halberds held at an angle, but when their duke drew near, the men ‘presented arms’ and the door was opened from the inside.

The chamberlain himself - the man in charge of the physical state of the entire palace - was on hand to open the door himself for his lord, and a row of servants stood behind him, ready to escort their lord’s guests to their well-appointed rooms and help them prepare for lunch. The chamberlain had been briefed on the names and physical description of the guests by the people Kal-El had sent ahead, allowing him to easily figure out who was who. So when they five travelers stepped inside the doors, the chamberlain was able to greet them by name. What surprised the old man was that his duke did not enter first. Kal-El once again bowed slightly to Lana and followed her inside.

“Welcome, Lady Lana,” the chamberlain said, then, “my lord duke, welcome home…” and as the last of the five was welcomed, the chamberlain shut the door firmly behind them. But before the door even closed, Lana had the best feeling in her gut: she’d never been in this palace before in her life, never had come anywhere near it, but nonetheless, she knew she was home.

[Nemu]

:D
Ya know what i hate most with your updates? (and stories too for that matter) They have to end...

I want more!!! That was good!!! Sir Lana comes to play some... Funny how she is the one pulling Kal along to enter the palace...

Glad she feels home already...

Can't wait for the next chapter...

PPMS!!!

[CaptainObvious]

What a nice chapter. I can imagine the sight for the townspeople watching their royals and all the knights march on by, all the while the same for royals and knights seeing basically the whole town before them!

After all this time and all they have been through together, Lana and Kal are finally home in their palace. As they both said, they will enjoy checking out the palace together.

[Cardinal]

Chapter 96

House Tour

Lana wanted nothing more than to grab Kal-El and embark on their palace exploration, but she was still her armor, which she didn’t think wasn’t suitable for her to wear now that she was in the palace. She didn’t want the servants to see her as Sir Lana, instead, she wanted them to see Lady Lana, a young woman of quality who was worthy of their young lord. As she looked around the spacious, marble-floored entryway, the rest of the party entered.

“Is everyone hungry?” Kal-El asked Lana and his three other guests. When they all answered positively, he turned to the chamberlain, and said, “My Lord Chamberlain, my betrothed, our guests, and I will take the noonday meal in the small dining room once we’ve all had the chance to clean up and change clothes.”

The chamberlain signaled with the wave of a finger and the servants rushed forward to escort the duke and his guests to their rooms. Since Lana wasn’t yet the duchess, she wasn’t allowed to have the duchess’ suite, so instead she was escorted with Alicia to the best rooms at the top of the immense Ladies’ Tower. Prince Harold and Count Lang were likewise ensconced at the top of the Gentlemen’s Tower. There were many other accommodations available throughout the palace, but these were the most luxurious and most prestigious. The young duke was sparing no expense in caring for his first official guests.

Kal-El, however, needed no escort to find his personal suite, which took up half of the top floor of the family quarters. He stopped as he got to the intricately carved, heavy oaken doors to his suite and looked across the hall to a similar set of doors. He’d never been in the duchess’ suite, had never even so much as opened the door to take a look, but now he was tempted.

According to tradition, the duchess’ suite belonged to her, and not even the duke himself was allowed inside without her express permission. The only thing keeping Kal-El from taking a peek now was that he believed those rooms already belonged to Lana, even though he and she were more than five months away from being married.

As far as he was concerned, Lana Lang was already the mistress of the house.

Kal-El then disappeared into his suite and popped out an hour later ready to find Lana so they could greet their guests together. He ran into the men first, however, finding them huddled together talking quietly to one side of the great gallery. They straightened up in a hurry once they saw him approaching, which caused him to wonder what they’d been talking about. He figured it was probably something to do with Alicia, which made their talk a private matter. The three men stood around chatting a little bit longer before Lana and Alicia made their entrance.

All talk stopped as Kal-El and Harold headed to meet them. Lewis watched with thinly concealed amusement and satisfaction as his two remaining unmarried daughters were greeted by two of the most eligible bachelors currently residing in the kingdom.

“I didn’t have time to say it earlier,” Kal-El said warmly, after a brief but heated kiss, “but welcome home, Lana dearest.”

“Home,” Lana said breathily. Her eyes shone as she stepped to her beloved Kal’s side and took his arm. “We are home. You feel it too, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” he agreed, “and it will be our home for a very long time.”

Meanwhile, Harold was greeting Alicia. “You’re radiant!” He carefully avoided a kiss with her father present, but swept her into his arms for an enveloping hug.

“We haven’t been apart that long, Harold,” Alicia giggled.

“Does it have to be a long separation for me to miss you?” Alicia looked up at her prince and shook her head ‘no.’ “Then I missed you Lady Alicia Lang. May that always be the case.”

The girls slipped away from their guys long enough to greet their father with kisses on either side of his cheek. The five of them then headed down the wide, marble-floored hallway toward the dining room. This room was much smaller than the ultra-formal grand dining room on the other side of the palace, and was intended for the use of smaller, more personal gatherings. Kal-El privately pointed out to Lana that there was an even more intimate dining room located in the family quarters for their private use once they married.

The meal was long, delicious, and very comfortable for people who had been eating in comparatively ill-equipped inns ever since leaving Roskilde. Once the meal was over, Lana was all charged up for a private tour of the palace, but one look shared with Kal-El was enough for her to realize they were no longer just a couple. They were home, and that made them hosts. That meant they needed to include her father, sister, and Prince Harold in the tour, too.

Lana grumbled to herself for a moment until she realized Kal-El was waiting for her to make the invitation. She knew that sort of invitation was properly the province of the lady of the house. That served to reinforce the point that this was her home, too…and she was suddenly okay with sharing her tour.

Lana then cleared her throat, somewhat more loudly than necessary, to gather everyone’s attention. “Kal-El and I are going to take a tour of the palace in a few moments. We’d be pleased if all of you would join us.”

Alicia and Harold looked at Lana, at Kal-El, and then at each other. After a brief whispered consultation, Alicia begged off, saying they’d prefer a warm, sunny room to sit in and a pot of hot tea. Seeing that he would be a third wheel now, and having already realized that Kal-El and Lana likely wanted some time to themselves, Lewis quietly claimed he wanted to speak with his guard commander about the quarters for his guards.

Kal-El felt that was a vague and completely unintentional slight toward the care offered by his staff, but at the moment he really didn’t care, not as long as it meant he and Lana would be alone on the tour. After turning down an offer from the chamberlain to provide them with someone to serve as their guide, Kal-El and Lana spent a long, sweet afternoon rambling aimlessly through the palace, discovering the throne room, the ballroom, and the library - which almost ended the tour for Lana, as she saw shelf upon shelf of leather-bound books. A walk along the roof of a tower allowed them to look down across the formal gardens which were just starting to wake from their winter slumber.

“Those are going to be gorgeous when they come in,” Lana breathed, as she leaned into the embrasure between two merlons to make up for her lack of height and get a better look over the wall.

Kal-El had taken a quick look at the gardens, but had given up that sight for the superior beauties of Lana’s face as she reacted to the layout of hedges, trees, and pathways below. He’d kept quiet until she spoke, but her words compelled him to speak. “They’re gorgeous now.” Lana looked up and saw where he was looking, causing her to blush prettily and him to grin widely. “You know,” he added, “you could just fly down there and give yourself a closer look.”

“Yeah,” Lana replied drolly, “and give anyone out in the gardens a look straight up my dress.”

“Oh!” It was Kal-El’s turn to blush for having suggested Lana should risk flashing the gardening staff. “Not still wearing the leather pants then?”

“No. They’re just not very dignified, and they look positively silly when worn under a dress,” Lana smiled.

“Okay, but you’ll just be putting them back on after the evening meal.”

“I know, I haven’t forgotten,” Lana grinned up at Kal-El. “Tonight I start to go from merely flying to soaring.”

Lana was so cute at the moment that he couldn’t help but lean into her and rub the tip of his nose against hers. But flying would have to wait. After seeing guest rooms, the kitchens, the stables and more, Lana and Kal-El approached the family quarters. Up ‘til now, their self-guided tour had been unsupervised, as there were plenty of servants everywhere to ‘protect’ Lana’s reputation. But now that they were headed into the privacy of the family quarters, Kal-El stopped long enough to get a housemaid to accompany them.

The ground floor of the family quarters contained the family dining room and other equally private rooms for the ducal family’s enjoyment, while the second and third floors contained rooms for many children, including a nursery and room for a full complement of nannies.

Lana had been oohing and ahhing over their living quarters, but when she saw the children’s rooms, and especially the nursery, she looked up, and said, “Kal, I’ve just realized I’m going to be a mother long before I’m twenty. Do you think I’m ready for that?”

“I do think you’re ready. If you could successfully handle an old bastard like Lord Howland during the war, surely you can handle a child.” Kal-El replied simply. “And we’ll have lots of help for you. You saw those rooms for the nannies. But remember, Kryptonians don’t get pregnant all that easily, so it may actually take a little bit of time for you to get pregnant.”

“We don’t?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No,” Lana replied, “no one ever bothered to tell me about that little complication.”

Kal-El was crestfallen. For some reason, he’d always assumed she had known. “I’m sorry, Lana. I should have made sure you knew.”

Lana was silent as she contemplated this new information. Then she thought of the stories she heard from her chambermaids over the last few years, stories about what men and women actually do when they’re trying to make babies. Stories she was increasingly anxious to put to the test. A slow smile swept across her face. “Well then, we’ll just have to get in plenty of practice, just like with my new abilities.”

Kal-El smiled then, too, and swept her into his arms for a hug. “Lots and lots of practice.”

Last on their tour were their personal suites on the fourth floor of the family quarters. Kal-El stood back in the hall and waited as Lana pushed open her door and peered into what would soon be her suite. A gasp escaped her lips as she took in the huge anteroom. She gestured to Kal-El to get him to join her, but he shook his head and declined.

Lana was confused by his refusal until the maid stepped in and explained the tradition regarding the duchess’ quarters. Lana then rolled her eyes extravagantly and pointedly gave him permission to join her for an exploration of her suite. But Kal-El declined again, more emphatically this time, and before Lana could get any more confused than she already was, he said, “It’s not that I don’t want to see your rooms, Lana. I do, but it just occurred to me that I’d like to save that first viewing for our first night together as man and wife.”

Lana liked that Kal was thinking of them as man and wife, but she figured their first night together would be in the winter palace back in the capital, since that’s where the wedding was taking place.

She asked Kal-El about that. His response was to say, “Not a chance. After the wedding and the reception and everything that comes with it, it’s my intention that we let everyone see us leave the palace in a royal carriage, as if headed off on a journey, but once we leave the sight of the people in the city, we’ll leave the carriage and fly here. Then we can make a drive around town here the next day so our people here can see their new duchess.” Kal-El leaned in and kissed Lana softly. “I just don’t want to waste several days traveling to get here once we’re married.”

“Anxious to get started on that ‘practice?’” Lana asked, as she wiggled her eyebrows.

Kal-El’s eyes glowed a red-orange for a moment before he got it under control. He knew she had seen it, just from the way her eyes opened wide. “Did that answer your question?”

Lana’s eyes glowed in response to his show of passion. She struggled to get her own heat vision under control, and was about to use her cold breath on her hands, when she managed to make the glow recede on her own.

Kal-El saw Lana’s small victory, and smiled as he pulled her into his arms. “Let’s go downstairs and check on dinner,” he murmured into her soft brown hair, “before one of us starts a fire.”

“Yeah, I think seeing the rest of my suite can wait until we marry. That’ll be one more thing to share with you on that day.” She nodded toward the stairs at the end of the hall. “Come on, Kal. Let’s go.”

[Nemu]

:D
That was good!!!

Funny some as usual and sweet... the private tour and how Kal sees Lana as already being the mistress of the place...

PPMS!!!

[ilovethursdays]

great chapter :)

[CaptainObvious]

Thank you for the update. This truly is a good story and each chapter so well thought out.

Obviously, deep down Kal and Lana were happy no one joined them for the tour of the palace. I understand the protocol of it all, but it's their new home, a personal moment that only they should share together. It's a wonder though Kal had the restraint to refuse Lana's invite to view her suite. Then again, should we expect anything less from our perfect Prince. How clever of him to come up with the mad dash to fly home to the palace after the wedding to make sure they spend their first night as husband and wife in their home. How sentimental.

I had a slight flashback when Lana and Alicia walked in to meet up with Kal and Harold for lunch. Remember the Harvest Ball when Lana came down the staircase in her beautiful gown with Kal and Harold waiting for her at the bottom? Both men were mezmerized by Lana's beauty. Kal whishpered to Hardold "you lucky bastard" because he was Lana's escort not him. Obviously, this was just lunch, but this time Kal was not left empty handed, nor was Harold for that matter.

[Cardinal]

Chapter 97

Flying High

When the evening meal was over, Kal-El figured Lana would be in a tearing hurry to change her clothes so they could go flying. He’d never met anyone so anxious to fly in his life, and he was fairly sure her appetite for flying had only increased after they spent some time getting her familiar with the basics several days earlier.

But Lana had been amazed by the dinner and its featured course, mustard-crusted rack of lamb, which was a longtime favorite meal of hers. She learned early in the meal that Kal-El had sent a special request for the meal to the palace along with the riders he’d sent ahead a few days earlier to alert the palace staff of his imminent arrival. And while she was thought he was sweet, and planned on rewarding him with some special attention of her own later on, nothing would do at the moment but for her to go to the kitchens and thank the chef herself.

The chef, his assistant cooks, and the various scullions were shocked when Lana walked in while everything was still being cleaned and put away. None of them could recall a dinner guest ever coming back to visit the kitchen after a meal…and definitely not someone like the future lady of the house. The chef rapidly assembled his staff, and Lana thanked them for their work on her and Kal-El’s behalf, giving her special thanks for the mustard-crusted lamb.

The upshot of the visit was that the chef, as soon as he got over his shock, started asking Lana what other dishes she favored so he would have a stream of sure-to-please meals to lean on while he came up with recipes of his own that the duke and his betrothed would really like.

Kal-El had not accompanied Lana into the kitchen. His thought was that she needed to start establishing her authority as the lady of the house. In that role, she was the titular head of the entire household, which included everything produced by the kitchen staff, so if she chose to speak with them, it was his job to stay out of the way so she could run things the way she wanted them.

When Lana came back from the kitchen, and the last of the dishes were whisked away, Kal-El and Lana led their guests across the wide hallway and into a large, richly-appointed evening drawing room. The men headed to a walnut bar and poured themselves each a healthy snifter of cognac. Lord Lewis had only recently allowed Lana to drink full-strength alcohol herself, but since Alicia was two years younger and was still not allowed any alcohol except for well-watered wine, Lana joined her in a glass of that to keep her from feeling left out.

The five people continued their conversations from the dining room in the opulent luxury of the drawing room, until the talking dried up and Lana began to look anxiously at the slowly darkening skies outside. Kal-El noticed Lana’s looks, and rose to his feet, causing everyone else in the room to rise with him.

Kal-El gestured for Lana to go ahead and leave, and then he said, “Lana and I are headed to the open courtyard just behind the main palace building to sharpen her flying skills. While she goes up to her rooms to change into something more suitable, allow me to invite you all to come out and watch us.”

“But I thought it was too dangerous for any of us to watch her,” Alicia asked.

Kal-El nodded his head. “It was, back when she had no idea what she was doing, but now that she has a basic control of her powers, it will be safe enough for you to come watch her spread her wings…so to speak.”

Lewis quickly accepted for both himself and Alicia, which guaranteed that Prince Harold would be there too. He was trying to walk the fine line between lavishing Alicia with attention, and overwhelming her with it, but he thought this was an important event for the Langs, so he wanted to be there with her.

Once Lana was dressed in one of her rugged knightly tunics, her trusty brown leather pants, and a pair of riding boots, she was so excited to return to Kal-El that she used a burst of super-speed to race back down the Ladies’ Tower and rejoin him and everybody else. Flying like a drunken duck was one thing, but soaring like the golden eagle on the Borussian flag was another thing altogether. She couldn’t wait to get started.

Kal-El took Lana’s hand in his and together they led their guests through the maze of passages and out into the large courtyard at the back of the palace. The gardens were visible just beyond the courtyard, and servants were already busy arranging a series of tall pine torches around the perimeter of the courtyard. Other servants were busy arranging a portable table with a decent array of snacks and warm drinks. And before Alicia had time to really notice the slight chill in the air, yet another servant was at her side to help her into her fur coat, which had been rushed down from her suite.

“I guess that tour of the palace you two took this afternoon really paid off,” Lewis said to Lana. “You and Kal-El didn’t get lost once on the twisty walk out here.”

“I’d like to take credit for that,” Lana replied, chuckling all the while, “but the truth is, Kal was using his x-ray vision to see which passage went where.”

“Pretty handy that,” Lewis smiled.

“I haven’t found too many uses for it yet, but we’ve been on the road almost the whole time since the queen and Kal gave me my abilities. I’m sure it will come in handy here in the palace.”

Kal-El was in the process of stripping off the heavily brocaded coat he’d had on for dinner, and once that was done, he came back over to claim Lana’s hand. “Come on, we have a show to put on for these people.”

Author’s note: I don’t do this much, but this song was in my mind the entire time I wrote this next section. Having said that, here’s the link so you can listen to it in the background as you read if you wish to.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5PQ7Hxz2XI


The moment Lana’s fingers slipped into Kal-El’s he tightened his grip and smoothly flew a foot into the air, waiting for Lana to match him. She rose off the ground, slowly but steadily, with a deep furrow of concentration right across her forehead and her mouth set into a determined grimace. It wasn’t much, but just seeing Lana fly was enough to draw a wild grin from Lewis and a round of excited cheers and applause from Alicia.

“Okay, enough of the kiddie stuff,” Kal-El said, as he released Lana’s hand. “Let’s fly. Catch me if you can.”

Lana grinned at the challenge implicit in Kal-El’s voice, and as he moved higher in the sky, she moved to follow him. Over the next half hour, Kal moved at differing speeds and directions and gauged how easy it was for Lana to duplicate. What he noticed was that anytime he just took off without warning, Lana followed reflexively and her flight control was easy and natural. But if he took the time to tell her where they were going next, she tended to have problems.

When Kal-El realized this, he brought them both to a stop, hovering a hundred feet off the ground, their bodies bathed in the last of the dying sunlight. Lana was frustrated with her inconsistent flying, and it was really beginning to bother her.

“Kal,” she started, “what am I doing wrong? One minute I’m soaring, just like you said I would be, and the next minute, I’m flying like a drunken duck.”

Kal-El didn’t say anything at first, instead his hands snaked around her waist and pulled her close. Lana barely had time to register the fact that he was moving in close when Kal-El’s lips descended upon hers, capturing them with a heated kiss.

Lana went from frustrated to surprised to all melty inside in the space of a couple of heartbeats, and as her mouth molded itself to his, her lips parted without a thought and Kal-El’s tongue slipped right in. Her eyes fluttered closed, and her hands came to rest on his bulging biceps, as her tongue rose to this challenge and began dance with his.

Kal-El and Lana were easily visible to the people waiting on the ground. Alicia looked on interestedly, Harold watched her, and Lewis…well, Lewis pretended he couldn’t see a thing. When Kal-El finally ended the kiss with a final peck on Lana’s lips, she was seeing stars and her stress level was much, much lower, which had been his intention all along…well, that and getting a hot kiss from her. He’d use any excuse to taste her lips one more time.

“You think too much, Lana,” Kal-El said as he held her close while they caught their breath. “Once you know how to fly, the rest is doing, not thinking.”

“Just do it?”

“No thinking,” Kal-El confirmed. “When you decide where you’re going, just…go.”

Discovering her problem was all Lana needed. It helped her realize she already knew what she needed to know. That knowledge freed her to relax…and to soar.

Lana rocketed across the sky then, and it was Kal-El who was having to keep up, as they played an impromptu game of tag amongst the low-hanging clouds. She darted in and out of the fluffy whiteness, with him trailing behind her, both of them laughing and completely enjoying the moment. And when he finally touched her ankle, he raced off to be chased by her.

Lana felt she could have stayed in the air all night long, but instead of greeting the next day’s rising sun, she remembered her guests and responsibilities on the ground and finally floated to a landing right in front of her father. “Daddy!” she squealed, as Alicia drew close. “Did you see that? I flew!”

“Yes, Lana,” a visibly excited Lewis agreed, as he drew her into his arms for a hug. “I saw you. We all did. So tell me, what is it like?”

“Well, lemme tell you…”

While Lewis and Alicia were caught up with Lana’s excited burbling, Kal-El had landed in front of his friend Harry. “What are you doing over here with me, Kal?” Harry asked.

Kal-El gestured toward Lewis and Alicia. “Those two just witnessed that Lana is truly different now, so I thought they could use a little private family time before I stuck my nose in there.” He then turned to Harry and raised an eyebrow. “I saw you and Lewis talking today before lunch. He say anything that you want to tell me? Or is it private?”

Harry grimaced. “No, he told me first, but it will be publicly announced as soon as we reach the winter palace.”

“What will?”

“That Alicia is off limits for the next two years,” Harry said sourly, “as far as any engagement or marriage is concerned anyway.”

“Well…I see his point. I mean, she is only fifteen.” Kal-El knew other reasons, too, but hesitated to speak them. Then he reluctantly decided his friend needed to hear them. “And while you’re her first suitor, you won’t be the last. This two years will give her and her father plenty of time to meet and evaluate those other suitors.” Kal-El clapped a meaty hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Don’t think your work is over merely because you’ve got Alicia smiling again. Lord Lewis just put you on notice: every move you make is being watched and evaluated.”

[Nemu]

:D
That was good!!!

Instincts are strong in Lana... which might help her a lot later...

Funny the ability parents have to see what they want and not see some stuff...

Well Harry couldn't hope to have it that easy....

PPMS!!!

[Cardinal]

Chapter 98

The Welcoming Committee

Kal-El, Lana and her family, and Harold spent the next several days enjoying the comforts of the palace as they rested from the rigors of their journey. Lana and Kal-El proudly led an informal tour of their new home, showing off rooms they themselves hadn’t seen before the day of their arrival.

During this second tour, Lana got a better look at things and started to notice the furnishings and decorations were somewhat out of date. When she pulled Kal-El to one side and told him this, it didn’t bother him, because he didn’t care much about things like that. He did know, however, how long it had been since his parents had first taken over this very same palace.

“You know how old my parents are, right?” Kal-El asked. When Lana nodded yes, he went on, “Well, they first moved into this palace back when they were not much older than we are now. I’ll bet it’s been that long since there has been a major renovation or redecoration of this place.”

Lana gave a low whistle, and Kal-El dropped another load on her shoulders. “So once we marry and move here permanently, you’ll be in charge of updating and renovating this place.”

“Me?” Lana asked, somewhat surprised.

“Of course you,” Kal-El replied. “Don’t tell me you want to trust me with a job like that…we might end up with captured war banners hanging as tapestries in our formal dining room.”

Lana shuddered delicately, and said, “Okay, Kal. You win, but I don’t want to hear you complaining about my choices…or about the bill for what this is going to cost.”

Kal-El leaned in and quickly kissed Lana on the lips, dragging her lower lip into his mouth before releasing her and gazing at her goofily. “I trust you, Lana…with the contents of my treasury…and the contents of my heart.”

Lana wanted to melt into Kal’s arms that very instant for a major kiss, but a slight clearing of the throat from her nearby father brought her and Kal back to reality, and she blushed as they rejoined the others for the rest of the tour. And acting as if nothing had happened, she announced, “Kal-El and I have just decided the palace is in need of a major renovation, so don’t get too used to anything you’re seeing. And it looks like I’ll get free rein over the ducal treasury to do it.”

Lewis nearly choked when Lana announced that, earning him a few light slaps on the back from her. And when he then murmured, just loud enough for everyone to hear, “Good luck with that,” Lana’s light slaps became slightly harder as she rolled her eyes at him, and everyone laughed.

While everyone enjoyed their time in the ducal palace, soon enough it was time to go. When the wagons were finally reloaded with chests filled with personal belongings, and everyone was ready to go, Kal-El pulled the Lord Chamberlain aside, along with the Housekeeper, for a brief but pointed conversation. Lana asked Kal-El what he’d needed with the staff just before leaving, but he refused to answer, smiling and saying only there were certain small things she didn’t need to know. Lana eyed Kal-El curiously, but let it go, as she trusted him the same way he trusted her.

The trip from Borussia to Königsberg promised to be quick and easy, as the kingdom was spider-webbed with wide, smooth stone-paved highways that connected all of the major cities. Lana wanted to ride a horse along with Kal and her father, but this was her first real chance to spend extended time alone with Alicia since Kal had told her about her father’s proclamation. So, Lana smiled and pre-empted Harold’s wish to ride with Alicia, claiming that seat for herself.

Once the carriage was underway, and the clattering of horses’ hooves and the rattling of the carriage made overhearing them impossible, Lana pulled a tightly-stoppered bottle of fresh lemonade out of a large wicker hamper of treats she had asked for the day before, and asked Alicia if she wanted some for herself. Alicia was about to decline, as she wasn’t fond of warm drinks on a warm day, when Lana rather pointedly used her cold breath to frost over the outside of the bottle.

“Oh yeah,” Alicia said quietly. “I keep forgetting about that.” She scratched aimlessly at the corner of one eye. “In that case, I’ll take a glass.”

Lana had also sent the maid that had been scheduled to ride with Alicia and Harold back to the maids’ carriages so they could have a private chat. That stopped any unnecessary gossip by the maids, but it meant Lana and Alicia would have to do for themselves. So, Lana poured out two glasses and handed one to Alicia. Once the bottle of lemonade was tightly stoppered once more, she looked over at her sister, and asked, “So, how are things between you and Prince Harold? Has he truly made his way back into your heart? Or does it just look that way from the outside?”

Alicia took a careful first sip of the lemony-sweet drink, and then stared at the glass as it rested on her lap, before looking at her older sister and saying, “I’m not sure. When Harold’s with me, everything feels like it did back in Krakovia. He’s apologized very sincerely and written me several love letters, and in general, made me feel like I’m the only woman in the world for him.”

Lana could tell just from the way Alicia spoke that there was another side to the story, and she began to wonder if her father’s two-year moratorium on anything official for Alicia might not have been Alicia’s own idea in the first place. Still, Lana wanted to know for sure, and there was only one way she could do that. “But…?”

“But,” Alicia said, agreeing that there was more to her story, “I’ve felt like I was the only woman in his life before, and yet, as soon as our family left for home, he seemed to forget about me.”

Lana nodded. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Exactly!” Alicia agreed. “And when I compare that to how Kal-El treated you, managing to write you love letters while in the midst of fighting a war…”

“You want someone to love you like that.”

“Yeah…and now that I don’t have to marry someone just to secure a comfortable life or improve the family fortunes, I’m determined to have it.”

“So,” Lana said speculatively, “you did get Father to put a stop to any and all proposals, didn’t you?”

Alicia shook her head no, and took another sip of her lemonade before replying. “Not really. I just told him I didn’t want to get rushed. He decided this was the best, surest way to be positive I had all the time I needed.”

Lana reached across the narrow seating area to pat one of Alicia’s arms. “You’re right, you have plenty of time to choose.” Lana could think of another reason for Alicia to wait: if the girl waited two more years to get married, her wedding would get the attention it deserved instead of being buried by the hoopla surrounding Lana’s own wedding. But she knew Alicia didn’t want to hear that, so what she said was, “According to Kal, King Richard should be bring a number of his favorite lords with him when he escorts Princess Mara and her ladies back home, and some of those lords are still looking for the right lady.”

The idea of a new set of prospects brightened Alicia mood, something Lana had known would happen, and that made her wonder more and more about how much work Kal’s friend Harold still had left to do to win Alicia’s hand.

After a few days of easy traveling, the small cavalcade approached the outskirts of Königsberg and headed directly to the spacious grounds of the winter palace. Lana and Kal-El were riding side-by-side on horses for the last portion of the trip, and as they made their way through the capital city, their small, well-guarded procession drew crowds of curious onlookers.

When the column of horses, carriages, and wagons neared the cathedral, Lana brought it to a stop, and guided her horse a few steps forward so she would have an unimpeded view. Curious, Kal-El followed along behind a few moments later.

“What’s up?”

Lana turned toward Kal-El as he reached her side. “Can we attend some services at the cathedral before we get married?”

“You don’t like the chapel at the palace any more?”

“No, the chapel suits me just fine,” Lana shifted her position on her saddle and turned more fully toward Kal-El, “but I don’t think I’d like my first time inside the cathedral to be the day I walk down the aisle to marry you.”

“I guess that could be a little intimidating.” Kal-El nodded his head thoughtfully. “The building is huge, and - believe it or not - it looks even bigger from the inside.”

Lana looked at Kal-El curiously. “When have you ever been inside the cathedral?”

“I’ve been to a number of prominent weddings there over the years.” He shrugged his shoulders. “My family has a box right down front, so if you want to attend services here, just let me know and we’ll do it.”

Lana turned her eyes back to the cathedral for one last look before wheeling her horse around and returning to her spot in the column. Once Kal-El had joined her, he signaled for the column to begin to move once more.

When the main palace gates finally came into view, the whole column unconsciously picked up its pace, trotting by the members of the Royal Household Guard who manned the gates, and heading down the tree-lined lane before finally passing through the tunnel and into the huge central courtyard. Kal-El quickly dismounted, and hustled over to politely help Lana down from her horse, even though she did not need it now that she was Kryptonian. But while she didn’t need his help with dismounting her horse, she accepted it anyway, loving how attentive he was.

As the grooms walked off with Kal-El and Lana’s horses, the prince and his soon-to-be princess made their way up the steps - hand-in-hand - to the wide double doors which were flung open just as they reached the top step.

“Who do you think will find you first?” Kal-El asked, as they stepped through the doors. “Your ladies, Mother, or Grandma?”

“Well…” Lana said. She paused a moment as the servants approached to take the rain cloaks she and Kal-El had been wearing all day. And as the cloaks were taken away, a second wave of servants approached with both wet and dry towels, to allow the newcomers to wash the road grime from their faces and hands.

Lewis, Alicia, and Harold were just coming in the front doors and handing off their cloaks as Kal-El and Lana were holding out their hands for the wet towels, when suddenly, both Kal-El and Lana felt a twisting in their guts. The pain increased with every moment that passed, and Lana clutched her belly, wondering what could be wrong with her.

The more experienced Kal-El, however, knew it was Kryptonite sickness, and immediately bellowed “Treason!” as loud as he could manage, even as he stumbled to the floor. That one word galvanized the guards into action. Swords were drawn and guards looked for the imminent threat, even as they rushed to form a ring around the prince and his lady.

But they were too late.

As Kal-El fell to the floor, and tried to pull the hunched-over Lana down so he could shield her body with his, he saw a flash of brilliant green and then heard her scream in a way that made Kal-El himself feel like he was dying.

[Nemu]

Whoa!!! Wait a minute who the hell would make such an attack at the entrence of the royal palace no less...

Hope it is not a severe wound... there's going to be hell to pay...

PPMS!!!!

[ilovethursdays]

TWIST!! ppms.

[shortcircuit85]

You cannot leave it here! This is such a cliffy!

Great Update! This story keeps getting better and better!

Thanks,

[CaptainObvious]

Who? What? Where? Why? Things were just sailing along to smoothly for it to last. Who's behind all this? Is Bruce anywhere around to help save the day? Cliff hangers....darn cliff hangers!

[Cardinal]

Chapter 99

Just Breathe

Lana screamed and seemed to fall in slow-motion as she collapsed in a heap on top of Kal-El’s writhing body.

After that, everything happened in a confused rush.

Panicked servants turned and fled the entrance hall as the royal household guards charged in and knocked the assailant to the floor. They would have ended his life on the spot, had Lord Lang not rushed up behind them and screamed at them to keep their prisoner alive so he could be questioned. Harold, meanwhile, grabbed Alicia around the waist, threw her up against the closest wall, and stepped in front of her as he pulled his sword and dagger to defend her against an unknown threat.

Once Lewis was sure the guards wouldn’t kill the prisoner, he turned to his personal priority and wormed his way inside the guard ring - after giving up his own sword and dagger - to help his beloved daughter. Just then, more guards poured into the room from their nearby posts with swords already drawn, looking for blood.

Lana thrashed about in pain on top of Kal-El, who was still in a fair amount of pain himself. Just as Lewis was wondering how either of the two Kryptonians was hurt in the least, Kal-El muttered, “Kryp - to - nite blade.”

That piece of information sent Lewis from confusion to the edge of a full-blown terror. Regretting the need, he lifted one side of Lana’s body to see if the blade was still embedded in her body. He didn’t see a blade, but what he did see was a pair of red spots on the tabard Lana had chosen to wear over her blouse and leather pants for the ride today. The spots were sodden and rapidly growing.

Hearing his daughter in such wordless pain was killing Lewis as surely as it was Kal-El, but he knew he had to be strong for her, and for the prince, and put his pain aside for just a few minutes longer. Not having seen the blade in or under Lana, Lewis turned to the prisoner, who had a burly guard on top of each arm and leg, and searched the man frantically before finding what felt like a dagger trapped between the man’s chest and the marble floor. He grabbed the dagger and yanked it free. The hilt of the dagger was unadorned and made of plain iron, but the blade itself was solid green Kryptonite and it glowed as if lit from within.

Lewis turned wildly, found a small gap in the encircling ring of guards, and threw the dagger across the room. As the dagger skittered across the floor and slammed up against the far wall, the glow that had seemed to animate the blade died away, and the two Kryptonians on the floor began to breathe easier. At this point, Lewis had done all he knew to do. He wasn’t sure how Kryptonians recovered after exposure to the green mineral, so he stayed where he was and fought off his panic as he waited for instruction from anyone who knew better.

“Get Lana off of me, Lewis, and get her outside into the courtyard and into full sunlight,” Kal-El said, as the blade lost its ability to affect him.

Lewis had seen Lana’s bleeding and wasn’t sure moving her was worth the risk of additional injury, but he assumed the prince knew better, so he picked up his still-screaming daughter and rushed from the room.

Just as Kal-El rolled over and staggered to his feet to follow Lewis and Lana outside, a couple of the servants that had been stationed in the entrance hall made their way to the anteroom where everyone waited before being allowed entrance into the throne room itself.

Inside the throne room, the king and queen were holding court, listening to one petitioner after another, when they heard a growing disturbance out in the anteroom. They were content to allow the seneschal and his guards to handle the problem, but within moments, the immense bronze doors were thrown open and the seneschal ran, not walked, toward the dais. A pair of guards stepped forward to intercept the man, but he stopped well short of them. Both royals were concerned, as the seneschal was a dignified older lord who never hurried anywhere at any time. For him to be running now meant something serious had happened.

“What is it, Lord Buckner?” Jor-El asked as he leaned forward.

“Your Majesty,” Lord Buckner said, his eyes wide with panic. “There’s been an assassination attempt.” Those words were spoken loud enough for every person present to hear them easily. That caused a uproar as everyone speculated on who had been attacked.

“Silence!” Jor-El roared. “I will have silence or I will clear the room!” When his uncharacteristic roar was reinforced with a stern glare at everyone in the room, absolute silence was achieved in mere moments. Once the throne room was quiet once again, Jor-El said, “Who was attacked, Lord Buckner? And where?”

Both Jor-El and Lara were leaning in to listen now, as Lord Buckner gathered his composure, and said, “The report was confused, Your Majesty, but the servants who witnessed the attack saw both Crown Prince Kal-El and Lady Lana Lang collapse during the brief moments before they themselves turned and ran.”

Even the threat of royal displeasure wasn’t enough to silence the crowd now, not after hearing that the prince and his lady love had been attacked. And as the crowd noise built, Jor-El pounded his armrest in frustration, and then leapt from his throne, landing on the floor several feet in front of the dais on which the thrones were located, and headed straight for Lord Buckner.

Lara followed Jor-El as he picked the seneschal up off the floor and carried him from the room at a rapid pace. Once they’d left the throne room and passed through the anteroom, the three stopped in the relative quiet of the hallway, and Jor-El asked a one-word question: “Where?”

“In the entrance hall to this very…palace.” Lord Buckner’s voice trailed off as one moment he was faced with a very anxious-looking king and queen, and the next moment, they were nowhere to be seen.

By the time the super-speeding king and queen found Kal-El and Lana, she was lying in her father’s arms in the afternoon sunlight of the east end of the stone-paved courtyard, with Kal-El standing next to them, and a cordon of menacing-looking royal household guards surrounding them.

A few moments in direct sunlight had been plenty to restore Kal-El to full health after his encounter with the Kryptonite, but not Lana. It was true she was breathing much better, and her bleeding seemed to have stopped, but her wounds hadn’t closed up yet, and she was still in agony.

Kal-El wanted to be holding Lana more than anything, but he left her with Lewis because he was afraid of jostling her in her wounded state, and because he more than suspected her father had no intention of handing off his little girl to anyone at this moment.

Seeing their son standing tall helped ease the minds of the royal couple, but finding Lana stricken, with blood all over her abdomen, angered them both all over again.

“Why isn’t Lana healed?” Jor-El asked his wife quietly as the ring of guards parted at their approach. “She is fully Kryptonian now isn’t she?”

Lara placed both of her hands on Jor-El’s nearest bicep and held onto it as she leaned against him. “Yes, Dear. I saw her demonstrate that fact.” She then used her x-ray vision on Lana’s blood-soaked abdomen. “One stab wound in her side, just below the ribcage,” Lara said clinically, as she slipped into healer mode, “and another in the front of her abdomen. Both wounds have numerous tiny fragments of Kryptonite embedded inside them.”

“Can you heal her?” Kal-El asked hopefully, almost painfully eagerly, as his parents came to a stop at his side. As soon as he’d regained his strength, he’d tried his own meager ability on her and found it wanting, but he had hopes his mother’s superior skill at using magic to heal would make the difference.

“No, Kal,” Lara said, “you know better than that. Spells powered by our solar energy won’t touch the green Kryptonite, and once the Kryptonite is removed from her body, it will heal on it’s own,” she looked around irritably, “provided that damn doctor of ours gets here before the sun sets behind the west wing.” Lara saw her son was so hurt by Lana’s condition, so obviously desperate to do anything to help, that she decided to make use of him. “Kal, there’s something you can do to help Lana right now.”

“Name it,” Kal said, almost before the words were out of his mother’s mouth.

“Go inside and find the doctor. Make sure he has his medical bag, and then bodily carry him out here. Now go.”

The word ‘go’ had barely finished echoing off the nearest palace wall when a pleased with himself and very relieved Kal-El deposited the completely flustered palace doctor right in front of Lewis and Lana.

“I must say,” the kindly old gentleman said, “this is most highly irregular.” Then he saw the king and queen, and realized he’d been carried out here by the prince himself, before shutting up and listening as Lara repeated the results of her x-ray scan of Lana’s body.

As the man dug an array of razor-sharp knives out of his bag and laid them out on top of a clean cloth on the ground, Lara tried to distract her son by pulling him to one side and asking, “Do you remember asking me once, when you little, why the palace doctors were always non-Kryptonians?”

Kal-El didn’t really recall that question, but it sounded like something he would have asked, so he said, “Not really, but please, tell me why.”

“Because of incidents just like this one. The only thing that can hurt us is the green Kryptonite, so it stands to reason that the doctor in charge of our health needs to be able to do one thing and one thing only: remove green Kryptonite from our bodies as fast as possible, so our natural sun-infused healing abilities can do the rest.”

“I see,” Kal-El replied. He took a worried look over his shoulder to watch as Lana’s still-limp form was lowered to the ground by Lewis and the doctor. “A Kryptonian doctor couldn’t help because he wouldn’t be able to touch her wounds.”

“Exactly.”

“So…he’s going to cut into Lana to get the fragments out.” It wasn’t a question; Kal-El knew that had to be the plan, but it didn’t make it any easier for him to imagine, much less say out loud. The idea of Lana being intentionally cut into made him want to retch, and his legs felt rather wobbly.

Lara nodded her head yes and then tried to lead him away. When he resisted, she said softly, “Son, you don’t want to listen to Lana’s shrieks as he cuts her. It’s going to hurt you like nothing else in your life.” She tugged on his arm once more. “Please come away from here until she’s healed.”

“I’m not the one in pain, Mother, Lana is. She needs me right now, my future wife needs me…” Kal-El shrugged off his mother’s hand and started to push past her, “…and I’m going to be there for her.”

When Kal-El knelt at Lana’s side and gripped her tiny hand, her mouth spread into a brief grin before she winced with pain once more. “Glad you could make it,” she whispered. Lana could talk louder than that, but she had already discovered that speaking softly reduced the stress on her abdomen, thus reducing her pain.

“I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

Lewis held Lana’s other arm, and two guardsmen were called in to hold down her legs as the doctor made his final preparations. The last thing done before starting the cuts was to place a leather-wrapped wooden dowel between Lana’s teeth, with the intent being to keep her from biting her tongue during the impromptu operation.

“Ready, Lana?” Lewis asked. When Lana nodded her head and grunted, Lewis turned to the doctor and said, “Be fast and get it all.”

Lara stood right over the doctor’s shoulder, ready to use her x-ray vision to help him find each and every piece of the green poison. The knife blade flashed in the light of the setting sun, and it was just as rough on Lana, and on Kal-El, as Lara had said it would be. Knowing Lana would heal instantly once he was through, the doctor cut deep and fast to open her wounds enough for him to dig out the fragments of Kryptonite with his tweezers, and Lana’s scream dwarfed anything she had yet uttered in both length and intensity.

Lana’s body convulsed, but without her Kryptonian abilities, the four men holding her down had no difficulty keeping her down. Kal-El, however, was in an agony all his own. While he was whispering at Lana to ‘be strong,’ and that ‘it will all be over soon,’ he himself was knotting up on the inside as he watched the woman he loved in sheer, unremitting agony. As Lana’s pain grew, so did Kal-El’s, until tears were flowing freely down his cheeks and his whispered words of encouragement were replaced by wordless sobs.

The moment the last fragment left Lana’s body was easy to tell, as Lana gasped from the sudden lack of pain just before she pulled loose from the two guardsmen who’d been holding down her legs and Lord Lang, and rolled over, sat up, and fell into Kal-El’s arms for a crushing hug and a good cry.

“Why, Kal?” Lana sobbed. “Why did someone attack me? What have I ever done?”

Kal-El was sitting on the ground with Lana, one arm around her shoulders and his other hand stroking her long, soft brown hair. He was focused on soothing Lana as she let loose with her emotions, but someone else was listening with a colder ear.

“‘Why’ is exactly right, Lara,” a steely-eyed Jor-El said to his wife, who had just stood up again. “Whoever attacked Lana just attacked my family, and I’m going to find out who it was.”

“And if the guilty party was put up to the attack by a foreign power?” Lara asked, fairly sure she already knew the answer.

“Then a state of war will exist between Alemannia and that foreign power, one which I will prosecute to the bitter end.”

Kal-El also heard what his father said, and he fully agreed, but at the moment, Lana was still his priority. “Lewis?” he said, as he stood up with her still in his arms. “Lana needs a good, solid dose of sunshine, and with the sun setting below the west wing, she’s not going to get it here, so with your permission, I’d like to see that she gets what she needs.”

“Bring her back,” an emotionally spent Lewis said, as he eyed the two shaken lovers, “but…don’t hurry.”

“But Lana’s reputation…” Kal-El said.

“…will survive a few minutes in mid-air.” Lewis smiled tiredly and waved Kal-El away. Lord Lang had lost three wives in his life, and was quite familiar with how Lana and her prince had to have been feeling over the last few minutes. He strongly suspected the only balm for their hearts would be some private time with each other. “Go, help her heal. And let her heal you.”

Kal-El rocketed into the air with Lana safely curled up in his arms. He could have stopped a few hundred feet up, well within sight of the ground, but Lord Lang had just given him permission to take some private time with Lana. That was one thing he didn’t need to be told twice.

Lana held on for dear life, not because she was scared, but because she’d almost just lost everything, and most precious of those things was the man currently shooting her up through a thick layer of fluffy clouds. The inside of a cloud is wet, something Lana had never even suspected before learning to fly, and while she would normally would have hated getting wet, right now she was just enjoying the exhilarating feeling of being alive.

Once the intertwined lovers popped out of the top of the cloudbank, Kal-El turned them so that Lana was facing the sun. “How’s that feel?” he asked.

Lana asked groaned with pleasure, as she felt the power of the sun flowing into her body once more. “Oh my God, that feels good.”

Kal-El was now behind Lana, holding her with a hand on each side of her ribcage just below her breasts, when he whispered in her ear. “Let me know when you feel good enough to fly on your own.”

With only the skin on her face, neck, and arms open to the sun, it took Lana a little while to soak up the needed solar energy, but when she was finally ready, she murmured, “It’s time.”

Kal-El released his hold on Lana and moved back from her just enough to give her some room, while staying close enough to catch her instantly if she wasn’t quite ready. But instead of flying around in an exuberant display, she just turned in place to face him. Both had been crying just before leaving the ground, and they still had the red eyes and the tear-streaked cheeks to prove it.

Coming face to face with each other, they also came face to face with the fact that they’d almost lost each other before they even got married. Words were in short supply, but emotion was not, and the two lovers crashed together in a furious kiss. Kal-El’s lips sucked on Lana’s top lip, while her lips did the same to his lower lip, with the result being that their faces were drawn closer and closer.

Hot breath, insistent kisses, sharp nips, and greedy nibbles marked their frantic, almost desperate make out, but that wasn’t enough, not for either of them, so as Lana’s hands rose up to clasp both sides of Kal-El’s head and sink into his unruly ebon locks, and as his hands moved to surround her tiny waist, they both tilted their heads to their right, opened their mouths, and snaked their tongues out to deepen their kissing even further.

Kryptonians don’t run out of air very easily, but fire of the their unleashed passion made it happen for Kal-El and Lana. As they rested their heads on the other’s shoulder, Kal-El gasped for air, and said, “I was so scared. I thought I was going to lose you.”

“I have to admit,” Lana replied, “for a minute there, I thought you were right. But then you brought me up here, and suddenly…everything was all right again.”

Kal-El pulled his head off of Lana’s shoulder and moved back just enough to see her entire face. “You know, this would’ve been a lot easier if we were already married,” Kal-El said, with an overly innocent grin on his face.

“Oh? How so?” Lana asked. She saw the look on Kal-El’s face and knew he was up to something.

“If we were married, you could’ve exposed a lot more skin and absorbed the solar energy much faster, thus allowing you to heal faster.”

“More skin, eh?” Lana smirked. “Are you sure healing is your only interest in this?”

Kal-El held up one hand as if preparing to take an oath, but his expression was dominated by a very nearly silly smile. “I swear.”

“In that case…” Lana’s voice trailed off as she reached down, grasped the hem of her tabard, and slowly drew it up her body. She had a couple of layers of cloth on under the tabard, but Kal-El didn’t know that. Not for sure anyway, so his eyes grew wider with every inch that hem rose.

Lana was enjoying turning the tables on her beloved Kal, but right about the time her leather-clad hips were fully in view, she dropped the hem, allowing the tabard to fall back into place. “Only five or so more months to go.”

“I don’t know if I’m gonna make it.”

[Nemu]

:D

Oh man that was good... the suspense and the love of them... I wonder who did this...

Whoever did is dead anyway... the full kingdom going to war.. ouch...

PPMS!!!

[CaptainObvious]

Wow! Kal and Lana go from shreaks of pain and agony to lust and love in a matter of minutes. I'm trying to conjer up something in my head as to who could be behind the attack but drawing a blank. Who did this? Security will be extra tight around the palace now. Let's hope the intruder left some clues behind to follow.

[ilovethursdays]

Ppms :)

[Cardinal]

Chapter 100

The Other Couple

Lana and Kal-El wanted to stay aloft in their own little world, but the reality of their situation soon intruded upon them, and they spiraled down through the cold, wet clouds. One look by Lana at her blood-soaked tabard was enough to get her to hover in mid-air, with Kal-El stopping beside her. She used her x-ray vision to peer through the remaining clouds and saw a large and still-growing crowd at the main entrance to the palace, right where they had taken off from.

Wanting to avoid another scene and have time to clean up before facing the diners at the evening meal, Lana suggested flying to the far side of the palace grounds, zooming in low over the gardens, and coming to a landing at the back end of the palace before sneaking inside. Kal-El was in total agreement, and they headed down once more. Everything went as planned, until the moment they landed on the wide garden path just outside of the palace itself.

There they met two people they hadn’t expect to see for several days yet; Mara and Richard were rushing up the steps to the palace door just as Kal-El and Lana landed. Each couple was shocked by the other’s appearance, and the four of them just stood there for a moment looking at each other.

One look at Lana’s blood-soaked tabard was all it took, however, for Mara to shake herself loose. “Oh, Lana!” she gasped, as a horrified look swept across her face. “What hap…”

Mara stopped herself from finishing the painfully obvious question, and Lana said, “I’m fine. Perfectly healthy in fact.”

Assured on that point, Mara turned to her brother, and asked heatedly, “I thought Mother said Lana was one of us now. What happened?”

“It was a knife with a green Kryptonite blade,” Kal-El said grimly.

That made Mara hiss, a sound much like water on a hot griddle. They both knew how rare Kryptonite was, and just how unlikely it was that a random assassin could have procured enough to make a proper blade. Her gaze grew in intensity, as she asked, in carefully modulated tones, “Dead or alive?”

“Alive…but not for long,” came the grim reply. All three of Kal-El’s listeners knew the would-be assassin had to be executed for his crime; the only question in Mara’s mind at the moment was whether the headsman would get the chance to do his job, or if Kal-El would save him the trouble. She knew how fierce he had been about protecting her - his initial reaction to Richard had been proof of that - so she could only imagine the anger that filled him after seeing his love struck down at his side.

Lana hadn’t seen Kal-El’s face, but she had heard his tone of voice, and could just imagine barely controlled rage contorting his face. She half-turned toward him and reached a hand up to stroke the smooth skin along his jaw line as she looked into his eyes. Lana didn’t say a word, she didn’t have to, as her touch and her soft gaze were all that was necessary to calm him down.

Mara smiled when she saw how Lana’s merest touch could ease her brother’s mind; Richard, on the other hand, saw in Kal-El and Lana a mirror of the way he and Mara had come to feel about each other. Much of the long winter months in Anglia and the storm-tossed sea voyage back to Alemannia had been spent broadening and deepening their love, to the point that the young king was half wishing he could marry Mara now, instead of waiting to get married at home in front of his own people like a good king should do.

Once Mara had been assured of Lana’s good health, she batted her baby blues at Kal-El and asked to be allowed to make the introductions. He laughed at her transparent use of puppy dog eyes, and gestured for her to go ahead. She happily turned to her escort and asked formally, “Richard? May I introduce someone to you?” Mara’s sudden formality made Richard roll his eyes extravagantly, which showed Kal-El and Lana just how close their counterparts really were. Mara pointedly ignored Richard’s eye roll and smiled in triumph as she pulled Lana to within an arm’s reach of him.

Kal-El chuckled at the play between Richard and Mara. She tended to act so seriously, so maturely, that he sometimes forgot she was still only seventeen years old. Of course, that realization made him look at Lana, as she was seventeen also. Such a burden to place on her, Kal-El thought. I wonder if she realizes all she’s getting herself into by marrying me.

“Richard? This is Lady Lana Lang, the second daughter of…” Mara paused to lean toward Lana and ask in a loud whisper, “What’s your father’s title now?”

“He’s the Count of Albemarle,” Lana replied proudly, “and his name is Lewis.”

“Okay, thanks,” Mara said. She then resumed her position midway between Richard and Lana. “This is Lady Lana Lang, the second daughter of Lord Lewis Lang, the Count of Albemarle. She is also betrothed to my brother, the Crown Prince of Alemannia, and as such is our kingdom’s next queen.”

Mara then turned to Lana to complete the introductions. “Lana, this is Richard, King of Anglia…” she bit her lip and looked back to Richard, who gave her a quick nod of encouragement. Mara face Lana again, but turned her eyes on her brother, to gauge his reaction. “Not only is Richard the King of Anglia, but sometime next year, I’m going to become his wife.”

Lana grinned immediately, and her first instinct was to grab Mara in a tight hug, but she realized just in time that she was still a bloody mess, and instead chose to reach out and squeeze the back of Mara’s hand while giving her an excited smile.

Kal-El, however, was dumbfounded. “Father’s approved?” he asked, somewhat hesitantly.

“It’s official,” Mara affirmed, as Richard moved in behind her to wrap his arms around her slender waist. She leaned back against his chest when she felt his encircling arms, and rested her hands on top of his.

A slow, wondering smile spread across Kal-El’s face, as he asked Richard, “Do you think I could borrow my sister for a few moments?”

When Richard released Mara, the siblings came together in a joyous hug, while Lana and Richard stood off to one side, watching the Els while quietly congratulating each other on their impending nuptials. Once the congratulations were over, the four of them moved inside, where Lana was immediately intercepted by Lady Irilta.

“Took you four long enough to come inside,” Irilta grouched.

“How long were you standing there spying on us, Grandma?” Mara asked pointedly.

“Spying, schmying, I was inside where I couldn’t hear a thing,” the older woman said. “I’ve been waiting at this door for Lana almost from the moment she and this great big lummox she’s intent on marrying took off.”

“Thanks, Grandma,” Kal-El chuckled. “To the rest of the world I’m a prince…to you I’m just a big lummox.”

“Well…you were supposed to protect Lana, were you not?” Irilta shot back heatedly. “And you failed…miserably.”

Stunned by her verbal assault, Kal-El wasted no time in firing back, while Mara and Richard chose that moment to slip away. “What the Hell was I supposed to do, Grandma? We were attacked in Father’s own palace by one of our own servants…and the guy had a knife with a Kryptonite blade!”

That stopped Irilta in her tracks. She really hadn’t heard the conversation outside, and what little she’d heard about the attack had been second and third hand. “So there really was a Kryptonite blade, eh?” She tucked her tongue in the corner of her mouth before looking at Lana. “And you really are Kryptonian now.” It wasn’t phrased as a question, but Lana confirmed her thought anyway.

But before she could say any more, Kal-El said, “How does a mere servant manage to get his hands on enough of the rarest mineral on the planet to make an entire knife blade? He won’t make that much money in his entire lifetime.”

“Especially not now that he’s about to be executed,” Irilta joked darkly. She turned to Lana, and said, “Dear, go on up to your room and get changed for dinner. I’ve made sure your chambermaids are waiting for you. Meanwhile, your ladies-in-waiting are standing out front to help make everyone think you’re going to land there, so you should have enough time to get ready.”

Lana and Kal-El kissed, keeping it brief and sweet, before she scurried off to cleanup and change into something appropriate for her station. Kal-El offered her one little piece of advice before she left him, and that was to be careful entering the women’s wing of the palace, as the guards at every entrance wore training medallions which would rob her of her powers for a few seconds as she went by them.

Once Lana was out of sight, Irilta looked up at her grandson and asked, “Lend an old woman the use of your arm?”

Kal-El knew his grandmother was as spry as they came, but he figured she wanted to talk to him for a bit, so he humored her and offered her his arm to lean on. They’d made two turns and were headed in the general direction of the crowd in the courtyard before she finally pulled him into a deserted room and shut the door behind them.

“Cast one of those silence spells around us if you would, my boy. Can’t risk having that gentle-souled girl of yours overhear us with her new abilities.”

Kal-El didn’t want to cast the spell if it was just to keep Lana in the dark, but then he reasoned that she wasn’t listening in on them in the first place, and even if she was, he would tell her everything anyway, so he went ahead and cast the spell.

Once she was sure Kal-El had done as she asked, Irilta finally spoke. “When your father finally allows you to execute that son of a b!tch,” she growled, “make sure it’s done publicly and that the little sh!t suffers and suffers and suffers before he’s allowed to die.”

“What the Hell, Grandma?” asked a shocked Kal-El.

“This would-be assassin must be made an example of. The people have to know there is no mercy, no leniency, for any who would try to kill any part of your family.”

“Dead is dead, Grandma. I won’t be a party to needless torture.”

“Kal-El…” Irilta said, as she continued her argument.

“No!” Kal-El said, as he cut her off. “Have you ever killed anyone?” His eyes were sharply focused on hers as he asked a question he already knew the answer to. When all Irilta did was to shake her head ‘no,’ he said, “I have. Twice. The first time, I killed twenty-four soldiers who were doing their master’s business. They had killed some of Lana’s servants and were either going to kill me, or kidnap her. I butchered them like so many hogs, Grandma, blood was everywhere, but none of them suffered needlessly.

“The second time, was in the aftermath of the one battle in the war. Zod knew he was beaten, and his army was crushed. He came after me, maybe hoping to kill me, maybe just wanting to die in battle. But I defeated him in single combat and sentenced him on the spot before executing him swiftly and cleanly.

“In neither instance was an act of brutality necessary to get across the point I intended to make. And neither is brutality needed here. A simple execution in front of the lord mayor’s palace will be a perfect object lesson. So unless Father orders otherwise, that’s all that will happen. Got it?”

Kal-El didn’t even wait for his grandmother’s answer before dissolving the dome of silence and storming off. He used his hearing to locate Mara and Richard and joined them, before sending a servant to Lana with directions to the room in which the three of them would be waiting. When she joined them nearly an hour later, Kal-El and Lana finally got to hear the story of how Richard and Mara had reached the winter palace ahead of schedule, while they all waited for dinner.

It turned out that Richard had gotten antsy and had ordered the small fleet that was scheduled to escort the Alemannian princess and her ladies home to set sail a couple of weeks early. The journey had been rough, as they’d caught the fringe of one last winter storm, but no ships had been lost. The entire party had reached the winter palace a few days ago, with the kings of Alemannia and Anglia meeting for the first time. Jor-El had publicly thanked Richard for tending to his daughter and her ladies for most of an entire year, which was useful, as later that night, Mara and Richard spilled the beans, admitting everything to Jor-El and Lara in a private meeting. The young lovers had been anxious, desperately hoping Jor-El’s initial reaction wouldn’t be like Kal-El’s had been.

They needn’t have worried.

Jor-El had paused for a few heartbeats, barely long enough to look over to Lara for confirmation that she had heard the same news he had, before turning back to Mara and Richard and grinning like a loon. That was when Mara first learned her parents had been hoping all along that she’d land the bachelor king. That had caused an all-night negotiating session between Jor-El and Richard, followed by a joint royal proclamation the next day about the betrothal of King Richard and Princess Mara and a formal alliance between the two kingdoms. That announcement had caused an impromptu day of feasting and celebration which had only ended the night before.

Lana then got to really speak with Richard for the first time, while the two siblings caught up. Lana had heard a lot about Richard when Mara had visited during the winter, and Richard had heard much about Lana after Mara’s return to Anglia. They were each happy to start putting a face and a personality to the name, and neither was disappointed in what they found.

Lana found Richard to be a handsome, considerate, utterly charming man who was completely unaffected by his crown. For his part, Richard found Lana to be as beautiful as reputed, and completely dismissive of her hard-won fame. As far as she was concerned, she was at heart a country girl named Lana who’d fallen for a city boy named Kal. Everything else was just window dressing.

[Nemu]

:DCool of having Mara and Richard back at the palace as well...

Oh nicely played by Jor-El for pairing them that way... but evil (not really) to have "tortured" them about the fact they didnt know how the union would be received...

Kal is right.. sometimes unecessary torture isnt needed... swift and clean death can have as much impact as savagery...

depending on what you want your subject to remember...

A tyrant would go the same way as Irilta...

Glad to see this post... been a while...

PPMS!!!

[CaptainObvious]

Really happy to see this post too! Boy, Grandma has a wicked side doesn't she! I didn't peg her for the torturing type. I got a kick out of Kal's response after hearing his Grandma ask for no mercy on the perpetrator. "What the hell, Grandma"! I wonder how many of us have said that line to our grandmothers. Probably not many.

Happy to see Mara and Richard made it back home....home for Mara that is. The dynamic between both engaged couples is great. I wasn't expecting much interference for Mara's hand from Jor-El. Mara gets to marry for love and their union will benefit both of their countries.

I wonder if Lois and Bruce are expecting any little knights yet......

[Cardinal]

Chapter 101

Torture

Lana had been expecting to have to explain what had happened to her over and over during dinner that evening. Jor-El saved her from that, however, by announcing with a magically amplified voice that there had been an assassination attempt, that Lana had been its target instead of Kal-El, that she had indeed been stabbed twice, and that the blade was made of Kryptonite.

That last comment caught the attention of every Kryptonian in the room and caused a collective gasp to roll up the length of the State Dining Room like a wave rolling up the beach. Jor-El then had Lana stand to show that she was perfectly healthy, and ended by ordering the crowd to not bother his future daughter-in-law with any questions about what had happened.

Lana could have kissed Jor-El at that moment, but settled for flashing him her most brilliant smile when he sat down and snuck a peek at her. And then the most amazing thing happened: Jor-El, King of Alemannia, took in her smile and winked at her. She thought she was going to faint.

When everyone finally settled in to eat, Lana nudged Kal-El, who had been sitting by her side at every meal since the day of their betrothal, and asked quietly, “What was that all about?”

Kal-El looked over at his father, who had a very satisfied grin on his face, and then leaned forward to look past the king and queen, to where Mara and Richard were sitting. Mara looked back at her brother and smiled before tapping the ear that was out of sight of the rest of the diners and whispering, “Looks like Lana is Father’s second daughter.”

Mara’s opinion matched nicely with Kal-El’s own, so he said, “You’re family now, wedding or not. Father is doing his best to shield you, when he can do so without getting in your own father’s way.”

That made Lana look past Kal-El and at Jor-El again. This time, she was seeing him as her future father-in-law and not as the king. It made a definite difference. She now knew for sure she had won over one of Kal-El’s parents; the other parent she wasn’t as positive about.

After that, Lana’s evening was fine, and while her sleep was late in coming, and then disturbed by a confused nightmare that had her shouting and then waking in a cold sweat, she was still able to get up in time for a quiet breakfast with Kal-El…with a couple of her ladies-in-waiting close at hand.

That had been another surprise, as she’d been met in her own sitting room by all of her ladies. It seemed they were determined to resume their duties on her first full day back in the palace. It was a surprise she could have done without for just a little bit longer.

During that breakfast, Lana asked if any progress was being made with questioning the assassin. Kal-El told her that nothing had changed from the night before; the man was telling them the same story over and over…a story no one believed.

“Are they…” Lana was having trouble even mentioning the word, but she knew it was a distinct possibility, so she pushed it out. “Are they torturing the man?”

Kal-El carefully wiped his mouth and set aside both his napkin and his eating utensils and watched as Lana did the same before he answered. “He’s been getting tortured since before dinner last night. Please don’t ask me for any details, Lana. A lady shouldn’t have to hear any of that.” Kal-El grunted. “Neither should most men.”

“Why use torture so quickly?”

“One reason is this was a direct attack on the royal family, or so Father has stated, and that means we need to learn everything we can about the attacker and the people supporting him before there is another attack.” Kal-El leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest before eyeing Lana speculatively. “Did you know at least part of the reason Father revealed you’d been attacked with a Kryptonian blade was to make sure our fellow Kryptonians knew the danger was real…even for them?

“Now, all across the city, noble families are having meetings about what precautions to take to make sure they aren’t next. Soon, it will occur to them that Kryptonite is damned expensive. And then you have to find a master weaponsmith to craft it into a blade.” When Lana gave Kal-El a blank look, he added, “Master weaponsmiths are only employed by the military and by the nobility…in this kingdom anyway.”

“Those two facts will bring the heads of houses and their security chiefs back to the palace - if they’re not already here - to find out what we’ve learned and who the guilty party might be. And that’s the second reason to use torture so quickly: we need to have some kind of answer ready when those people come back here asking tough questions.” Kal-El took a big drink of his chilled fruit juice and drank it down. “The strange thing about all of this is that last night, Grandma just about tried to order me to make your attacker suffer before he gets executed. I told her I wouldn’t do that, but here I am calmly explaining our need to do the same exact thing to him now, with the one difference being our pressing need for information.”

Lana reached across and clasped one of Kal-El’s hands, rubbing the backs of his knuckles with the pad of her thumb. “I want to see him.”

“What?” Kal-El asked in frantic surprise. Then his eyes grew large and dangerous-looking as he stood, planted his fists on the table, and leaned toward Lana. “No! I don’t want you near that man.”

Lana felt like rolling her eyes at Kal-El’s attempt at commanding her, but instead, she turned her focus to getting her way. “He’s well-guarded, right?”

“Of course,” Kal-El replied.

“And he’s not Kryptonian, right?”

“No, he’s not that…the fact that he used a Kryptonite blade proves that.”

“So…even if he did get loose, I could break him in half with my pinky, right?”

Kal-El sighed, already knowing he was going to lose this argument, but determined to play it out anyway. “Yeah, you could totally destroy him.” He paused for a moment and then went on with what he wanted to say before Lana could stop him. “It’s not fear for your physical safety that has me worried about you meeting this man; instead, it’s the thought that seeing this monster might give you more nightmares like the one you had last night.”

“How do you know about that?” a completely flabbergasted Lana asked.

“I heard you screaming,” Kal-El said quietly, as he sat back in his seat. “It was like you were being stabbed all over again, and it hurt me just as much the second time around.”

Lana’s heart reached out to Kal-El, but she sensed he didn’t want any comfort at the moment. “But…how did you hear me while you were sleeping?”

“I couldn’t stay with you, obviously,” Kal-El said softly, “so I watched over you the only way I could.”

Lana peered closely at his face then, searching for telltale signs of exhaustion. “You didn’t get any sleep last night, did you?”

Kal-El’s only answer was to shake his head no. “I was too angry, too nervous, too scared for sleep, so I stayed up and listened to you: the beating of your heart, the small breaths of sleep, and just when I thought everything was going to be all right, you started screaming.

“I don’t mind admitting I nearly swallowed my tongue, and was halfway out of the royal living quarters before I came to my senses and realized the guards would never let me in the women’s wing.” Kal-El looked pensively at Lana. “But, you’re gonna insist on seeing this bast…” he took a deep breath, “…this would-be murderer, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Lana admitted, “but not to be contrary, or to show how tough I think I am; instead, it’s to face my attacker. My nightmare was about being stabbed. Maybe seeing him and finding out why he did it will help me put this incident behind me so I can get on with my life.”

So it was that, just after lunch, Kal-El and a cloud of knights from the Royal Household Guard escorted Lana through the city and to the hilltop castle which guarded the western approaches to the city. Once Kal-El and Lana had stepped out of their carriage, he required instant admittance to the prisoner’s presence. That order got them a personal escort from the castle’s commander, who led them down into the castle’s dungeon and to the would-be murderer’s cell, before he was released by Kal-El to go about his regular duties.

Half a dozen of the members of the Royal Household Guard followed them down and took up stations inside the room before Kal-El allowed Lana to enter. While the guards had been getting into position, he had been busy also, x-raying everything in the room, including the murderer and the interrogators, to be sure there were no little green surprises for them.

Lana blanched, and very nearly vomited, when she first laid eyes on the lone man in the center of the room. He was bound to a thick wooden post, with his hands tied behind him on the other side of the post, and his hands wearing heavy iron shackles. That was enough to assure Lana that he was securely bound, but what had her on the verge of sickness was his physical condition. The man was heavily bruised and bloodied, and with his head hanging down onto his chest, he looked to be unconscious as well.

“Wake him up,” Kal-El said roughly. “Lady Lana is here to see him for herself.”

While a guard went to fetch a pail of fresh, cold water, Kal-El ask the chief interrogator what had happened since the dawn brief.

“Nothing new, your Highness,” the chief interrogator replied. “When he’s been conscious, he’s told the same story time and time again, with remarkably little variation in details.” The interrogator looked over at the lone prisoner, and Kal-El caught something in the man’s facial expression that he wanted to explore a bit.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you know how rare it is for a liar to be able to stick to his story that closely, time after time, or how incredibly hard it is to do that under the extreme duress of torture?” The interrogator didn’t wait for an answer, as he knew the young prince had no experience with such matters as of yet, so he asked, “Permission to speak my mind, your Highness?”

“Granted.”

“We’re wasting our time here. Either the prisoner is a rather simple man with a simple goal in mind, or else he’s the most exquisitely trained, insanely loyal secret agent of a foreign power I have ever seen. Further torture of this prisoner will gain the king nothing.”

Lana had listened to all of this with rapt attention, and was about to ask what the prisoner’s story was, when the guard returned with a large wooden bucket filled with water and unceremoniously threw its contents in the prisoner’s face.

It took a few seconds, but the cold water had the intended effect, bringing the unconscious prisoner to life. He needed a moment for his head to clear and his eyes to focus, and when they did, the first thing he recognized was the prince himself, followed quickly by the girl at the prince’s side.

“Nooooo…” he moaned in a croaky voice. “She lives after all! The she-***** lives! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“Do you actually know this guy, Lana?” a bewildered Kal-El asked.

She shrugged her shoulders and moved in a little bit closer, still careful to stay out of arm’s reach of the still raging prisoner. “As far as I know, Kal, I’ve never seen him before in my life.” She then turned her full attention to the man who’d tried to kill her just eighteen hours earlier. There were many questions piling up behind her eyes, but at the moment, only one question mattered. “Why?”


* * * * * * * * * *

Be nice and leave good replies, and you might get a 2x which tells what the would-be murderer has to say.

[shortcircuit85]

Another great chapter! Kal's late night watching over Lana is a wonderful touch.

I agree with the guard, a person that can give the same story time again while being tortured is unique. I wonder what he will have to say!

Great chapter, great story!

Thanks,

[Cardinal]

Chapter 102

Confession

“Why? Why should I tell you?” The prisoner spat in Lana’s face, which caused every guard in the room to flinch toward him, and had Kal-El wishing mightily that he didn’t need to know whatever this man might choose to tell them. Once Kal-El quit curling his fists into tight balls, he fished into a pocket of his uniform and came up with a linen handkerchief for her to use to wipe her face clean.

While she was cleaning herself off, Kal-El stepped in front of the prisoner and rasped, “Try anything like that again, and I promise you I’ll fulfill my grandma’s wishes for you. You, of all the people on this planet, do not get to disrespect Lady Lana.”

The prisoner thought his way through the prince’s family tree and quickly realized which grandma he had to mean. “You mean the Countess Irilta von Schalkenberg? That grandma?”

“Yeah, that Grandma. She wants your last few hours on this Earth to be ones of unremitting pain.” Kal-El leaned in so close that their noses were almost touching, and whispered, “And I’m getting closer to allowing her to have her way.” Kal-El moved back and checked on Lana and decided to stand much closer to her than before.

“Yeah well, the Iron B!tch can rest peacefully then,” the prisoner said, before a sudden coughing fit wracked his wounded body with pain, “as your interrogators’ techniques have pretty much assured me of that pain already, making your threat toothless.”

“Just think about this for awhile then,” Kal-El said mildly. “Imagine me using my heat vision to utterly destroy the skin on the soles of your feet. Then imagine being forced to stand on those ruined feet all day long.” Kal-El just smirked at the prisoner, who gulped and wondered for the first time if he’d made a mistake by being flippant with the young prince.

When Lana finished wiping the disgusting mess off of her face, Kal-El dropped the nasty cloth into the waste bucket at the chief interrogator’s nearby desk. And together, they faced her would-be killer.

The prisoner carefully eyed the young couple as he weighed his hate for the future queen against his suddenly growing wish to die quickly, with as little additional pain as possible. The ideas of what a man with the prince’s powers could do to his already damaged body didn’t bear thinking about. He now just wanted it to be over with.

“The El family is good for one thing: keeping their word,” the prisoner said, at long last. “Swear to me, before God and Man, that you’ll kill me quickly and with as little pain as possible, and I’ll tell you what you wish to know.”

“I, Kal-El, Crown Prince of Alemannia and Duke of Borussia, do swear, before God and Man, that I will make sure the man who tried to kill my betrothed dies quickly and as painlessly as possible. Good enough?”

The prisoner stared Kal-El in the eyes for a long moment and then nodded his head. “It will do.” The prisoner asked for some clean water to drink, as his throat was parched, and his lips were papery and about to crack. Once he’d drank his fill, the prisoner said, “My name is Georges Trevillian, and before the late rebellion, I was a senior member of Duke Dru-Zod’s personal staff.”

Hearing Zod’s name spoken out loud, and in such a passionately proud way, jolted both Kal-El and Lana, which gave Trevillian cause to smile. It was nice for him to realize his former master was still inspiring fear in his most hated enemies.

“When vague rumors first began trickling back to us about a disaster in the field, we denied that our lord, the greatest living hero in the entire kingdom, could have possibly lost, much less in catastrophic way. But the rumors persisted, and day by day they grew stronger, until we couldn’t ignore them any longer. We sent out scouts to gather as many details as possible, as well as sending an official messenger to Duke Dru-Zod’s army to enquire as to the army’s status.

Trevillian took another long sip of water and continued, “Word wasn’t long in coming, and that word spoke of a disaster of the first order. The few sketchy details we knew suggested that an army led by the crown prince and Duke Dax-Ur had crushed our lord in open battle. Other details tended to conflict with each other, except for one thing: all agreed that our lord was either dead or captured.

“Everyone was panicking inside, but we held it together as a staff, until the official messenger returned, much earlier than he should have been able to, and told us that not only had our lord’s army been utterly crushed, but that our lord himself had been taken by the enemy.

“Pandemonium reigned then. Everyone wanted to leave and leave instantly, for fear that forces loyal to the king would show up soon and start arresting us. Some people stole money from the ducal treasury, while others stole rich clothing, or mementos of the duke's famous victories as a keepsake. I, however, took something with grim purpose. I stole a Kryptonite dagger and it’s lead-lined sheath before taking my life savings and riding hard for the capital.

“As I left, my intention was to kill the crown prince, as the initial rumors indicated he had been the one to ruin my lord. But then, the closer I drew to the capital, the more I started hearing the wildest rumors about a new commander, a mere woman, who’d led the royal reinforcements on a crushing flank attack that had unraveled our line of defense. That was clearly the rankest insanity, and yet…the closer to the capital I got, the stronger and more detailed the rumor became. By the time my tired horse and I reached Königsberg, the woman had earned a name and a rank, and the story was clear.

“She was why my lord and master had lost the war and his life. Her last minute rally of her defeated troops had turned the tide of battle. She was the one who must die. The rest was just a matter of getting a palace job and waiting for my chance once I learned the infamous Lady Lana was coming here to spend the winter.”

While Trevillian took another sip of water, Kal-El asked, “So…this was just a revenge plot? No one else was involved, foreign or domestic?”

Trevillian smiled. “You got it in one.” He looked over at the interrogators. “Now convince those ‘gentlemen’ of that and we can get on with my execution. If we’re all lucky, I may last until tomorrow so you’ll have enough time to erect a proper scaffold.”

“Don’t worry about that. Every carpenter in town will be eagerly volunteering his services once word gets out that the scaffold is for your execution.” Kal-El eyed Trevillian and then asked, “What I want to know is why you used a Kryptonite blade once you knew you were after Lady Lana instead of me. The number of people who knew of her recent conversion to becoming a Kryptonian was very small.”

Trevillian wasn’t stupid; he knew exactly what the prince was getting at. “No, no one told me. Your security is good as far as that information goes. I just used the Kryptonite dagger to keep any of you Kryptonians from interfering as I made my attack.” He looked directly at Lana for the first time since he’d spat on her, and ruefully shook his head. “A Kryptonian. What a f*cking honor. No wonder you’re up and walking around like nothing happened.”

Kal-El turned to the chief interrogator. “Get him off that post and back into a proper cell. Feed and water him decently, and no abuse from the guards, accidental or otherwise, or else you’ll answer to me. He’s going to die tomorrow anyway. There’s no further point in harming him.”

As Lana and Kal-El returned to the surface, and climbed into their carriage for the ride home, she broke her long silence to ask, “Would you really have burned his feet and made him stand on them?”

“No,” Kal-El replied chidingly, “you know me better than that, but the key is, he didn’t know that. You see, if he knows enough about my family to know which grandma of mine was likely to be a bit rough, then he probably also knew my family has a less than savory reputation when it comes to doing whatever it takes to get what we need.

“It’s a disgusting reputation, but after today, I have to admit it can be a useful one too.”

That put a damper on their conversation, until the carriage and its ample number of Royal Household Guards passed through the square where the execution would take place the next day at noon.

“Are you going to attend the execution tomorrow, Lana? I can see where you might want to, but no one will think any less of you if you don’t.”

“I’ll be here,” Lana assured Kal-El as she squeezed his arm. “With you to lean on, I’ll be able to handle it. And I confess, right now, I want to see him die.”

[Nemu]

I guess now they will have to scan practically everybody in the palace and the capital... and start a major manhunt for all former members of Zod that might still hold a grudge...

If the dude had told a lie again... he better hope no one detects it... cause the way Kal promised... had he been hired... George wasnt the one to die quickly since in a way it is his boss that would have the promise on his head...

but since it appears it is him alone... then he will die quickly...

PPMS!!!

[QueenClana]

Love this story. I'm new here but I've been reading for a while and I just wanted to say it's one of my favorites

[Cardinal]

Chapter 103

Time Marches On

Lana woke from a deep sleep to find her chief chambermaid hovering within easy arm’s reach, ready to personally see to any need her mistress might have, while the rest of her maids scurried about her bedroom, throwing open the heavy nighttime curtains and pulling out a selection of dresses and undergarments for her to choose from. In general, they were preparing to ready her to be seen in public on this, the last full day of her maidenhood…for tomorrow, she was to be married at long last.

The mere thought of tomorrow brought on a slew of feelings and emotions for Lana, ranging from relief that the long months of meticulous preparations would be over, to sheer exhilaration that she would finally be married to her beloved Kal. She looked at her bed and wondered what it would be like to wake up next to him in two days’ time. She’d never admit it, not publicly anyway, but she’d been having an increasing number of dreams recently that starred her and Kal doing things she’d only heard stories about…things she was dying to finally try herself.

As Lana swung out of bed, and allowed her maids to set to work on her, she had plenty of time to think. She usually used this time to mentally go over her day, especially if one of her social secretaries felt it necessary to attend upon her to remind her of a particularly tightly scheduled order of events. But today’s events had been planned out weeks ago by Queen Lara’s wedding staff ; no reminders were necessary today. So, Lana was free to think of other things. And now that the big day was almost upon her, all Lana could think of was how fast everything had happened.

Since the day she had almost been assassinated, she had picked up more and more social obligations, most of which were related to the wedding in some way or another. That caused her to turn over her former duties of assisting the queen to her eminently competent chief of staff, who ran Lana’s staff with ruthless efficiency. The good thing about the additional social obligations was that almost all of them required her prince to be there with her.

Together, they greeted newly arriving official delegations from all over this quarter of the world. Most rulers didn’t come themselves, as they couldn’t afford the time away, but they sent princes, princesses, grand dukes, prince-bishops, emirs, sultans, and others. Just yesterday, in fact, they had spent the afternoon under a canopy of the most glorious white silk tents, as they greeted the late arrival of Princess Suma al-Kubeisy and her horde of guards and servants from a distant desert sultanate.

Lana and Kal-El had needed an interpreter to speak with the princess - who had been nearly completely covered with brightly-colored fabrics - and had learned she and her party had been delayed for weeks trying to find a large enough naval escort, as the waters near their sultanate’s only major port had been suffering from a surge in piracy.

Princess Suma had been embarrassed by almost missing the wedding, but Lana and Kal-El assured her they were honored and amazed she had made the long journey in the first place, and doubly amazed that she had risked pirates to do so. Pleased that the prince and his lady appreciated her position, Princess Suma had visibly relaxed, and the rest of their time together had gone well.

Just as Lana’s maids were finishing with her, Alicia popped into the room, hoping to walk with her down to breakfast. When the blonde girl started bouncing on her toes with barely restrained enthusiasm, Lana rolled her eyes and asked, “Who is it this morning, Alicia?”

“Lord Ashford,” Alicia replied, her voice bubbly as ever. “He’s even coming for breakfast.”

“Maybe he’ll ride over with Kal then,” Lana said.

“Oh? He’s going to be able to get away from the El family breakfast today? I thought those were inviolable.”

Lana chuckled. “Kal said he told his parents he was going to spend the whole day with me, including breakfast. So yes, he should be here this morning.”

Technically, the El family breakfasts weren’t inviolable, as he’d had several breakfasts with her while she was still living in the winter palace, but since her father had purchased this mansion halfway across the city, Kal-El hadn’t been able to getaway to see her until after the morning meal.

As Lana left her suite of rooms, she looked in both directions, drinking in her elegant surroundings, still not quite able to believe this place actually belonged to her father. Being the father of the bride, Lewis was expected to throw a number of parties leading up to the wedding, but he hadn’t even owned a place in the city, much less one of sufficient quality to host those types of social gatherings. And as his increased income from his new position as a count wouldn’t start rolling in until after the fall harvest, he had to find the money somewhere, so he quietly borrowed a significant sum from Kal-El to purchase a stately mansion which was being sold by a family that had lost their noble title and income as a consequence of supporting General Dru-Zod.

Lana was under no illusions that this mansion in any way compared to the winter palace, but it was very nice and she thoroughly enjoyed that it belonged to her father. The fact that she and Alicia had moved in with him was a little less enjoyable, as it had necessitated daily trips to and from the palace, where she still spent most of her days neck deep in wedding preparations. Thankfully, those preparations were over now, and Lana could try to relax somewhat, even if she was one of the main players in the so-called ‘wedding of the century.’

Alicia and Lana descended the steps to the marble-floored foyer, only to find Kal-El and Lord Ashford waiting for them. Lord Ashford was one of King Richard’s companions and a Duke in his own right back in Anglia. It hadn’t taken long for a young woman of Alicia’s beauty, brains, and connections to gain the interest of a few of the foreign visitors, to go along with the increasingly intense competition for her attention from local lords.

During the five months that had passed since her return to the capital with Kal-El and Lana, Alicia had been sure she was in love no fewer than three times, with three different men. Lana was sure Alicia hadn’t been in love any of those three times, which made her wonder if her little sister had ever been truly in love with Prince Harold, who was still here and still trying to win her back. Lord Ashford seemed to be Alicia’s current favorite, but that title was known to change on a weekly basis. She seemed to be enjoying herself, and as long as she hadn’t made any promises to any of the men, Lana didn’t see a problem with it. After all, there was roughly a year and a half left in their father’s ban on proposals, so there was no point in getting serious just yet.

Once breakfast was over, Lana rode to the winter palace with Kal-El in the carriage he’d used to visit her. “Where was your father this morning?” Kal-El asked as soon as the carriage got underway.

“He left a note with the staff. It seems he was having breakfast with Lady Baden at her home.”

Kal-El gave Lana a slightly surprised look. “He seems to be getting close to her. This is the third or fourth time I’ve heard of them together.”

“Oh, it’s been a lot more than three or four,” Lana said with a wide grin. “I don’t think he’s seen another woman for an entire month.”

Kal-El digested this bit of information before asking, “What do you think about Lady Baden being the next Countess of Albemarle? A stepmother for you, Alicia, and Lois after all this time?”

“Lady Baden may become my stepmother in name, but she won’t have to raise us. And even though Alicia might be able to use some womanly advice about men, most of Lady Baden’s efforts can go toward Father. That’s the only thing that really matters to me with regards to her right now. If she makes him happy, I can definitely be pleased with her.”

Kal nodded in agreement, and then said, “At least the only family member I have to worry about getting married is Mara. You and I both know she’s been as lucky as we have.”

“Well…I still think I’ve been luckier than her,” Lana grinned, “but I agree Richard is the right man for her.” Then she looked over at Kal-El, who had a goofy smile plastered all over his face. “What’s on your mind?”

“I know how tough it was for you and me to keep our hands to ourselves in the year and a half that we’ve known each other…”

“Just one more day to go,” Lana interjected happily.

“Yes.” They leaned in toward each other for a brief but heated kiss, vaguely scandalizing the handmaid who was riding in the carriage with them, before Kal-El finished by saying, “It’s been tough for us, but Richard and Mara have waited almost as long as we have, and they have another six months to go before their wedding next spring.”

“Oh my God! You’re right.” Lana smirked. “Good thing we got in line to get married first.”

As the carriage neared the gate to the palace grounds, Kal-El asked, “Where were Lois and Bruce this morning? I was hoping to see them at breakfast.”

“The servants told me they dressed early and took their own carriage over to the palace,” Lana replied. “Supposedly, Lois has an early morning appointment with the royal seamstresses so they can make the final alterations to her dress for the wedding,” Lana giggled, “but I just think Bruce was intent on showing off his wife to as many people as he could manage to see in one day.”

Kal-El chuckled. “Which is funny, because everyone’s going to see her tomorrow. I mean, it’s gonna be hard for anyone to miss the matron of honor. Especially now.”

Lana leaned back against the headrest and thought back a week to the day when Lois and Bruce made their reappearance in Königsberg. The carriage had come to a stop right at the base of the steps leading to the mansion’s massive oak double doors. The guards who had opened the iron gate to allow the carriage inside the property had sent word to the mansion, so that by the time Bruce stepped down from the carriage, Lewis, Lana, and Alicia had been lined up on the top step to greet them.

Bruce had only smiled up at his in-laws, as the servants scurried to place a set of steps in place for Lois to climb down out of the carriage. He then turned back to the carriage and held out his hand. Out from the carriage came a long, slender arm to take Bruce’s hand, followed by an elegantly coiffed head, and a foot which searched out the top of the portable steps. The rest of Lois came into view then, with her rather lengthy body seemingly unfolding as it came into view.

But as Lois straightened up and walked down the rest of the steps, it quickly became apparent that something was different; when she reached the hard surface of the drive and turned to place a kiss on her husband’s cheek, a plump mound on her belly came into view.

The same thought hit all three Langs at once: Oh my God, Lois is pregnant!

Shocked, Alicia rapidly shifted her gaze from Lois’ prominent belly, up to Bruce’s huge grin, over to Lana’s wide-open eyes and gaping mouth, and then past her to see Lewis’ valiant attempt at hiding a smile that threatened to match Bruce’s, before returning to Lois to see her ‘holding’ her belly and smiling up at her family as Bruce’s arm settled around her shoulders.

Once the three Langs recovered their mental balance, they had charged down the steps, with Lana and Alicia nearly bowling over Lois in their eagerness to get to her, while Lewis contented himself with shaking Bruce’s hand and quietly congratulating him.

Back in the present, Lana raised her head off of the headrest, looked at Kal-El, and said, “I still can’t believe Lois is six months pregnant.”

“Me neither. It seems my best man didn’t waste any time doing his duty with your matron of honor.”

That caused Lana to giggle and Kal-El to grin faintly.

“Do you think I’ll look like that when I’m six months along?”

Kal-El shook his head decisively. “No. You’ll be much, much more beautiful. Lois is a candle, my dear, while you are the sun.”

Lana and Kal-El had plans to spend the day together, and her ladies-in-waiting were at the winter palace’s entrance to meet her. Lana sent off all but two of her ladies, ordering that the next two could take their turns after lunch. Kal-El knew she’d have sent them all away if she could get away with it.

Also waiting for them was a grim-faced set of royal household guards who would follow both Kal-El and Lana all day long, and in truth, be more of a nuisance than Lana’s ladies ever were. Kal-El sighed as he watched the mounted guards trot away after having turned over their charges to the next set of guards. “At least the mounted men can manage to keep a decent distance and give us the illusion of privacy.”

“Yeah. How are your parents dealing with the increased security provisions?”

“Not well. Mother has even been making Father brush up on his magic spells just in case, and in turn, he’s been complaining about the time spent away from the affairs of state.”

What Kal-El said brought to mind something that had been bugging Lana since before she became a Kryptonian. “How come you and your father don’t use magic very often, but your mother does? I mean, she’s shown me a few powerful spells and I still remember the lightning bolt she cast during the procedure that brought me my abilities.”

“Kryptonian men are trained to be warriors from a very young age. Using our solar energy for spells reduces the energy available for our physical skills, which can be a danger on the battlefield.” As Kal-El and Lana made their way into the palace, he asked, “When does Mother intend to start your magical education?”

Lana looked straight ahead, purposely not looking anywhere near Kal-El. “I told her I would be available sometime after our wedding.”

“Sometime?” Kal-El was vaguely annoyed by the possibility of a newly-married Lana spending more time with his mother than she was with him.

“Like maybe a month or more after. And even then, I’m not going to come up here for more than a couple of hours in the afternoons.”

“I bet that news made Mother happy.” Kal-El chuckled. “I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to lean on me to get you to increase that time.”

“Well…she might have, except I was very careful to point out that not only did I need to learn how to use magic, but I also had to learn the ins and outs of being both your wife and your duchess.”

Kal-El stopped in the midst of the wide hallway and pulled Lana in for a sweet kiss and a hug. “That was clever. Mother can’t say anything to that.”

“Anything to get more time for us.” Lana stood on her toes and hotly kissed Kal-El, raking her teeth across his lower lip before dragging it into her mouth. When her mouth finally released his, she lightly rubbed the tip of her nose against his. “After all, we will have a lot of things to learn together.”

Kal-El felt a familiar twitch and gave Lana a lustful stare, complete with glowing red eyes. “Evil, evil woman. I dare you try that tomorrow night.”

“That was just a sample,” Lana said with smirk, as she released the hold she had on his jacket. “Tomorrow night you’ll get the whole thing.”

Kal-El grinned suddenly, looking every inch the predator, which left Lana wondering how wise it was to tease him, and anxious to find out.

Lana and Kal-El spent the rest of the day together, enjoying their first free day in months with a long stroll through the brilliant early fall displays in the palace gardens, an easy ride through the rolling parkland out beyond the gardens, followed by a couple of hard-fought games of chess. Lana still hadn’t managed to defeat Kal-El, but she came close in the second game, finally having to settle for a draw. Lana was fuming over a couple of blown chances, until Kal-El pointed out he couldn’t remember the last time he’d even been tied. That changed things a bit in Lana’s eyes; suddenly, the draw looked like an accomplishment instead of a screw-up.

After dinner, they spent the evening with their families and friends, killing off the last few hours before they attempted to sleep with card games and conversations. Lana, Alicia, and Lara all huddled around Lois, with questions coming from the younger women, while the queen offered advice. Lana was surprised Lara was being so friendly to two people she didn’t know, but she figured pregnancies brought out the best in most women.

The guys played poker for piddling stakes and chatted while mulling over their cards. Bruce was slightly ill at ease sitting across from the king himself and playing with him like he was just another guy, until Kal-El leaned over and whispered, “Right now, he’s just my father. Think of him that way for the rest of the night.”

Jor-El had heard every word his son spoke, but only smiled at his cards, as what his son said was what he himself wanted, which was a night of relaxation before the long day tomorrow.

Soon enough, the small party wound down, and Kal-El escorted Lana to her family’s carriage for her ride home. Each knew the next time they saw each other would be at the cathedral itself, mere minutes away from marriage. They stood together, a few feet away from the carriage, as Alicia and Lewis climbed inside. Bruce and Lois were getting into their own carriage, and a significant number of knights was forming up to escort them. But no one was going anywhere until the soon-to-be royal couple had their last moments together.

“Even with you here by my side,” Kal-El said, as her raised Lana’s hands to his mouth for a light kiss on each one, “this was the longest day.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Lana replied. “Without any wedding plans to go over to occupy my mind, all I’ve been thinking about is the wedding and you.”

“One more day. By this time tomorrow, we’ll be married and at our new home.” Kal-El turned Lana and then pulled her to him, with her back against his chest. “You’ll be Lana-El, and I’ll be the happiest man in the world.”

As Lana’s arms folded themselves across her chest, Kal-El’s arms moved to cover hers even as he leaned down to place a string of kisses on the side of her neck. Her eyes fluttered closed as she savored the moment.

“I will be Lana-El, your loving wife, and you will be my loving husband, Kal.” Lana shook her head ever so slightly, as she asked, “How did he second daughter of a very minor noble ever get so lucky?”

“I’m the lucky one,” Kal-El countered. “I was expecting to have to marry just to meet the needs of the kingdom. Love was never a consideration, until I met the world’s grubbiest stable girl. And now, everything’s changed.”

“My knight in shining armor…or was that just a filthy, road-weary squire?” Lana chuckled. “I was so mortified, and then at dinner, so impressed.” Lana turned within the circle of Kal-El’s arms, and looked up into his sea-green eyes. “I love you, Kal. I love you so much!”

“And I love you, Lana. I may never be able to accurately express just how much I love you, but I’ll spend the rest of my life in the attempt.”

Their mouths came crashing together then for one long, heated kiss. Moist lips brushing, sliding, pressing…tongues writhing and exploring…hands caressing soft skin on necks and cheeks. The kiss was only broken when Lewis made an overly loud series of hacking coughs from the depths of the carriage. Kal-El and Lana pulled back, laughed softly at Lewis’ impatience, and then reluctantly separated.

After handing Lana up into the carriage, Kal-El closed the door and said, “See you tomorrow, Lady Lana Lang.”

“Better get that out of your system now, my prince,” Lana laughed, “for it changes tomorrow. I‘ll see you then.”

With that, Lewis signaled his driver to start. As the two carriages pulled away, Kal-El stayed rooted in place and looked at Lana until long after her carriage moved out of sight.

[ilovethursdays]

Simply Beautiful.

[QueenClana]

Absoulutely perfect. That's all I can say. Perfect

[ilovethursdays]

PPMS! I am so excited for the wedding :)

[ilovethursdays]

PLEASE post more soon!!!

[Cardinal]

Chapter 104

The Princess Bride

Lana tossed and turned, desperately hoping to snatch a few hours of sleep before she had to rise for the start of a very long day. But her mind was racing, thinking over the intricate plans for the wedding, from an early morning breakfast with her bridesmaids, through the wedding, and on and on, right until the moment Kal was to take over and lead them to their new home.

The only thing Lana was worried about was the weather, which Kal had told her was notoriously changeable in the capital city, especially during the fall. She didn’t know how late it was at the moment, except that she felt sure it was closer to morning than to bedtime, when she heard a short, sharp click on her bedroom window. Lana had no idea what the noise was, as there wasn’t a storm outside, but as she disregarded the click and began to drift off again, there came another click. She half-rolled in her bed, and stared at the window now, waiting to see if there would be yet another click. Once is an accident, Lana thought, and twice is a coincidence, but a third time…

Click.

That’s it. Someone’s making that happen. What an inconsiderate ass! She wondered if she should ring her bell and have one of her chambermaids refer this matter to the nighttime commander of her father’s household guards, but then she decided a judicious use of her powers might end the matter more quickly and let her get back to chasing sleep.

Lana sat, pushed her coverings off, and clambered out of bed before using her x-ray vision to look through a wall of her spacious bedroom and into the garden beyond. What she expected to see was someone near her own age who’d gotten drunk a day ahead of the big wedding celebrations and had somehow snuck into her family’s private gardens. What she saw was another matter entirely.

Instead of finding a skinny teen standing in the garden, she saw a muscular young man - dressed all in black - floating in mid-air over the far end of the garden, while bouncing a pebble in the palm of his hand as if weighing whether or not he needed to throw another. She didn’t even need to throw open the many-paned double door of glass and wood that led to her third-floor balcony to grab the man’s attention; all she had to do was whisper. “Kal! What on Earth are you doing out there?”

Kal-El knew he could look through the wall into Lana’s bedroom to see her as they spoke, but he wouldn’t. He had no idea how she was dressed, and in any case, he’d never invade a lady’s privacy like that. Hearing her voice would have to do for the moment.

“I was restless,” Kal-El admitted, “and…I needed to see you one more time before the sun rises, and everything spins out of our control.”

Lana smiled widely upon hearing Kal’s confession. “See me?”

“Yes, see you.”

“Give me a few moments.” As Lana made her way across the room to where a thick, ankle-length blue robe was laid out next to her bed, across the back of a comfy armchair, she smiled again, pleased to know her beloved Kal was just as worked up about the wedding as she was. Once she had wrapped the robe around her pale blue nightgown and belted it closed, she padded back across the room and slipped out onto her balcony. Lana grinned, as she said, “You know, Kal, a lady doesn’t let just any man see her like this.”

“I know. I’m fully aware of the honor you do me,” Kal-El replied, as he drank in the sight of her robe-shrouded form.

Lana leaned forward just a bit and rested her forearms on the balcony’s marble balustrade. “You know Father will be irate if you’re caught here.”

“Well then, keep whispering, and he’ll never hear us.”

“What about the household guards?”

Kal-El gave a conspiratorial glance to the left and the right before looking back at Lana. “Rumor has it the guards will be watching just the front of this mansion for the next few minutes.”

Lana took that as her key to quit asking questions and proceed to say what was on her mind. “So, why did you need to see me, Kal? Forget what I look like already?”

“I just wanted to let you know how much I love you one last time, man to woman, before mother’s carefully scripted wedding plan takes over tomorrow.” Kal-El dropped his remaining pebbles, and rubbed the dirt from his hands as he smiled helplessly at her.

She stared back at him, eagerly awaiting what he had to say. As far as she was concerned, the words ‘I love you’ would never get old, not as long as they were coming from him. But whatever Kal-El had planned to say left his mind when he took in her earnest smile and the adorably fluffy robe that hid Lana from view. He just hovered in mid-air, drinking in the sight of the woman with whom he would spend the rest of his life.

“Ninety years,” he said in a ‘how could I be so lucky?’ tone of voice; he had spoken softly though, as he hadn’t meant to voice that particular thought. But since Lana was using her super-hearing to listen to him from across the garden, she heard him as plainly as if she had been standing by his side. It took her a moment to realize what that comment alluded to, but once she did, her eager smile grew, becoming something that made Kal-El hot under the collar.

“Ninety years,” she said a bit more loudly, her tone agreeing completely with his. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it? I’m eighteen, you’re twenty, and we have another ninety years to be together.”

Kal-El nodded slowly. “Yeah, and if the next ninety years are anything like the first year and a half…”

Lana finished his thought, “…we’ll be the luckiest couple ever.”

Kal-El was in the process of adding to that, when he heard the guards coming back and hurried to excuse himself before he got caught. “I love you.” He blew her a kiss, which she ‘caught’ with both hands before cradling it against her chest. “I need to go.”

Lana could hear her father’s men coming, too. “I know.” She quickly blew Kal-El a kiss of her own. “I love you, too.”

Kal-El caught her kiss, held it to his heart, gave her a deep, courtly bow, and disappeared in an instant, as if he’d never been there. Lana slipped back into the mansion just as the guards came into view around the corner of the building. It wouldn’t do for them to see her, both because it would make her father wonder what she was doing on her balcony at that time of the morning, and because she didn’t want to cause trouble for the officer who had made this brief meeting possible.

After their brief but exciting meeting, sleep wasn’t soon in coming for either Lana or Kal-El. Compounding that lack of sleep was the fact that both of them were woken up early by ruthless servants who knew the prince and his lady had tightly calculated schedules to keep.

Lana dressed quickly and went downstairs, where she was hosting a breakfast for all of the women who were standing up with her today at the wedding. It was the last chance any of them would get to relax before the wedding was over. The breakfast meeting was also a means to make sure all of the women were up and ready to begin the laborious dressing process.

The list of women officially waiting on Lana today was longer than ever, as not only were her ladies-in-waiting involved, but so were her sisters and Princess Mara. Lois was the last one downstairs, but that hadn’t been her fault. When Alicia had teased her eldest sister about being late, Lois had blushed slightly, but her only explanation had been to grumble something about how it would be Alicia’s turn soon enough to learn about being pregnant.

The conversation at the table was excited and light-hearted, as Lois was the oldest one present, along with being the only married woman of the group. Some of the girls wanted to talk about how romantic this day was going to be, while the more adventurous girls speculated about what would happen after the wedding. Lana blushed furiously at such talk, until being rescued by Lois, who told every one to shut up about sex unless they’d actually had some. Of course, she ruined that moment by turning on Lana and telling her all sorts of stories that made her blush as furiously as before.

While Lana was embarrassed by the public nature of Lois’ comments, at least she was now armed with fresh information from someone she trusted implicitly. At least, Lana thought, I know a little bit more of what to expect now once Kal and I are alone. When she finally shushed Lois into silence, she had her own topic of conversation. Making sure none of the servants were in the room, Lana then told her girls about Kal-El’s brief late night visit. She had her attendants sighing at how romantic he was, all except for Lois, who still wasn’t the [/I]biggest[/I] fan of mushy stuff, and Mara, who couldn’t quite believe that her brother was capable of something that sweet.

The funny thing about the so-called breakfast was that only Lois ate more than a small slice of fresh bread with butter and honey. This was because all of the other women knew they would be wearing the tightest, most constricting corsets of their lives today. These women would need every extra ounce of space they could get. And as for drinks, no one had more than a single cup of tea or coffee, as none of them could afford a bladder issue once they reached the cathedral.

As the women ended their breakfast and headed upstairs to begin preparations, Lana pulled Lois aside, thanked her for rescuing her from being embarrassed, and then asked Lois why she’d then taken it upon herself to continue the embarrassment herself.

“Easy,” Lois said casually, “anyone who wants to mess with my little sister has to go through me first.” Then she smirked. “But messing with you is - as your older sister - my job.”

Lana just rolled her eyes as they continued their trip upstairs to get ready. “So, no one’s allowed to give me a hard time except for family?”

“Now you’ve got it.”

As Lana and Lois were walking upstairs, Kal-El and his guys were back in the winter palace, just rolling out of bed. They got extra sleep time solely because it was going to take them much less time to get ready. They had no clothes that required tight wrapping, and thus could well afford to stuff themselves full of sausages, eggs, breakfast pastries, and various fruits from the first of the fall harvest.

The one thing Kal-El had been required to do for the wedding was to choose his escorts - his groom’s men. And since he didn’t have a coterie of attendants following his every move, he’d had a lot more slots to fill on his own. Twelve to be exact, as he’d needed to match Lana’s nine ladies-in-waiting, plus Mara, Lois, and Alicia. Most of his choices had been from the pool of young Alemannian nobles he’d known growing up. But court watchers had been surprised with a few of his picks, as he’d chosen King Richard of Anglia and Prince Harold of Krakovia as two of his groom’s men, and had chosen Baron Bruce of Roskilde as his best man.

When the meal was done, and the dishes were cleared away, the men went outside in the royal gardens for a walk while their meal settled. The gardens were in their last bloom of color before the leaves began to turn and the plants prepared for winter. Most of that walk involved the married men giving the crown prince lots of conflicting - and usually hilarious - advice on how to please his soon-to-be wife in bed. Every time an unmarried man tried to enter the conversation, Kal-El responded with a sharp retort questioning the man’s lack of experience, but he took the ribbing from the married men with relative good grace.

While Kal-El was getting his unsolicited and completely useless marital advice from his guys, Lana’s skin had just finished being scrubbed to a state of glowing, pink perfection; then, after her pink skin had been soothed with a thin skim of butter cream, she had been sheathed in layer after layer of shifts and underskirts. Now, two older chambermaids were working together to cinch Lana’s already slender torso into an even more narrow corset.

Most corsets these days used whalebone stays to give the garment its needed rigidity, but with Lana being Kryptonian, that wasn’t going to be strong enough. For her corset, the stays were made of pure titanium, and there were more of them than Lana had ever had on one of her corsets, as the royal dressmakers had been ordered to make her wedding dress extra narrow in the waist, to create the illusion of a more curvaceous figure.

Lana wasn’t the driving force behind the extra-narrow bodice on her wedding dress, as she knew her Kal loved her just the way she was, but she had given in to her soon-to-be mother-in-law a long time ago on most issues regarding the wedding, as it wasn’t just a private wedding, but also a major state occasion. And in any case, Lana did privately admit that it would be nice to have the appearance of rounder hips and a slightly larger chest, even if for only one day.

Other servants worked on Lana’s hair, brushing it out until it gleamed in the morning light streaming into the room. The hair was then pulled up and back in a pommel, before the rest was loosely curled and allowed to fall down her back in a chocolate cascade.

All in all, Lana’s maids took more than three hours getting her ready. The last things put on were her wedding gown and the lace mantilla that would cover her head. Lana had seen the dress several times as the royal dressmakers had put her through fitting after fitting after fitting, but for this occasion, nothing short of perfection was acceptable, to either the dressmakers, the queen, or Lana herself, so she had willing gone through the lengthy process. And now, everyone else was going to get to see the result.

But not until Lana got the first look in her full-length mirror.

“Oh…my…God.” She had seen the dress in pieces as if was fitted to her, but never on her as a complete whole. “I’ve never worn white before.” Lana said mostly to herself.

“Of course you haven’t, Lady Lana,” her most senior chambermaid replied briskly. “No one is allowed to wear white unless they’re in the royal family or are joining it.”

Lana knew that already, but she wasn’t really listening to her maid at the moment. Her focus was on the woman she saw in the mirror, and on the man she was about to marry. “I’ve never been this beautiful before.” Then she smiled radiantly. “I can’t wait for Kal to see me like this.”

By the time Lana cautiously made her way down the wide stairway to the mansion’s large foyer - with two maids following behind to handle the train - all of the rest of the women were ready and waiting.

As Lana came into view, a collective ‘ooh and ahh’ arose from below. Her dress was a glorious confection of lace and silk - all in royal white - and the style suited her perfectly. The wide, square neckline showed a bit of cleavage in front and smooth shoulder blades in back, while the puffy, gathered short sleeves with their lace trim seemingly broadened her shoulders and added to the artificial shoulder-to-waist taper caused by the super-tight corset she had on under the bodice of that dress. And that bodice, which was oh so tight to squeeze in Lana’s tummy and push up her breasts to give her some cleavage, was thickly covered with the most intricate Adriatic lace.

The dress was completed with the outer skirt, which was a curtain vertical pleats, and its attendant train, both made of pure, gleaming silk. The outer skirt and the train were heavily pearl encrusted, with thread-of-silver embroidery around the edges of the train in a pattern that echoed the Adriatic lace on the bodice.

The twelve young women crowded in around Lana as much as they could without actually touching her gown, and the next several minutes were spent in excited chatter as everyone offered Lana their heartfelt congratulations on her gown. The last one to speak before the women headed outside to begin climbing into their carriages for the ride to the cathedral was Lois. She couldn’t hug her sister for worry of ruining her look, but that didn’t matter. “Lana, you look great. Poor Kal-El won’t know what hit him.”

While the women were entering their carriages for the procession to the cathedral, Kal-El and his escort were already well underway. He was dressed in his most formal uniform. The jacket was white, double-breasted with gold buttons and a high, stiff black collar which was thickly covered with thread-of-gold embroidery. On top of the jacket were golden shoulder boards that ran from his neck to the tops of his shoulders, where they were capped off with golden epaulets. A loop of thick, white cord ran around his left shoulder to signify his membership on the army’s General Staff, and a golden belt cinched the coat at his natural waist. Last but not least was a heavy chain of gem-encrusted solid gold medallions which hung from one shoulder, down across the middle of his chest, up to the other shoulder, down to the middle of his back, and back up to the first shoulder to complete a loop. The chain was part of his regalia as the crown prince and was only worn on the most formal of occasions.

Kal-El’s pants were much more subdued, being white with a black-edged golden stripe down the outside seam on each leg. The pants disappeared just below the knee, where they disappeared into the mirror-like shine of his glossy black riding boots.

And while Lana would be riding in a gilded carriage, Kal-El was riding on the back of a pure white stallion, with his best man, groom’s men, and a heavy escort of knights from the royal household guard right behind him as his horse clattered his way over the cobblestones that led from the main palace gate to the cathedral square.

No one tried to talk during the few miles they had to cover, as the streets were lined at least twenty deep with loudly cheering city folk who were eager for a glimpse of their prince and his entourage as they passed by. And to keep those people from getting too close, a cordon comprised of tens of thousands of halberd-wielding soldiers lined the edges of the processional route. The soldiers here came from both the King’s Legion - which Jor-El had spent much of the summer rebuilding - and from Kal-El’s own Borussian army.

Kal-El and his men were already dismounting just in front of the main steps leading up to the cathedral by the time Lana and her lengthy train were carefully loaded into the last of thirteen carriages, and her procession got underway. The men lined up on the steps, with Kal-El on the top, Bruce on the next step down, and so on, as they awaited the arrival of the bridal procession.

The crowd noise from the throngs around the cathedral square settled to a dull roar once the prince and his escort took their places on the steps, but they could tell when Lana’s procession drew close because of the steadily growing wave of noise from the direction of her father’s mansion. That route was also lined with soldiers of the King’s Legion, and each of the thirteen carriages was escorted by knights from the girls’ respective families, and riding right beside each carriage was either the girls’ fathers, or eldest brothers, all in their finest uniforms.

As the growing wave of noise reached a crescendo, The first carriage seemingly popped out of its street and into the square, and headed directly for a specially positioned mounting block. Only one carriage at a time entered the square, and as that carriage stopped with its door positioned exactly next to the mounting block, the male relative chosen for escort duty dismounted from his horse and helped the lady out of her carriage and down the steps of the mounting block.

Once the lady was on solid ground, two royal servants rushed in to make sure her skirt was hanging just so, and then the lady was escorted across the square to the foot of the cathedral steps, where her escort handed her off to a groom’s man who offered her his arm and then walked with her up the steps and into the cathedral itself. When the first lady disappeared inside the cathedral, the next one in line was just stepping down out of her carriage for her walk. This process repeated itself over and over, with each woman receiving her share of shouts and nods of approval from the huge crowd.

Finally, the tenth carriage arrived, and Alicia stepped out. Golden-haired, and with a golden dress to match, she felt like she was floating on a cloud as she walked with Lewis across the square. “I still can’t believe this is really happening, Daddy,” Alicia said as they walked across the expansive square. “Lana is going to be an actual princess.”

“And our next queen,” Lewis replied. “I pinch myself every few days to make sure I’m not dreaming.” Then he looked down at his youngest and wondered how long it would be until her turn came.

When they finally reached the cathedral steps, Prince Harold was waiting. Lewis handed Alicia over to the prince and hurried back to the mounting block, because Lois was next after Princess Mara. Harold offered Alicia his arm, along with giving her a warm smile.

“Ready?” Harold asked.

Alicia matched his smile with one just as sunny. “For this? Oh yes. Let’s get in there and see what it looks like when a Lady Lang marries a prince.”

Harold shook his head, then shot back, as they headed up the steps, “If you’re lucky, the knowledge might come in handy.”

Mara was next, coming to a stop in a gleaming royal carriage. She wasn’t escorted by Jor-El, as he was already inside the cathedral in the royal box, and obviously Kal-El was otherwise occupied, so she was being escorted across the square by a second cousin named Cam-El, who wasn’t quite used to the excitement of the capital. He much preferred the solitude of his family’s tobacco fields, but the queen had asked, nd no one said no to the throne.

“Come on, Cam, get me across the square and your torture will be over,” Mara said. She knew exactly how much her cousin liked this, but they had needed someone, and he cut a dashing figure in his uniform, so he had been ‘requisitioned’ by the queen.

When Cam handed off Mara to King Richard and made his escape from the public eye, Richard used his head to gesture to huge, boisterous crowd and all of the preparations that had gone into this day. “Getting any ideas, Mara?”

Mara took one more look around, and replied, “Tons of them.”

“Hmm…maybe we could have a quick wedding in the palace chapel once we return to Anglia. Or maybe we could do the job here.”

Mara smiled to the crowd and retorted, “I don’t know who you’ll be marrying then, because it won’t be me.”

Richard chuckled and walked up the steps with Mara just as Lois was being helped out of her carriage by her father. Once she was safely on the smooth stonework of the square, Lewis said, “So, how are you and my grandson holding up with all of this hoopla?”

“Grandson?” Lois asked. “How do you know that? Even I don’t know that.”

“Oh well, a father can hope.” Once Lois had taken her father’s arm, he patted her free hand and started them across the square. “I’m just hoping you’ll get the question of the heir out of the way now, so there won’t be any undue pressure on you for the rest of your married life.”

Lois choked up a bit upon hearing that, as she knew how desperately her father had wanted that one son to carry on the family name, to inherit his title and lands upon his death. She had always tried to be that son, but there were some things you couldn’t do, no matter how much you wished you could.

Kal-El and Bruce were watching Lois and Lewis approach, and listening to the growing roar from the crowds along the street as the last, and grandest, carriage rolled closer to the cathedral. Just as Lois and Lewis reached the steps for the handoff, the crowd surrounding the square exploded. Kal-El looked up and saw the immense gilded carriage roll into the square.

Lewis kissed his daughter on the cheek and handed her off to her husband before turning to hurry back for Lana. Bruce offered his arm to Lois, and then took a look at Lewis walking quickly across the square, before turning himself and Lois toward an obviously eager Kal-El.

“You don’t really mean to make that old man go all the way out there again to do something you plainly want to do yourself,” Bruce asked, “do you?”

Kal-El rubbed his face with one hand, and spoke to Bruce without allowing his eyes to wander from Lana’s carriage. “Well, Mother would…”

“Your mother’s inside the cathedral, well behind you. Your bride is right there in front of you.” When Kal-El hesitated, Bruce said, “Go get her.”

Kal-El took off at a quick trot, and caught Lewis before he made it halfway across the square. Tapping the older man on the shoulder, Kal-El said, “If you don’t mind, Lewis, I’d like to take this one.”

Lewis’ first reaction was to insist on walking his girl this one last time before she was no longer his, but then he realized she hadn’t truly been his for quite sometime. He turned to Kal-El, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Go on. She’s been yours for quite awhile. It’s time to make the obvious official.” Kal-El grinned and started to turn away, but Lewis stopped him. His eyes were a bit watery now, and Kal-El noticed the change immediately. “Please take care of my baby.”

Looking as serious as Lewis was, Kal-El replied, “I will.”

Impulsively, Lewis threw himself forward and gave his soon-to-be son-in-law a fierce hug, before breaking away and walking back to the cathedral. Kal-El watched the man go for just a moment, before turning to the carriage that had just come to a stop next to the mounting block. He ran the rest of the way to be standing there when the footman opened the door and Lana came into view.

As Lana rose from her seat and ducked out the door of the carriage, the two maids who’d managed to squeeze their way inside the carriage, along with Lana and her dress, dealt with her train. And when Lana came into view, the crowd roar reached new heights of insanity, but that didn’t matter to Lana, because there waiting for her was not her father. Instead, wearing a white royal uniform, was Kal.

Lana was surprised to see him, but Kal-El was utterly blown away as Lana took his hand and gingerly made her way down the steps to the surface of the cathedral square, with her train and the two maids coming behind her. He saw shimmering silk, intricate lace, finely detailed thread-of-silver embroidery, and pearls studding her train like stars in the sky.

But none of that matched the woman who was wearing it all. She had a lace mantilla covering her head and hair, and he refused to use his x-ray vision to sneak a peek, but while the mantilla hid her head, her dress accentuated each and every curve she had, making him aware of her body like never before. His mouth was suddenly bone dry, and not from nerves. No, this was caused by nothing but pure desire.

“White truly suits you, Lana,” Kal-El breathed.

“What are you doing here?” Lana asked, as she looked around furtively for any sign of her father.

“I’m sorry, Lana. I’ve been going crazy inside all morning, and I couldn’t wait another second to see you.”

“Really? You just had to see me?” Lana thought she was going to melt.

“And now that I see you…” he gulped and tried to gather his composure. “You’re so beautiful…staggeringly gorgeous really. I can’t believe you’re mine.”

“You think so?” Lana asked, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. Inside her mind, though, she was turning cartwheels.

“Oh yeah. I’m going to remember the way you looked when you stepped out of that carriage for the rest of my life.”

Lana’s smile rivaled the sun at that moment. If no one else made a single positive comment today about how she looked, the hours of preparation would still have all been worth it. “And you…standing here looking like every little girl’s dream of what a prince should be…I‘m so lucky.”

Kal-El offered Lana his left arm, and she gladly looped her right one through it. “Come on, Lana, let’s get inside before Mother gets worried and sends a search party.”

“Wherever you go, Kal, I will follow.”

[Nemu]

Man that was good!!!!!

And nice ending point too... no cliffy but can't wait for the next part...

Nice of Kal to go see Lana the night before because he can't wait to see her lol

Well my guess about Lewis' wondering of Alicia's future is that maybe not a year after the actual ban on official proposals is lifted she will have many.. and one notable one will be from Prince Harold...

Please tell me the next part is already written and you only wait on feedback to post it!

PPMS!!!

[QueenClana]

OOH! PPMS like really really REALLY soon

[ilovethursdays]

So beautiful! PPMS!!!!!

[Cardinal]

Most of the service itself was taken from three different websites: Catholic Wedding Help, About.com: Weddings, and a bit from Wikipedia.


* * * * * * * * * *


Chapter 105

From This Moment On

Arms linked together, Kal-El and Lana turned toward the cathedral, with her two maids still handling the train of her dress. But as soon as Lana spotted the gray stone of the cathedral, she stopped, which brought Kal-El to a stop beside her. Curious, he asked her if something was wrong, but she just stood there, drinking it all in: the clear blue skies and bright sun, the soaring stone spires of the cathedral, the cheering throngs lining the edge of the cathedral square, the smartly attired soldiers holding back those same throngs, and most of all, the devastatingly handsome man at her side.

Lana wasn’t like Alicia. She hadn’t dreamed of being a princess for most of her life like her younger sister had, but she had dreamed of what her wedding would be like. She’d come up with a number of different scenarios over the years, but none of those dreams had prepared her for this. How could they? This was far beyond the wildest imaginings of a girl who’d never been more than a hundred miles from her home until her family had left Roskilde and headed out of the country.

Finally, she answered her prince. “Everything’s perfect, Kal: the weather, the cathedral,” then she looked up into his chiseled face and beamed, “and most especially you.”

“The weather wouldn’t dare be anything less than perfect today,” Kal smiled. “Even Mother Nature knows it better not mess with Mother. Thanks to hordes of workers, the cathedral is cleaner now than it was when it was brand new,” he reached over and squeezed her hand briefly, “and as for me, I’ve been yours for a very long time.”

With two hearts beating as one, two minds thinking in unison, Lana and Kal-El began their slow march toward the cathedral and their shared destiny, taking time to wave to the crowds as they went.

“If your mother is so formidable,” Lana asked, “then why did you break from her plan so you could come get me yourself? Hmm?”

“How could I not?” Kal replied. “From the moment your carriage entered the square, I knew I wanted to be with you to start our life together as soon as possible. Then Bruce gave me just enough encouragement to convince me to go. And I’m glad I did. After all, this is our day, not Mother’s.”

When the Kal-El, Lana, and the two maids handling her train reached the steps to the cathedral, the young couple quit waving to the crowd and ascended the steps. Lana took slow, careful steps to keep from stepping on her hem of her dress, and when they reached the top, the huge, intricately-carved, bronze-sheathed doors were being held open wide and they eagerly strode inside.

The cathedral had a spacious foyer, which was convenient at this moment for organizing all thirteen couples before they began the procession down the nave of the cathedral to the dais itself. And doing the organizing was the royal seneschal, whose job was to organize the business of the throne room and other formal events. This day, he had the first twelve couples in line. When Kal-El and Lana came inside, he gave the prince a sour look as if to say, ‘Finally!’ but what he did was usher the prince and his bride to their place at the end of the line, and said, “Now that we are all here, we can begin.”

The seneschal gestured with one hand, and the inner doors, which opened onto the nave, were pushed open. He then called out softly for the first couple to go and they began to walk down the aisle, arm-in-arm, at a slow, measured pace.

The pews in the cathedral were jam-packed with well-connected guests from all over Alemannia and around the world, and all of them turned to face the doors as they opened. Those people closest to the wide central aisle merely looked back, while those seated to well to either side craned their necks, hoping to improve their views as the first couple made their way down the length of the nave.

As that first couple moved down the aisle, an a cappella song washed down from the choir loft at the rear of the cathedral, just above the newly opened doors. The strong, clear voices of the choir filled the otherwise silent cathedral with a radiant warmth. And as the first couple reached the halfway mark, the seneschal started the next couple.

The slow-moving procession could have been boring, but for most of those in attendance, it only served to build the anticipation. One finely attired couple after another reached the front of the nave and separated, the women going to the left and the men to the right. The first couple moved far apart and stayed a good distance back from the dais. The next couple separated a step closer to the dais, and didn’t move quite so far apart. On and on it went like that, with each succeeding couple helping form a wide, shallow arrowhead to point Lana and Kal-El to their appointment with destiny.

Out in the foyer, they were down to the last four couples, and Alicia was nervously bouncing on her toes as she waited with Harold for their turn to walk down the aisle. Harold, Richard, and Mara were all veterans of this sort of event and were taking the wait much more easily. Bruce and Lois weren’t paying attention to much of anything besides each other at the moment, even though their only communications were with their eyes, and the touch of Bruce’s hand on Lois’ round baby bump.

Meanwhile, Kal-El and Lana contented themselves by watching their line of escorts dwindle. As Alicia and Harold stepped off on cue, leaving just two more pairs to go before it was their turn, Lana took note of her sister’s excitement and nerves. “Are you nervous, Kal?” she whispered.

Kal held up his hands, both of which were steady as rocks and then dropped them back to his sides. “I thought I would be,” he whispered in reply, “but then I realized I’m marrying you, so what do I have to be nervous about?”

Lana leaned in and hugged Kal’s arm before linking their arms again. “You know just what to say.”

Richard and Mara were next, and just before they were sent down the aisle, Mara looked back at her beloved brother, puckered her lips, and then blew him a kiss before flashing him a radiant smile. Kal-El smiled back at her and then turned his gaze to the only other couple left. It was easy to see just how much in love Bruce and Lois were, even after six months’ marriage; it was something for Lana and himself to aspire to, something they both meant to have, long after six months had passed in their own marriage.

Lois would have hugged Lana before taking her turn walking down the aisle, but she didn’t want to risk messing up Lana’s gown, so she contented herself with saying, “I’ll see you down front in a few minutes, Lana. Don’t keep us waiting.”

Bruce just nodded his head once at Kal-El, and then the seneschal was sending him and Lois into the nave for the long, slow walk to the front. And now, Kal-El and Lana were the last ones left. They looked deeply into each other’s eyes and smiled uncontrollably as they realized their life together would start in a mere handful of minutes. The seneschal didn’t want to intrude on their moment, but it was his job to keep them on schedule. But unlike the others in the bridal party, Kal-El and Lana had some extra time as they were not supposed to begin their walk down the aisle when the couple in front of them reached the halfway point. No, being the bride and groom, they were to wait until Bruce and Lois reached the front of the cathedral so every eye would be fixed on them.

One other reason for the extra time was that Kal-El had a special duty to perform. He had to cast an amplification spell on both Lana and himself so everyone in attendance could hear the entire ceremony…even guests from distant lands like Princess Suma who would need an interpreter to understand what was going on. Everyone had to hear. The spells took only moment apiece.

“There. All done,” Kal-El said as he cast the last spell.

And then, at long last, it was time.

The choir fell silent and a hush fell over the cathedral as the doors were closed again so that Kal-El and Lana could move into position. Once they were squarely in front of the doors, Lana’s two maids carefully straightened her train and then took their positions behind her, ready to help out just in case. Then, the doors were pulled open a second time, allowing Kal-El and Lana to begin their slow walk down the aisle. As they took their first steps onto the gold-embroidered red runner that stretched from the doors to just short of the dais, the choir started up again, this time with a song composed just for this moment, and everyone craned their necks to get a look at the couple they’d all come to see.

Tall, broad-shouldered, and devastatingly handsome, Prince Kal-El was the very image of manly excellence in his gold-trimmed white uniform and gleaming black, knee-high boots. But as handsome as he was, the focus of nearly every eye was Lady Lana Lang. From the white lace mantilla that covered her face and flowing tresses, to the form-fitting, lace-covered bodice, and ending with the flowing skirt and the truly enormous pearl-studded and thread-of-silver-embroidered train, she was a vision to behold.

What happened next was completely unexpected, and with every eye on the bride and groom, it went quite unnoticed for several seconds.

King Jor-El, Queen Lara, and Lady Irilta were sitting in the royal box - which was up by the dais along the right-hand wall, raised well up off the floor level, and parallel to the nave - but with everyone looking the other direction, it took awhile for anyone to notice when the king rose to his feet and stayed there, watching his son and his soon-to-be daughter walking down the aisle.

But people did finally notice, and they stood too, as no one sat when the king was standing, unless he directed otherwise. And so, the people in the church pews stood, like a ripple spreading out on the surface of a still pond. Kal-El and Lana were surprised as the wave of standing guests surrounded and then passed them, but they kept on walking, with his glossy black boots matching her white velvet slippers stride for stride.

The closer to the front they got, the more important the guests were, until they started passing princes, princesses, royal ambassadors, and other high-ranking visitors. And then, the guests started to pass from view, revealing more and more of their bridal party spread out in the shallow arrowhead. But unlike the other couples, Kal-El and Lana didn’t separate; they just kept on walking right to the dais and the two prie-dieux waiting there for them. The choir’s song stopped then, and the king took his seat, followed by the rest of the wedding guests.

The prie-dieux were gilded with white velvet covered cushions on the kneelers and armrests, and as Kal-El helped Lana to kneel on hers, her maids tugged gently on her train, arranging it perfectly behind her before walking up to her and carefully folding back her lace mantilla so that her face was in view. Then they slipped off to their unobtrusive seats on the far ends of the front row. With the privileged views these two maids were going to have, they were the envy of the household staff. Once Lana was situated on her prie-dieu, Kal-El took his spot to her right, sank his knees into the kneeler and placed his forearms on the armrest.

Everything was ready. The moment had arrived.

The elderly archbishop moved forward to stand behind the intricately carved marble pulpit, which stood just on top of the dais directly in front of the prie-dieux. When he reached the pulpit and spread out his materials on its tilted work surface, what little buzz there was in the cathedral stopped as everyone strained to hear. They need not have worried, as the archbishop had been the focus of an amplification spell, too. And as for his appearance, he was resplendent in his formal red robes and his pointed, heavily brocaded miter, which sprouted from his head like another of the cathedral’s majestic spires, serving to make the man look ever more stately and grand.

But then, the archbishop opened the Holy Book and smiled. It was a transforming smile, turning a look that was stately and grand into grandfatherly and warm. That smile soothed both Lana and Kal-El, and helped them release tension they hadn’t even known was there.

When the archbishop spoke, there was an opening prayer, then a first reading from the Holy Book, followed by a responsorial passage from the Holy Book, and then a second reading. The choir then sang a joyous hymn before a third and final reading from the Holy Book. He then set his book aside and launched into his homily, which was a short sermon designed to give a fuller understanding of the three readings. All three readings had been about marriage: one had covered the reasons for marriage, the next had talked about the duties and obligations of each person in the marriage, while the last had spoken of the joys to be found in a proper marriage.

Kal-El thought it was a little bit strange to be lectured on marriage by an old man who had never been married in his entire life, while Lana was just hoping the elderly churchman had the stamina to make it through the whole service. But she needn’t have worried. And then, before they knew it, the homily was over.

It was time for marriage rite itself.

Kal-El and Lana chanced a quick look at each other, and then each reached out a hand so she could slip hers into his. Most everyone who saw that sweet, romantic gesture smiled, even Queen Lara, but the archbishop just raised his eyebrows for a moment before continuing.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today for a royal wedding between Crown Prince Kal-El and Lady Lana Lang, and the joining of the House of El with the House of Lang. And while taking the first step toward securing the next generation of royal heirs is something to be celebrated, there is something more important, more sacred happening here today: namely, the union of two hearts, two souls, two lives, before their God, and all of you who are here as witnesses. So for me here today, the crown prince and lady matter little; Kal-El and Lana Lang mean everything.”

The archbishop paused a moment to let his point sink in. He was rather sure that the nobles gathered here - both foreign and domestic - needed a reminder that marriages were first and foremost about two people, as most of their marriages were alliances arranged by family heads, not love matches arranged by God. Then, the churchman turned his attention solely to Kal-El and Lana. No one else existed for him from then on.

“My dear children,” the aged archbishop said, “I know your fathers have consented to this marriage, I have seen their contract on the matter, but now I have to know your thoughts.” He gazed at Kal-El and then at Lana. “Kal-El and Lana, have you come here of your own free will to give yourselves to each other in marriage?”

Kal-El and Lana knew they were supposed to answer separately, but the temptation was strong for them to answer as one. Still, they managed to stick with the script, this time, as they answered.

“I have,” Kal-El answered.

“So have I,” Lana said, before giving Kal’s hand a firm squeeze.

The archbishop continued with his questioning. “Will you love and honor each other as husband and wife for the rest of your lives?”

“I will,” Kal-El said confidently.

Lana’s answer matched his in word and confidence. “I will.”

The archbishop smiled slightly at that moment, as he wasn’t used to performing noble marriages where both halves of the future couple so plainly meant what they said when they answered him. These two truly are in love, he thought. Will wonders never cease?

“And finally, will you lovingly accept children from God and bring them up according to the laws of the Church?”

The word ‘children’ caused both Kal-El and Lana to smile widely, and they both squeezed the other’s hand excitedly. This time, they did answer as one, as a couple might, even thought they still weren’t married quite yet. “We will.”

Then the archbishop looked at their already linked hands and sighed. “This is normally where I would have you join hands…but as you have already taken care of that detail…” he cleared his throat, “since it is your intention to enter into marriage, it is time to declare your consent before your God and His Church.” He looked at Kal-El. “Now repeat after me.”

“I, Kal-El, take you, Lana Elizabeth Lang, to be my wife,” the archbishop read from a sheet of paper.

“I, Kal-El, take you, Lana Elizabeth Lang, to be my wife,” Kal-El replied. He felt so good to be saying those words that he felt like singing them.

“I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.”

“I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.”

The archbishop concluded with, “I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”

“I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”

The archbishop then turned his attention to Lana. “Repeat after me. I, Lana Elizabeth Lang, take you, Kal-El, to be my husband.”

“I, Lana Elizabeth Lang, take you, Kal-El, to be my husband.” The joy that Lana felt upon getting her chance to say those words knew no bounds, and that was readily apparent to everyone in the cathedral.

“I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.”

“I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.”

“I will love you and honor you all the days of my life,” as he concluded reading, the archbishop looked up at Lana and smiled, quite aware that the girl was on the verge of crying. Hold on just a few minutes longer, my lady.

“I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”

“You have both declared your consent before the Church, May our God in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessings. What God has joined, let no man put asunder.”

The guests replied by saying, “Amen.”

“Now,” the archbishop asked, “may we have the rings?”

Bruce was ready for his cue, and stepped forward to hand the archbishop the velvet-covered ring box that contained a matched set of platinum wedding rings, which had been made by the finest goldsmith in the kingdom.

“God, bless and consecrate Kal-El and Lana in their love for each other. May these rings be a symbol of true faith in each other, and always remind them of their love.”

The guests once again replied, “Amen.”

The archbishop then stepped around the pulpit and stood directly in front of Kal-El and Lana, who were still kneeling on their prie-dieux.

The archbishop offered the ring box to Kal-El. This was the one moment where the side-by-side nature of their positioning was inconvenient. She twisted slightly and reached her left arm across her body. Kal-El twisted also and released her right hand so he could hold her left hand. Kal-El then lifted the smaller of the two rings out of the box and reverently slid it onto her ring finger.

“Take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. Just as the ring has no end, neither does my love for you.”

The box was then offered to Lana, as she clasped Kal’s left hand with her right one, mostly to make this moment a little less awkward. She took the remaining ring and slipped it onto her beloved Kal’s finger.

“Take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. From this moment on, I am yours.”



Author’s note: Use this link to access the song I am listening to as I write this. It’s quite possibly the most perfect song for this moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osu7AXy5uy4


The archbishop closed the box and Bruce stepped up once more to collect it. Then the archbishop resumed his spot behind the marble pulpit and led the guests in a prayer of the faithful, followed by the final blessing.

“Be appeased, O God, by our humble prayers, and in Your kindness assist this institution of marriage which You have ordained for the propagation of the human race; so that this union made here, joined by Your authority, may be preserved by Your help. Amen.”

And then it was over.

The archbishop came down once more, walk behind the prie-dieux this time, and helping Kal-El and his bride to their feet. As they turned and faced the packed pews, with Lana’s train curling around the hem of her dress, the archbishop placed Lana’s left hand to Kal-El’s right one, and said, “It is my very great honor and privilege to introduce to you, for the very first time, Kal-El and Lana-El.”

Lana started crying the moment she heard herself being called Lana-El for the first time. She couldn’t help it; she was just sooooo happy.

The archbishop stepped back and looked up at the towering groom. “Son, you may kiss your bride.”

Kal didn’t need any further encouragement. He swept Lana into his powerful arms, lifting her off the floor and molding her body to his, before crashing his lips into hers. Many kisses have been described as ‘passionate,’ but this kiss beggared the word of its meaning. Lips smacked, teeth grazed, tongues tangled, and hands itched to grope. Oxygen, that staple of life, was a distant memory, as the only thing they wanted to breathe in at the moment was each other. So impassioned were they, that when a lack of oxygen finally forced them to come up for air, they found themselves floating six feet off the ground.

A quick look down showed happy, smiling faces all around, even over in the royal box, where it was a close contest as to whether Queen Lara or her mother had the largest smile. But what got to Kal-El was the fact that his mother wasn’t just smiling, she was crying her eyes out. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her cry, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen her cry happy tears before.

“I think you’ve converted the last of my parents, Lana,” Kal-El whispered, after canceling the amplification spells that were on them. “And none too soon, as you are now truly an El. My El.”

“As you are mine.”

[Nemu]

:D That was goooood!!!!

Such a nice song and a nice wedding...

You skipped the part where the clergy man usually asks if anyone has a reason against this union...

of course there were any valid reason against it...

yay for Lana turning Lara to her side!!

And a nice move of Jor-El to stand...

PPMS!!!

[ilovethursdays]

amazing.

[QueenClana]

Loved it! Can't wait for more

[ilovethursdays]

Please update soon!

[Cardinal]

Chapter 106

Princess Lana-El

Not willing to part, Kal-El and Lana stayed pressed together as Kal-El floated them down to a whisper-soft landing, even as they both felt their faces flaming over such a public exhibition of their love.

“What do you say, my wife. Do you want to get out of here? I think there’s a whole city waiting to celebrate with us.”

“Your wife,” Lana said, as she choked back a few tears, “it sounds even better than I had imagined. I can’t believe I’m Lana-El.” As Kal lowered Lana to her own feet, she added, “And yes, my husband, I think we should go. After all, we have one more ceremony to attend to before the party can start.”

Kal-El and Lana stood in place as her maids moved in to bring the tail of her train around behind her. Once the pearl and silver embellished train was in position, Kal-El moved to a proper distance and formally offered Lana his arm, she just as formally linked her arm with his, and they headed back down the long center aisle to the foyer and the last part of the day’s ceremony which awaited them outside.

The moment the royal couple took their first steps together, the choir burst into song, but while their earlier offerings had been songs of warmth and love, this one was an explosion of joyous celebration. The onlookers reacted to the song, as expected, and rose to their feet as one, loudly cheering the young couple as they passed by.

The maids set Lana train into place as soon as she gained some distance from them, and then they followed after her, with their official witnesses coming after in reverse order of their entrance into the cathedral. So Bruce and Lois were just behind the maids, with Richard and Mara next, and so on, until the last couple left the cathedral. Then the onlookers were let out of their pews, one row at a time, to follow the bridal party out into the cathedral square.

But while the huge number of guests inside the cathedral began to file out behind them, Kal-El and Lana weren’t waiting. They walked through the foyer with out pause and headed out into the early afternoon sunlight. Waiting for them, from the doors to the cathedral down the steps to the waiting royal coach was a double line of knights of the Royal Household Guard. And as Kal-El and Lana appeared in the doorway, the officer in charge of the knights voiced a crisp command, and as one they drew their swords, with opposite knights crossing their swords high in the air above the pathway between them, making an archway of steel for the newly married couple to walk under.

The formation of the archway was the first signal for most of the waiting throng that the prince and his bride were coming out. People stood on their toes and craned their necks in anticipation as they tried to see. And then, as Kal-El and Lana made their way under the crossed swords and to the coach, a deafening roar went up from all sides of the square. Kal-El and Lana spontaneously stopped to wave to the crowd before he helped her up into the front-facing rear seat of the immense open coach.

Once they were seated, and the maids had arranged Lana’s train, the driver snapped his reins and the eight-horse team set off at a walk. The coach was guided on a prearranged counter-clockwise loop around the square to give the assembled commoners a chance to view the prince and his brand new wife up close, while also allowing the mass of nobles and other lucky guests a chance to file out of the cathedral and take their places for the last ceremony of the day.

As the horses placidly walked along, pulling Kal-El and Lana behind them, they both waved at the crowd and smiled. “You notice something, Lana?” Kal-El asked over the cheers of the crowd.

“No, what?” she replied.

“No more maids or ladies-in-waiting riding along to guard your honor from the ‘evil man’ who might despoil you.”

“Despoil me?” Lana said laughingly. “Since when do you talk like that, Kal?”

Kal chuckled as his lips descended on the side of Lana’s face, an act that drew an extra-loud roar from the crowd. She turned her face toward him and leaned back into his arms, all in a bid to get her lips onto his. Kal cradled Lana’s slender form with his thickly muscled arms. And those in the crowd who were close enough to see them marveled at the way they seemed to fit together so comfortably.

Meanwhile, the guests spilling out of the church were being arranged in wide, shallow arc all across the wide front of the cathedral. That arc was centered on a small ornate stand that had been hurriedly erected from pre-made parts during the wedding ceremony inside. A couple of wagons full of carefully labeled parts had been wheeled around front from a hiding place in back of the cathedral, and in minutes, a team of skilled craftsmen had transformed the parts into a small but elegant platform. Situated in front of the platform was another prie-dieu, which was just like the ones used during the wedding, except this one was of a simpler design.

As soon as the wedding guests had taken their places in the arc, four more liveried workers rolled out a sumptuous red velvet carpet that ran from the cathedral steps to the back of the small platform, which faced the cathedral. Lana’s maids were waiting on either side of the single bench, and once the end of the red carpet was fixed in place and the workers left, everything was ready. All they needed now was for Kal-El and Lana to finish their slow circuit of the square.

As the coach was brought to a stop, with Lana’s door mere feet away from the bench, a single, pure note was played on a horn. At that signal, King Jor-El, Queen Lara solemnly walked side by side out of the front doors of the cathedral, with Princess Mara a few steps behind them.

The Els weren’t just dressed in the same formal uniforms and dresses they’d had on inside, not for this. Now, Jor-El wore a golden crown, studded with emeralds and rubies, and topped with a diamond the size of a robin’s egg. Lara wore a slightly smaller, slightly less ornate crown, and Mara’s coronet was a simple circlet of gold which was embellished with a smattering of smaller jewels. Besides the gold and jewels adorning their heads, the one other addition to their clothing was a matched set of heavy white capes which were bordered in thread of gold, and had large, golden dragons embroidered in the center.

As soon as Jor-El and family left the cathedral doors, Kal-El stepped out of the coach and walked around to Lana’s door, helping her down from the coach and onto the smooth paving stones of the square. He then kissed her hard and fast, before leaving her to circle around to the back side of the platform, where servants were waiting to place a jeweled coronet on his head and drape a white and gold cape on his shoulders. And as his parents passed by, he joined the procession right next to his sister. Lana’s maids, meanwhile, had stepped forward and carefully arranged her train, so that when she walked to the bench, it straightened out behind her smoothly and easily.

And now the moment was at hand.

Lana and Kal-El were married, but she had yet to be crowned and made a royal princess. That ceremony was much shorter and to the point than was the marriage ceremony, but it was just as traditional, and the Alemanni people wouldn’t do without it; they wanted to see her being crowned.

From Lana’s position in front of the bench, the other members of the El family were arrayed in a straight line. Kal-El was on her left, looking down at her with all the love and admiration a man might be expected to have for his bride, while Jor-El and Lara were next, with twin smiles on their faces, showing just how happy they were at this moment. Mara was on the right end of the line, and she was looking with a bit of wonder at this new sister of hers. She’d always wanted a sister, and now, not only did she have one, but the new sister was an age-mate.

Jor-El cast an amplification spell on himself and gestured to the seneschal, who signaled for a couple of servants to march in and stand side-by-side a few steps behind Lana. Each of the servants was carrying a piece of regalia for the ceremony on a gleaming white velvet pillow. As soon as the servants were in place, Jor-El spoke, and the assembled multitude went quiet.

“We thank you all for being here today in Our capital city,” Jor-El was speaking with the royal ‘We,’ “to help witness and celebrate the marriage of Our son, Prince Kal-El, to Lady Lana Lang.” Jor-El paused for as the crowd roared, and when they calmed down once more, he continued. “Now that Lady Lana Lang has - with the sanction of God - become Lady Lana-El, it’s time for Us to raise her up from mere lady to princess royal.” That announcement, though no great news at this moment, still brought on another roar from the thousands who had managed to squeeze in around the square.

Jor-El wasn’t used to being interrupted when he spoke, but today was a day for the entire kingdom to join in the festivities, and so he waited and smiled, and looked down at his new daughter. Lana hadn’t been nervous before, but each roar of the crowd, each pause, built up the coming moment more and more, and she was starting to feel some nerves.

Once the noise dropped off to a decent level, Jor-El nodded his head, in response to which Kal-El and Mara stepped forward and walked down the few steps to the stone surface of the square. Then they walked over to the two servants, with Mara standing next to the servant carrying another white and gold cape, and Kal-El standing next to the servant whose pillow was carrying a golden coronet. Lana then knelt on the prie-dieu in front of her and waited.

Once her children were in position, Lara cast a quick amplification spell on herself, and looked directly into Lana’s eyes. “I, Queen Lara-El, charge you, Lady Lana-El, with your duties as a royal princess: to think of the good of the kingdom in all that you do; to place the welfare of the kingdom above all else, including that of your new husband and of the king himself; and last, but not least, to produce royal heirs, so that the House of El may prosper and grow.

“Do you swear to accept this challenge, Lady El?”

Despite her growing nerves as she waited, once the moment for her to speak arrived, Lana performed as if no one was watching. Casting the one spell she knew - thanks to a lot of practice with her beloved Kal over the past week - curtseyed low to the queen, and spoke loudly and clearly. “I do, your Majesty.”

“Then welcome to the family, Daughter,” Lara said with a transforming smile on her face. “May you always be a credit to the kingdom and to the House of El.”

That was the signal for Mara to cast her own amplification spell and then lift the cape from the servant’s velvet pillow, shake it loose, drape it over Lana’s shoulders and back, and carefully tie the golden cord in place. “In the name of the queen, I gird you with the cape of the House of El. As the cape shields you from the elements, so will the House of El shield you from those who would seek to harm you.” The two young women then shared a hug and kisses on either cheek before Mara canceled her amplification spell and murmured, “Welcome, Sister. You can’t know how long I’ve waited for you to arrive.”

Despite Mara’s closeness to Lana, no one else heard that declaration, as Lana’s spell only worked on her. Mara then stepped back to where she had been, and Jor-El spoke again.

“Lady Lana-El, as you have sworn to accept the duties of a member of the royal family, and of a mother of future kings, upon royal authority We hereby pronounce you to be Princess Lana-El. May your sons and their progeny reign in Alemannia for all eternity.”

Kal-El then took the golden coronet from the white velvet pillow and stepped around Lana to stand right in front of her. Their eyes met, and he paused just a moment to absorb everything about her, as the maids came forward to remove her lace mantilla so he could place the golden circlet on her head. And when the mantilla was gone, Kal cast his own amplification spell, and said, “In the name of the king, I place this golden diadem on you brow as the symbol of your new state in life: Princess of Alemannia. May you wear it with honor, dignity, and grace all the days of your life.” Kal then canceled his spell, winked at Lana, and whispered, “You’re my princess, now and forever more.”

Jor-El ended the ceremony with a few last words. “Lana, you knelt as a lady, now rise as a princess.” Then he turned his focus on the crowd. “I present to you, Princess Lana-El, next Queen of Alemannia.”

[Cardinal]

Chapter 107

Celebrate!


The moment Lana stood, all of the bells in the cathedral’s main spire began to ring. Each of the massive bronze bells required several acolytes pulling on long, thick ropes to start them in motion, but there was no shortage of ringers this day; the bells were scheduled to ring for hours.

As Lana stood, and after her maids moved in to take charge of her train, she turned to wave and smile at the crowd all around. Most were too far away to see much of her smile, but the wave and her incredible beauty were more than enough. When she finished waving, Kal-El stepped to her side once more. This time, he didn’t formally offer her his arm; instead, he engulfed her hand with his, and together they walked back to the waiting open coach. He handed her up into the coach and the maids arranged her train one last time as he walked around to the other side of the coach to climb in beside her.

Once Lana’s dress was in place, the maids moved back and the coach pulled away, taking another slow lap of the square to give the crowd there a look at their prince and his new princess, before heading down the one street kept open for their use by a double line of pike-wielding soldiers. In front and behind the gilded coach rode a heavy escort: one-hundred knights of the Royal Household Guard clad in white tabards and gleaming armor, with each man pointing an eight-foot-long lance skyward and riding a powerful destrier.

The knights were there for show, but also for business. They had secret orders from the king himself to engage and kill anyone who broke through the lines of pikemen. Jor-El wasn’t willing to risk a repeat attack on either the prince or princess, especially not today. And to make things even more safe, Kal-El and Lana had equally strict orders to fly straight up out of the coach and head for the palace should any disturbance occur. But that contingency wasn’t on the minds of anyone other than the knights and soldiers at that moment. The people were just interested in catching a glimpse of the storybook couple as they trotted on by.

And while the palace was to be the center of the celebration, the royals and their powerful guests weren’t the only ones to be partying on this day. No, a good-sized part of the planning and financial outlay for the celebration had been about making sure that every brewer, every baker, and all other providers of food were fully stocked and able to feed anyone and everyone on this day; the party was going to fill the streets for hours and hours.

One thing the happy couple noted as they rode along was how the bells of every church in the city, both large and small, began to ring in response to the cathedral bells. In a matter of minutes, the entire city was being flooded with the joyous sound. While Lana and Kal-El wove their way along their prescribed path through the city, to make sure as many people saw them as possible, the wedding guests filed into their coaches and carriages for a more direct ride to the winter palace.

By the time Lana and Kal-El’s gilded coach reached the palace grounds, there was a line of guests’ coaches backed up from the palace itself almost all the way back to the main gate, a distance of almost two miles. That was accounted for in the plan though as the driver of the royal coach headed around the perimeter of the walled grounds and entered through a side gate normally only used for supply deliveries.

While the reception guests were arriving in the sprawling courtyard, Lana and Kal-El slipped into the palace virtually unseen through a service entrance. Once there, Lana was whisked away to change out of her unwieldy wedding gown and into another white gown more suitable for a party. Kal-El, meanwhile, was checking with a palace steward to make sure all of his and Lana’s belongings were packed and loaded onto wagons. That wagon train was scheduled to begin the trip to their new home the next morning under heavy guard.

When Lana stepped out of the room that had been commandeered for her use as a temporary changing room, Kal-El was waiting for her. True, as her husband, he could have insisted on being inside the changing room, but now was not the time for that; he and Lana both wanted to save that unveiling for bedtime, when there would be no one to witness but they themselves.

What Kal-El saw right now was more than enough for him: not only had Lana gotten rid of her wedding dress and its attendant hassles, but her hair had been let down to flow down over her shoulders and onto her back in silken waves, and while her new dress was a close fit, he could tell she had taken off the tight-fitting corset. As for the dress itself, it was royal white, with a bodice that was heavily brocaded with the same thread-of-silver that had been used on the train of her wedding gown. And this time, instead of pearls studding a long, heavy train, she wore a triple strand of perfectly matched flawless pearls around her neck and down onto the ample skin exposed by the dress’ deep, square neckline. The intent of the royal dressmakers was to echo elements of the wedding gown in this somewhat simpler dress, tying them together in the minds of everyone who saw her. Lana knew of this design philosophy and heartily approved of it, but at this moment, all she cared about was Kal-El’s reaction to what he was seeing.

She didn’t have to wait long.

Kal-El stood a few paces back and blatantly stared, taking in every exquisite inch of her from head to toe. He then gestured with one hand for her to turn for him, and when she did, he gave a low whistle of amazement. Lana was facing him once more before he looked back into her eyes and spoke.

“How is it that you become more and more stunningly beautiful every time I lay eyes on you? Just the sight of you in that dress makes me want to skip the reception and…” Words failed Kal-El at that moment, but the flash of red in his eyes said what his mouth could not.

Lana’s shy smile was all the answer he would get, but when her eyes flashed to match his, he pulled her into a heated embrace and pillaged her mouth with his tongue like he‘d always wanted to: letting it slide along her teeth, dancing with her tongue, and probing the depths of her mouth.

As for Lana, she quickly slipped her hands up Kal’s chest, across the sides of his face and sank her fingers into his ebon locks to hold him securely against her. And while her chambermaids stood by and pretended nothing was going on, the only sounds that could be heard were wet lip smacks, heavy breathing, and soft moans.

When they finally pulled back for a breath, they shared hungry-eyed gazes as Kal said, “I’ve been dying to get you alone for what seems like hours, so I could kiss you just like that.”

Lana smiled knowingly, but said, “Well, we did kiss in the coach now and then.”

“Not like this.” Kal’s voice was heavy with emotion, with desire, with a husband’s need for his new wife.

And just before their mouths came crashing together again, Lana murmured, “Not like this at all.”

One of Lana’s chambermaids leaned over and chuckled, as she said, “It’s a good thing the guests will be coming in for another half-hour at least.”

“True,” another maid replied, “at this rate we’ll need every one of those minutes to drag our princess and her prince away from each other’s lips and to the State Dining Room.”

That’s almost what happened, as Kal and Lana found that no longer having to worry about her reputation was more freeing than either one of them had expected. They ended up taking every opportunity during their walk to the dining room to stop for some heated kisses.

Still, they managed to make it to the anteroom where the wedding party was staging. When Kal-El and Lana entered the room, everyone except Richard and Mara either bowed or curtseyed and held that position until Kal-El signaled for them to rise. That was the first time Lana had been honored like that by other nobles, and it made he feel a little bit weird. These people were all family, friends, and acquaintances of hers, and several of them had outranked her until Kal placed the coronet on her head. But once everyone rose, things were back to normal as the girls excitedly gathered around Lana to congratulate her, admire her coronet, and draw out every single detail of how she felt.

Kal was similarly surrounded by the men, who were somewhat more subdued in their reactions, until they saw a lip print on his face right next to his mouth.

“Jeez, Kal-El,” Bruce said, “I know you’re anxious, but don’t you think mauling your new wife can wait until after the reception?”

The other guys chipped in with more good-natured ribbing, until Kal-El ended it by turning to where Lana was holding court, nodding toward her as she looked up and smiled at him, and replying, “Can you blame me?”

Finally, the king and queen entered the room, which meant it was time to go, but not before Jor-El and Lara got to meet with Kal-El and Lana to offer their personal congratulations. The king started by shaking Kal-El’s hand, before pulling him into a wordless bear hug that would have crushed the ribs of a normal man. Lara, on the other hand, held Lana by the shoulders and warmly welcomed her to the family before starting to babble about how beautiful she was and how well the day was going.

Jor-El wasn’t quite sure when Lara was going to stop talking once she got going, so as soon as he quit hugging his son, he stepped in behind her and squeezed her shoulders. “Lara dear, let Lana go for now; it’s time to go. The guests are finally all seated.”

That got everyone to line up, after which Jor-El and Lara led the procession from the anteroom to the huge State Dining Room itself. The seneschal stood just inside the doors to announce the king and queen as they entered. And as they did, everyone in the room stood. The center aisle was just wide enough for two people to walk side by side, with the rest of the rows of tables being very closely spaced to so the many, many guests could be seated.

All eyes were on Jor-El and Lara, until the reached the gently curving head table that graced the front of the immense dining room. Instead of taking their usual places at the center of the table, they left those center seats open and instead took the seats on either side of the center ones. Once they were seated, the guests sat with them, and the seneschal announced the first pair of Kal and Lana official escorts.

Just like at the cathedral, each pair made it halfway to the front before the next pair was introduced, until only Kal and Lana were left. And just like at the cathedral, they were held back until everyone else was in place. All the escorts were seated and everyone was waiting expectantly, when a trumpet fanfare was played from the four corners of the room. Then the seneschal said in a magically-aided booming voice, “Your Majesties, princes and princesses, lords and ladies from all over the world, it is now my great honor to introduce to you, in their first social engagement since their marriage, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Alemannia, Lord Kal-El and Lady Lana-El.”

While Kal-El and Lana had been waiting, she had been admiring the opulence and immensity of the State Dining Room, while he had been openly staring at her. Crystal-and-gold chandeliers glittered high overhead, sending shimmering sparks of light into every corner of the room, and golden, torch-filled sconces with mirrors behind them hung on the walls, bathing the celebrants with light. Tall, narrow white marble columns along the walls, golden silk wall coverings, and huge white marble mantels in front of the six massive fireplaces lining the sides of the room never failed to awe her.

As Kal-El and Lana walked into the room, Jor-El and Lara stood once more, and everyone stood with them and cheered the newlyweds. The whole spectacle was breathtaking, especially for Lana, who still considered herself to be a small town girl at heart, no matter where she was currently living.

Once Kal and Lana reached their seats, everyone sat and the twelve-course meal began. The food and wine were sumptuous, and the meal took all of four hours to serve and consume, but Lana and Kal could barely taste anything served to them, and the time just seemed to fly by, as they spent most of the meal feeding each other, gazing into each other’s eyes, and playing footsie under the table.

Before they knew it, they were being asked to lead a procession outside into the palace’s torch-lit courtyard for the dance. The use of the courtyard for dancing was a tacit admission that not even the Grand Ballroom was large enough for the number of guests at the palace this evening. And once everyone was present and pressed back on all sides, Kal bowed to Lana, who curtseyed back to him, before they opened the dancing all by themselves. After that, Lana danced with Lewis and then Jor-El, while Kal danced with his mother and then with the pregnant Lois, who was standing in for Lewis’ long-dead wives.

“We’ve come a long way from you beating the crap out of me, Lois,” Kal-El said, once their dance started.

“True,” Lois said, with a smile creeping across her face. “You know, I don’t have to do that to Bruce.”

“Why not?” Kal asked, curious to see where Lois was going with this.

“Because, he lets me cross swords with him, even if he does take it easy on me.” Then she looked down at her bulging mid-section. “Well…not any more. Not until the baby arrives anyway.”

“Congratulations, Lois. I‘m hoping you two can show Lana and I what it’s like to have children.”

“Oh…don’t worry about that, Kal-El,” Lois assured him. “Lana’s already offered to be the godmother of our first child; that makes you the godfather. So I expect you’ll see a lot of our boy.”

“Boy? You know already? Did Lana x-ray you?”

“No, none of that,” Lois replied smugly. “I just know.”

Kal-El smiled at her calm self-assurance, and danced with about every female relative he had, including Grandma Irilta, before getting another chance with Lana. He sighed the moment her butter-soft hands touched his. “Ah…bliss.”

“I know what you mean,” Lana replied happily. “I danced with a few distant relatives of yours that I’d never even met before tonight.” Lana pulled Kal close against her and leaned her head against his chest. “I wish it was just us, Kal.” She paused a moment, but he waited for her to continue. “I mean, this has been the most amazing day…but it’s been non-stop, wall-to-wall people from the moment my carriage left the grounds of Father’s mansion.”

Kal absentmindedly ran the fingers of one hand down the length of Lana’s silken tresses, even as he considered what she had said. It only took him a few moments’ consideration before he said, “Your slightest wish, my lady, is my command.”

Lana barely had time to look up at him and voice a surprised, “What?” before he had taken one hand and was leading her through the throng of dancers, and toward one of the many refreshment tables spread around the perimeter of the courtyard. Once they’d reached the relative calm of the edge of the crowd, Kal led Lana to the wide tunnel that connected the courtyard to the palace gardens, the surrounding park, and the gravel path that led back to the city.

A number of people saw the prince and princess go, but thought little of it until they stopped and the prince used an amplification spell to say, “Lana and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts - one and all - for coming to visit the Kingdom of Alemannia and to honor our wedding with your presence. But now, it is with some regret that we take our leave. The hour is late, and we must go if we intend to make it to our new home on schedule.”

Jor-El, Lara, and the rest of their families and friends already knew the young couple was going to leave the party early, though none of them knew about Kal’s secret plan to stop just outside of town and fly the rest of the way home. That was mostly because he wanted that part of the plan to be something secret, something he shared only with his wife, but it also had a practical component, as he wanted to avoid the age-old practice of shivaree.

A shivaree is where a large crowd of family, friends, and others take it upon themselves to harass the newlyweds in a friendly way on their wedding night. As long as no one knew they were headed all the way back to Borussia tonight, no one would be able to bother them and interrupt their most personal celebration of their love. Having taken their leave of the party, Kal looked down to Lana and asked, “Ready to go?”

“Oh, Kal…” Lana pulled him down for a ferocious kiss and tasted every corner of his mouth before she let him go. “I think I was born ready to go with you.”

[Cardinal]

Chapter 108

Forever Tonight

Kal and Lana linked hands and turned to walk through the tunnel and under the south wing of the palace. A minute later, they popped out the other side of the tunnel just as their coach rolled to a stop in front of them. It wasn’t as large or as ornate as the one they’d used to parade through the city streets this afternoon, but it was still larger than anything Lana had ever been in before today.

Two chests of clothing for their so-called trip were strapped onto the roof of the coach, a liveried driver and footman were sitting on the driver’s bench up front, and two more liveried footmen were standing on the back. One footman held the door to the coach wide open, while another one placed a small set of steps in place for their use. Kal handed Lana up inside, and since this dress had no train to get in the way, he followed her up inside and sat by her side as the footmen prepared the coach for travel. Four glass-and-gold lanterns hung on the corners of the coach, and a little of their light seeped into the coach’s spacious, well-appointed cabin.

That light wasn’t needed though, nor was it particularly wanted by the cabin’s two occupants, who quickly drew heavy curtains over the windows before going back to what they had started doing the moment Kal had sat down…namely kissing.

Neither Kal nor Lana really noticed the moment the coach the coach set into motion, but a nearby officer of the Royal Household Guard did and he led his troop of knights into position to protect the royal couple and to guide them on a slow, winding path through a horde of drunken revelers, out of the city, and eventually to Borussia.

The blissful ignorance of Lana and Kal ended quickly. As soon as the coach made it out of the city and started to pick up speed, the two of them sat up straight and neatened their appearances, while Kal used x-ray vision on occasion to check their progress. Once the city disappeared from view, Kal rapped on the front of the coach, and the driver brought it to a halt. The steps were back in place and the door was opened, even though the footmen had no idea why the prince and princess were stopping in the middle of nowhere.

It took Kal only a moment to give a new set of orders to the driver and to the officer of his guard. They were to continue on, stopping in the same towns and sleeping at the same inns as planned. Used to following orders from the royal family, no matter how weird they got, both the driver and the officer nodded their understanding.

Kal then turned to Lana, and asked, “Did you dress for the flight?”

Lana giggled and lifted the front of her dress. Kal’s first reflex was to burn the eyes of any man who was looking in Lana’s direction, as he thought her bare legs were going to come into view. But instead, under the white silk of the dress and her underskirts was more white silk. Only this time, the silk had been cut and sewn into pants.

“Clever!” Kal said.

“Thanks,” Lana replied, “but the credit goes to the royal dressmakers. I explained my problem to them and they came up with these so I wouldn’t have to wear those boy’s leather pants anymore when I want to fly. And yes, I know silk isn’t as durable as leather, but they made me a dozen pairs of the pants. When I need more, I can have my own dressmakers create some for me.”

“So, now you can fly in style,” Kal grinned.

“And in modesty,” Lana added.

Kal stood within an reach of Lana and held an arm to her with the palm of the hand facing up. “Ready to go, My Love?”

Lana reached out and placed her hand face down in his. Their eyes met as their hands clasped tightly. “Away from the crowds? Away from the hustle and bustle? Alone with you?” Both Kal and Lana were wearing grins which were growing larger with every word she spoke. “Count me in!” Then she blinked hard one time and giggled. Just as he was about ask what was so funny, Lana said, “Maybe we should leave the coronets here with our belongings. I’d hate to lose one mid-flight.”

Kal laughed out loud and lifted his coronet off his head before he collected Lana’s and entrusting them to the officer of the guard. Once he reclaimed Lana’s hand, he asked, “Now?”

She nodded her head and smiled widely. “Now.”

Together they bent their knees and squatted low, until their buns almost touched their heels, and then they launched themselves into the air. All the guards and the men on the coach heard was a rush of wind and loud “Wooooooooooohoooooo!” as the Els disappeared from sight.

After rocketing up through a few high-flying clouds, Kal and Lana leveled off and slowed way down. They hadn’t had the chance to play around in the air since the day of the assassination attempt. And this time there were no constraints, and no nervous father waiting patiently for his virgin daughter to come back.

“Are you in a big hurry to get home?” Lana asked. She was floating on her side, as if resting on an invisible bed, with her dress drooping below her.

“Not as long as you’re here,” Kal replied, as he floated in front of her.

“I am here,” Lana agreed, as she gave her husband a sultry look. “But no one else is.”

“We’re all alone for the first time.”

“No family. No servants. No guards.”

Kal drifted closer to Lana, until they were almost touching. “And no ladies-in-waiting drifting around you like a cloud.”

“Just you, and a few real clouds.” Lana rotated until she was ‘standing’ in front of Kal, their bodies touching. She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him against her for a heated kiss with lips smacking, teeth grazing, tongues tasting. “Did I ever tell you I love flying? Our various heights don’t matter this way. Much nicer for kissing.”

“True.” Kal slid his hands down her sides until his hands came to rest on her hips. He then started kneading her hips through layer upon layer of fabric. “You haven’t gotten to fly yet, though, not really. But now,” a devilish smile crept across Kal’s face, “we have all the time we could possibly want, and the whole world is our playground.”

“What do you mean?”

Kal pushed Lana away from him, just enough to put himself out of her reach, and then said, “Catch me if you can,” before darting off into a nearby cloudbank.

Lana was surprised, but only for as long as it took her to take a breath, and then she was off, chasing Kal from cloud to cloud, and when she finally caught him, they hovered high above the earth and kissed again, before Lana took off and made Kal chase her.

Back and forth they went, playing a high-flying game of tag, while heading steadily away from Königsberg and toward their new home. Finally, a quick look down through the clouds allowed Kal to confirm they had arrived high in the sky over their palace in Borussia. Not quite willing for their fun to end just yet, he rolled over and floated on his back with his arms folded behind his head, as if lying on a bed. Lana saw this, floated over and straddled him, with her butt firmly planted on his abs. Her hair was wild and tangled now, having been blown here and there during their flight, but Kal thought she looked radiant. She started idly toying with the buttons on the front of his formal uniform coat, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

He hadn’t seen any outward sign of Lana’s worry, but the moment she spoke, it was plainly evident in her voice. “Worried about what, My Heart?”

“About what waits us below. It’s what we’re expected to do - what I want to do.”

“It’s what I want to do, too.” Kal brought his hands from behind his head and lightly stroked the tops of her fabric-covered thighs. Lana smiled and looked down at his hands, watching as his thick, strong fingers caressed her, before Kal asked, “What about it?”

“I’m worried that when…” Lana closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then let everything out in a rush, “…thatwhenmyclothescomeoff, I won’t please you.”

Kal’s eyes were about to bulge out of his head; for him, the very idea that Lana wouldn’t please him was as ludicrous as they come, but he kept listening and continued to stroke her thighs as she went on. He wasn’t about to make fun of her insecurities, especially not now.

“Won’t please me in what way, Dearest?” Kal asked. He figured an extra endearment right now wouldn’t hurt a bit. “Because I’m just as inexperienced as you are.”

“I know that, Kal,” Lana said, as she favored him with a small smile, “it’s just that I know what other women look like, and I know that compared to them I’m…I’m small and skinny.”

“Ah,” Kal said, as understanding flooded his mind, “you think I might prefer large breasts and round hips to what you have. Is that it?” Lana nodded her head ever so slightly. “There’s a lot of things I could say or do to prove you wrong, Lana. But none of them are as likely to get through to you like this one…”

Kal placed his hands on her hips and slid her back down his body. Lana was curious as to what was supposed to happening, until she felt something moving up between her legs, pressing right over her center…something that was surprisingly hard.

“Is that…” Lana began to ask, as her eyes grew wide, “…what I think it is?”

“Yeah, it is.” Kal stopped sliding her back, allowing her body to come to rest right on top of the hardness. “And what it is, is proof of just how much I want you. A man can lie about many things, Lana, but not about this.” Kal chose that moment to flex his hips and grind up against her.

Lana could almost see Kal’s eyes glaze over with lust as he spoke; she no longer had any doubts about his reaction when their clothes came off, and she was chiding herself for ever having entertained those doubts in the first place.

“And as for the size and shape of your body?” Kal said, yanking her attention back to him where it belonged. “I’ll take firm, subtle curves in place of overly fleshy ones any day.”

Kal was done talking. He pulled Lana down on top of him as they floated thousands of feet above their home, and laid into her with a ferocity she had yet to experience: hard, hot, dominating kisses; hands that roved wherever and fondled whatever they pleased; and a throbbing ache in his pants that demanded to be satisfied.

Lana was stunned for a moment by Kal’s unbridled passion, but then she fought fire with fire, and unleashed the ‘bad girl’ she had suppressed since childhood: every un-acted-upon impulse Lana had ever had was poured into her response as she matched Kal kiss for fiery kiss; her fingers sank deep into his curly locks, allowing her to tilt his head and achieve just the right angle for better kissing; and while his hands were roaming all over her, driving her wild with their touch, she was unconsciously grinding her center up and down the length of his hardness, causing both of them to moan with unsatiated need.

The two lovers kept going until they realized that to go any further, they had to be inside. Neither one wanted their first time to be in public, even if the only eyes that could currently see them belonged to birds and other Kryptonians. So, Kal shifted position and cradled Lana in his arms before hurtling down out of the sky to come to a soft landing on the wide, plant-strewn stone balcony outside her private chambers.

Lana giggled breathlessly after Kal’s high-speed descent, and collapsed against his chest as she regained her composure. Kal, meanwhile, was remembering the protocol of this palace, specifically, the part that stated that the duchess’ private chambers were her domain and that no one, not even the duke himself, could enter her rooms without her express permission.

“My lady,” Kal asked tenderly, “may I have permission to enter your quarters?”

Land had mostly forgotten about this, as she hadn’t spent much time in this palace yet, but she gathered herself, and said, “Yes, my lord. You may.”

Kal smiled then, and reached down with one hand just long enough to flick the door handle and pull it open. Long before, when he and Lana had last been here for a brief stop on their trip back to the winter palace following the wedding of Bruce and Lois, Kal had left some last minute instructions with the palace staff. All of those instructions involved this night and had to do with these very rooms, because he had been planning this wedding night getaway even then. Now it was time to see how well his staff had responded; the fact that the balcony door latch was unlocked as ordered was a good first sign. Kal kissed Lana once, then carried her across the threshold, before kissing her again and setting her down.

As duchess here in Borussia, Lana would normally have a bevy of chambermaids to prepare her for bed, but tonight, the maids had finished their preparations hours ago. This door, it turned out, led directly into the bedroom itself, and the only light in the room was provided by the small fire in the large fireplace in the far corner of the room. Since she knew the maids knew about her being Kryptonian and thus not able to get cold, Lana assumed the fire was simply for light.

But the small fire didn’t supply much light, and she so wanted to see Kal, especially as he got undressed. She’d had any number of erotic dreams about him, especially after seeing him shirtless a time or two, and if the rest of him was even half as delectable as his chest, she wanted to see every single inch. But as she stepped out of his arms to find an oil lamp or two, a series of strategically placed candles flickered to life on all sides of her bedroom. By the time she realized what was happening and turned back to look at Kal, the red glow was already fading from his eyes.

“Wha…? How did you know those candles were there? I didn’t even know…” But before Kal could answer, Lana answered the question herself. “You knew they were going to be there…you planned this.” Then she looked up at him hopefully. “What else do you have in store for us?”

Kal turned from Lana just long enough to close the balcony door - a symbolic way of closing them off from the rest of the world - before turning back to her, and saying, “In your sitting room, there should be a light meal set out for us, just in case you’re hungry, since I wasn’t sure how much you might eat during the banquet.”

Lana stepped in close to Kal, close enough that his arms automatically enfolded her, just as she said, “The only thing I’m hungry for…” she looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a long, slow, heated kiss, “…is you.”

That was the last thing either one of them said for awhile.

Lana dove back into kissing Kal, brushing her mouth against his, before sliding her tongue out to taste him. And when he groaned into her mouth, she slipped her tongue between his open lips to pillage the warm, wet cavern of his mouth.

Flush with excitement, Kal’s hands fumbled aimlessly on Lana’s back for the buttons to her dress, but his normally dexterous fingers weren’t even able to find the buttons, much less unfasten them. Unable to wait a moment longer, his hands moved around to the front of her dress, got a firm grip right in the center of the dress’ square neckline, and pulled apart hard, ripping the bodice of her dress from neck to waist.

The top half of Lana’s expensive dress was shredded, utterly ruined, and she couldn’t have been more thrilled. Mere minutes earlier, she had been worried Kal might not like her body, and now, he was so overcome with desire that he was ripping her clothes off like a madman.

Once started, Kal couldn’t be stopped; Lana’s shift was in tatters seconds later, and he pushed the entire ruined mess over her hips, before allowing it to fall to the floor. She still had on the white silk pants she’d had made expressly to protect her modesty while flying, and somewhere in the middle of that pile of ruined fabric she still wore bejeweled slippers, but at that moment Lana was completely bare from the waist up.


Author’s note: this is a link to the song I’m listening to as Kalana make love. Check it out if you want to, I think it’s perfect for these two at this time.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeTWVguWiuk


Few things could cut through the fog Kal was in at the moment, but the sight of her creamy white skin - skin that saw sunlight only in his fevered dreams - slowed and then stopped him in his tracks. He looked into her eyes first, seeking permission to look longer, to stare in fact, and when she nodded her head, he returned his eyes to her chest and allowed them to feast.

Lana blushed a fiery red then, as the sincere appraisal of his lust-filled eyes affected her much more than being undressed by him had. And when Kal realized he was still fully clothed while she was on display, he shredded his white and gold jacket, tossed the scraps aside, and repeated the process with his starched white shirt and the undershirt beneath it.

“There, that’s better,” he said, distractedly, his eyes never once having left her skin.

Lana took in a shuddering breath as she eyed Kal’s chiseled arms, bulging chest, and serrated abs. He was just as delicious as she remembered, only now, she didn’t have to hold back. “It sure is,” Lana whispered, as she licked her lips. “You look…yummy.”

From there, things went more slowly, almost reverently, as each one removed the remainder of the other’s clothes. Breathing was hard for both of them by now, and for Kal, so was something else, and it was harder than ever.

“Dear God…you’re more beautiful than I’d dared to dream,” he breathed.

As for Lana, she saw so many things that pleased her eye, that she hardly knew where to start, but before she could close in on Kal and choose, he moved in and literally swept her off her feet. Together they floated through the air and landed together in the middle of her four-poster canopy bed, where they immediately began to kiss once more. They had the kissing part down pat; it was going beyond kissing that was going to take some figuring out. Each knew the mechanics of the sex act, but actually doing it, and doing it together, was the problem.

Every place they placed a hand or ventured to kiss was a new experience for both of them. They quickly discovered that the give-and-take of learning each other’s body, learning what and how much and how fast, was going to be an ongoing process. There were awkward moments, times when Lana wasn’t comfortable with what Kal was doing, or times when she wasn’t quite understanding what he wanted, but they got past those moments with the most important tool of their relationship, both now and in the future: they talked and listened…they communicated.

And soon enough, the two first-time lovers found ways of pleasing each other. Kal found several spots on Lana’s body that she loved to have kissed and stroked. She, in turn, discovered that a gentle, steady hand pressure up and down his manhood could make him beg like a child.

And after a long, slow buildup, both lovers were panting and covered with a light sheen of perspiration, when Lana gave in to her growing need and asked Kal to take her. As he positioned himself between her slender legs and prepared to join them together physically, he took great comfort in her Kryptonian strength. Still, he was careful, and asked Lana if she was sure she was ready.

“Please, Kal,” Lana squealed, as he unintentionally dragged his manhood up and down the length of her entrance, “nowwwwwwww!”

He waited no longer, pushing in gently, allowing her body to adjust to his and then easing in some more. Lana was glad she couldn’t feel any pain, because it felt to her like she was being split in half. But once he was inside her all the way, he paused, and to her it felt like the most natural thing in the world to be joined with him like that. After that, they worked together, with his hips driving him in and out at a rhythmic pace, with her heels digging into his back to ensure he got in as deeply as he could.

It didn’t last long though, as Kal was just as much a virgin as Lana. The friction of being inside of her combined with his emotions to quickly overwhelm his control, and he spilled his seed deep inside of her. He had groaned and moaned as he reached his climax, and then spent the next five minutes or more apologizing to Lana for being so selfish.

While she hadn’t reached her peak yet, she didn’t mind. The idea that Kal was so excited to be with her that he couldn’t control himself, when added to the look of pure animalistic lust that had been on his face as he lost control, was enough for her…this time anyway. For if there was one thing Lana knew about the bodies of Kryptonians, it was this: they had more than enough stamina to go all night long. And she wasted no time in telling that to Kal.

“Don’t worry about it, My Love,” she said, as she stroked the side of his face.

“Why?” he asked, with a puzzled look on his face.

“Because, this was just our first time tonight.” Lana smiled when a look of comprehension slipped over his face. “We’ll have all the practice we need to get it right.” And when Kal gave her a feral grin, she became more than confident that she would reach her climax.

After all, practice makes perfect.

[Cardinal]

Chapter 109

The Glory of Love


The next morning, Lana woke in stages. The candles from the night before had long since burned out, the fireplace was filled with logs but remained unlit, and with the heavy black curtains over her windows and balcony door blotting out the morning light, her room was very nearly completely dark.

At first, Lana wasn’t quite sure where she was. Then, as the fog in her brain thinned out and her body checked in, she realized she was sore…in places she could never even recall being sore before. And then she remembered why she was sore, and she smiled the biggest, most self-satisfied grin of her life, as most everything else from the night before came flooding back to her.

But that, in turn, made her realize Kal wasn’t in bed beside her where he ought to be. She ran a hand over the spot on her feather mattress where he had been sleeping and found it was still warm; that meant he hadn’t been up long. A quick use of her x-ray vision quickly spotted him in her sitting room as he took an enormous tray from the several servants who had brought it up and then loaded it down with all sorts of silver trays and bowls.

Wanting some light to see her husband when he came back in, Lana turned to the fireplace and summoned the image of sexy, naked Kal from last night before turning the pile of logs into a towering inferno.

“Oops!” Lana chuckled, as Kal walked into the room carrying the carefully balanced tray before him.

Kal paused just long enough to take in the large fire Lana had inadvertently started, then he looked at her and merely quirked a single eyebrow at her, before they both dissolved in hopeless laughter. He had the goody-laden tray to deal with while he laughed, but it was no match for his strength and dexterity as he made his way to Lana’s side of the bed.

Her bed was huge, but so was the tray; it was specifically designed and built in the palace’s workshops to be used with the beds in the bedrooms of the duke and duchess. Kal used superspeed to unfold the support legs on each side of the very wide tray without spilling anything. The weird thing was that Lana ended up having to sit up very, very straight to have proper access to the tray’s serving surface. Puzzled by this she looked up at Kal with a questioning look on her face as he eased a couple of folded-up pillows under her butt to raise her up a little bit higher.

That look just made Kal laugh out loud. “Forgotten last night already have we?” he asked rhetorically. When that reference didn’t clear things up for her, he elaborated. “We broke the legs of the bed last night. Remember?”

Lana flushed a brilliant crimson as the memory came flooding back into her mind. She wasn’t embarrassed because they had broken the bed, not much anyway; she was mostly embarrassed because of how they had broken it. They had been on their fourth go-around and she had been chasing her second climax. Kal had done most of the work up until that point, but this time, Lana had been straddling his hips and riding him hard and fast.

Neither one of them knew if the bed had broken as a result of something specific she had done, if it was just the accumulation of a night of lovemaking and sexual exploration, or what, but what was not in dispute was that the four bed legs had cracked and shattered within seconds of one another, allowing the heavy bed frame to fall to the floor with Lana still on top of Kal, riding him as if nothing untoward had happened.

“Don’t worry, Lana,” Kal smirked, as he made adjustments to the height of the tray. “We’ll get the furniture maker to use steel legs next time.” Once the tray was ready, he took off his luxurious robe, then pulled the tray back on his side of the bed and climbed in next to her, before bringing the tray back into position. “Now, what do you want to sample first?”

“Breakfast in bed,” Lana murmured appreciatively. “You are just full of surprises.” Then she x-rayed the various covered silver trays and bowls. In them was a wide array of fresh fruits, breakfast meats, pastries…everything they could possibly have wanted to eat. The palace’s head chef normally didn’t work in the morning, but with the duke and his new duchess coming to the palace to live, he had come in extra early to personally oversee each and every item as it was made. Nothing was allowed to go wrong, not today.

After perusing her choices, Lana gestured at a plate that was stacked high with hot, flaky croissants. Kal lifted the lid off of that tray and held it out for her to make a selection. Once Lana made a plateful of breakfast choices, Kal chose food for himself. But it wasn’t long before they were playfully feeding each other, stuffing bites of flaky pastries or juicy fruits inside the other’s mouth. That led to delectable pieces of food being smeared on cheeks and jaws, followed by eager licks and nibbles all over in an attempt at cleaning things up.

They were gone from the moment of the first lick, so much so that Kal and Lana quit trying to eat their food and concentrated on where they could smear it next. The fruits and the dish of clotted cream quickly became their favored toys for that. It didn’t take long for them to become sweet, sticky messes from head to waist. Kal was just about to see what he could do with the last of the cream below Lana’s waist, when she pulled him down onto her, kissed him thoroughly, and asked, “Before we get carried away, could you tell me why I’m sore right now?”

“Sore?” Kal asked, with a puzzled look on his face. “Where are you sore?”

Lana just tilted her head to one side and raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

“Oh…OHHHH!” Kal smiled sheepishly and then propped himself up on his elbows. “I think it’s likely because of how hard we went at it last night, especially right near the end. Since it was at night, you weren’t receiving any solar energy, which is probably what allowed your body to become sore.” He shrugged his shoulders and then gestured to the balcony doorway with his head. “I think a few seconds in full sunlight should stop the soreness.”

Kal rolled off of Lana and made sure the tray was completely out of her way before hopping out of bed and retrieving her own robe and holding it open for her. She slid out of bed and into the robe, purring as he closed it about her and reached around her to tie the robe closed with its sash. His robe was still draped on the back of a dressing screen, but he didn’t care. He kept his arms around Lana and carried her from the bedside over to the balcony door, with her giggling every step of the way.

Kal stayed inside as Lana strolled onto the balcony, and a minute or so in the sun was all she needed to feel perfectly fine. Kal, of course, took the chance to be naughty, telling her it would only have taken a few seconds if she had opened the robe while on the balcony to maximize her skin/sunlight contact. Lana just rolled her eyes at that comment and walked back inside. He closed the door behind her, and she dropped her robe to the floor.

Before last night, Lana had been self-conscious about her body, but Kal’s reaction, both up in the clouds and then in bed, had changed that. She was used to her chambermaids seeing her naked as they washed her, and now she wanted to show off for him.

Kal pulled Lana into his arms and nuzzled the wild tangle that was her hair. “Not sore anymore?”

She pressed the side of her face against his chest, and smiled contentedly. “Nope. Not even a bit.”

Kal grinned, and reached down just enough to give her buns a quick but firm grope. “So, wanna get back in bed, Mrs. El? Your husband’s thinking he wants to have his way with you.”

“I’d love to,” Lana purred. “My husband’s not the only one having…‘thoughts.’” Then she regretfully pushed herself away from just a bit. “But I’m feeling really icky at the moment. Would it be possible for us to have nice, hot baths?”

“Of course. Anything you want.” Kal leaned down to place a kiss on her forehead. “And while we’re getting scrubbed clean, the chambermaids can clean up in here.” He looked at Lana’s messy bed and then at the gorgeous form of his naked wife. “Of course, we’re just going to mess everything up again anyway.”

“True,” Lana giggled, “and hopefully before lunch.”

True to their words, Kal and Lana took standing baths. They were in separate rooms for the baths, since he had no intention of allowing his manservants to see her naked, while she wouldn’t let any of her chambermaids see him naked. Having to bathe separately irritated Kal a lot, causing him to march downstairs after the bath and order his steward to have a bathtub constructed large enough for himself and his lady wife to use together, and do so while sitting down.

And once that tub is built, there will be no more servants doing the damn washing, Kal-El thought. Lana and I can enjoy a long, hot peaceful soak that way.

Once that was out of the way, Kal and Lana realized it was getting to be a little too late in the day for more marital fun…before lunch anyway. They work in one more real pleasure in their morning though, as Kal ruthlessly took the job of brushing out Lana’s freshly clean, but still seriously tangled hair from her maids.

“Do you remember the last time I did your hair?” Kal asked.

“Of course I do,” Lana smiled. “It’s one of my most treasured memories. It was the day before I received my knighthood back in the winter palace. You took it upon yourself to braid my hair right before the ritual bath and my all-night vigil. It was such a sweet thing to do.”

Kal stayed quiet for a moment as he concentrated on working a couple of knots out of her thick mane of hair. “I just wanted to do something for you, Lana. I just wanted so desperately to be a part of your knighting ceremony in some small way.”

“Well, you were, and I loved it.”

Once they were dressed, they headed downstairs for lunch. The reason lunch was downstairs was the same reason lunch had interfered with any additional sex for them this morning: Clark and Lana had only one official duty during their first week of married life, and that was an informal welcoming lunch with the entire palace staff. The meal was served buffet style so that everyone in the palace could sit down and eat together once the food was in place.

Part of the reason for the meal was to let everyone see the duke and his new duchess in a relaxed setting before they all had to adjust to the faster-paced life that would be happening now that there was a duke and duchess in residence. The main reason for the meal, however, was that they had decided weeks ago that she needed to establish that she was going to be the one in charge of the way things ran in the palace. To that end, Lana had a short speech prepared which she planned on giving right after the meal.

So, as it became more and more apparent that everyone had eaten their fill, Kal stood and used an amplification spell to make sure each and every servant could hear him. Lana cast her own amplification spell in preparation for her speech.

Kal stood, and said, “Thank you one and all for being here to share this delicious meal with us, and now that the meal is complete, I’d like for everyone to be introduced to my love, my wife, the Duchess of Borussia, Lady Lana El.”

Lana stood and waved, while the servants clapped politely while craning their necks to get a better look at the their new duchess. After a brief discussion, Kal and Lana had decided that she would project a stronger image if she didn’t have him standing behind her while she worked to establish her control, so once Lana stood, Kal left and headed back to his rooms.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, Lana faced the servants, and launched into her brief prepared remarks. “Hello, everyone, and thank you for that kind welcome.

“As Kal-El’s wife and the new Duchess of Borussia, I have a number of responsibilities, not the least of which is running the household and its staff. With the help of the Lord Chamberlain and his able assistants, the Head Housekeeper and the Head Chef, I intend to make sure everything runs the way it’s supposed to, as the ducal palace enters this new era of greatly increased use.

“While we are about to become the social hub for the duchy, I won’t be making any big changes until I, the chamberlain, and his assistants have had a chance to evaluate the current procedures and staff.

“Please remember, as the guests start arriving in the next few days for the duchy’s own celebration of our marriage, that everything you do reflects upon the Duchy of Borussia, the duke himself, and upon yourselves. Keep that in mind, and I’m sure that we will make a great impression upon my husband and our guests. Thank you.”

Kal had listened to Lana’s speech with his super hearing while walking back to his rooms, and by the time she had reached the entrance to their rooms, he was already undressed and back in his bed, as the household staff had yet to make repairs to Lana’s bed. She turned left into his suite, and as soon as she reached his bedroom, she was a blur of arms and legs as she speed stripped and launched herself into his arms.

“No more official business?” Lana asked, as she smothered Kal with kisses.

“Nothing more that requires clothes anyway.” He raised an eyebrow at her once she pulled back a bit.

“Oh?”

“Mmhmmm. From what I’ve been told, you and me in bed doing what we’re about to do sort of qualifies as ‘official business.’” Kal laughed and snorted as he said it, which made Lana giggle along with him.

“In that case, I’m going to be giving you ‘the business’ for a very…long…time.”

The young lovers did manage to work in a late afternoon horse ride around a small part of their huge estate, followed by a private dinner in Kal’s quarters. Then they snuggled together in front of a low fire and took the time to reflect upon their wedding and their first day together as husband and wife.

As they neared the end of their reflections, Kal said, “I wonder how long it took our families last night to discover we’d given them the slip.”

She leaned her head back against him, and murmured, “I don’t know, but I do know just how much I enjoyed last night without them being anywhere near us.”

“I know. I was nervous enough about trying to please you without having to deal with that sort of distraction.”

Lana twisted in Kal’s arms and tilted her head to look up at him. “Wait…you mean to say that you were worried? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why? It just would’ve taken your focus off of what we were doing. My worries might have made you so anxious to be pleased, that actually being pleased would have been more difficult.”

“But…”

“I know you, My Love,” Kal leaned down and brushed Lana’s forehead with his lips. “You’re so caring, so loving, so giving, that you would have worried about my worries.”

“I’m giving, huh?”

“Yeah, you definitely are.”

Lana pulled Kal’s face down to her level for a heated kiss. “How about we go back to that sturdy bed of yours and see how much I can give to you tonight?”

He didn’t say a word, and instead chose to scoop her off his lap and into his arms before walking them to his bedroom. Lana didn’t wait to get to the bed to start the kissing, which in turn made Kal’s straight walk into more of a drunken back-and-forth weave. But they got there, and then fell onto the bed in a tangle of arms and legs, each of them eager to show their passion and explore their love, that day, and every day thereafter.


Author’s Note: This is the song I’m thinking about as this story ends. It’s really been the theme song of the entire fic. It’s been in my mind from almost the very beginning.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erAo4zjV5h8&feature=related


So there it is, the story of how a filthy squire and a grubby stable girl came to meet, fall in love, become the talk of the kingdom, and marry, against all odds.


The End

[QueenClana]

Wow, I can't believe it's over, such a beautiful ending, I can't wait for your next fic, Cardinal

[Seaspray]

I heard a delicious rumour, I hope that it's true. That there was an epilogue being written for this stunning masterpiece of a story. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

[Cardinal]

It's being written...just veeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly. :(

[Seaspray]

One can't hurry the production of a masterpiece.

[Nemu]

2 points in this where the story got messed up...

1- Lana calling Clark a coward when she knows he is "hiding" here for security reason... even though she doesnt know the full story, she did have that fact...

2- On their return to Konigsberg from Brois wedding... they stop at the Cathedral and Lana asks to go to services there before the wedding so her first time is not the actual wedding day... but they already went there once at the beginning of the winter after the rebellion...

so... what is the status on the epilogue?

[ClanaGirl]

I love this. It is a fantastic fanfiction worthy of applause. I love Clana, they are forever, and this is fabulous. Truly, you have outdone yourself, Cardinal. Just gorgeous. I cannot express how lovely the kiss and the wedding scene and this entire fanfic is. You are truly a Clana fan of the highest order.

Thank you for keeping their love alive.

Screw Clois!

Clana forever.

Clanagirl