Yue

 21st January

17:42 GMT

"What did you think?"

Bleez is.. smiling at me. From what I.. dimly remember of her pre-Red Lantern life in the comics, she didn't seem exactly joyful. And yet I can clearly see that she's doing something she loves: singing and performing before an audience.

"I'm afraid that to human ears, lyrics in Quarish don't translate particularly well. I did like your last piece-" Her smile broadens slightly. "-and your dancing… Choreography and performance was most impressive."

"Thank you. And I know about-" Shaky wing jerk. An eye roll equivalent. "-the Quarish thing; it's like our language uses a whole different register to every other humanoid language."

"I think it could work for an English-speaking audience, but you'd need different instrumentation. The relatively soft, pop music sound is just too much of a clash." I take a small Thanagarian data storage device out of subspace and load… A cross-section of Earth's music onto it. "As I understand it, thanagarian performers don’t usually have much to do with alien music. I hope that it's a norm you'll continue to subvert."

I hold it out to her, and she takes it with obvious eagerness. "Thank you. I don't really have anywhere to put it in this costume..." She carefully clips it onto her… Belt? "My manager will love it if I can break into alien markets!"

"Earth doesn't really have a market for alien music. A.. kryptonian released a good chunk of their historical musical archive a few years ago and it just sits on our data network."

"Anyone perform it?"

"Not to a big crowd. I think there have been.. small scale attempts to reproduce it."

"Well that's the problem! People aren't going to get excited about a recording. Do your people.. trade with Krypton?"

"Krypton exploded about forty years ago with the loss of virtually the entire species."

"Oh." The wrists of her wings twitch towards her face, an acknowledgement of a faux pas.

"Three.. survivors have made their home on Earth, and one of them released it. He's not much of a musician." And since he grew up on Earth, probably wouldn't play Kryptonian instruments even if he was. I'll ask Kara if she's interested in that sort of thing, because while Karsta might I have no desire to intrude on her any further. "But no, before that happened we didn't."

"Do you have a copy of that?"

"Ah… I.. never bothered recording the whole thing, but…" I transmute another storage device. "Here's some of it."

She attaches it to the other side of her belt. "If they… The survivors want to commemorate their world, they should do a… Whole expo thing. Displays on their art and culture, examples of their technology… Maybe have a few people live like they did and record the whole thing. You need to get people interested in the culture before anyone will be interested in the music for itself. They need to understand the context for what they're hearing."

I nod. Despite Kal-El being a major hero, there isn't really much interest on Earth for Kryptonian culture beyond buying t-shirts with his 'S' on them. Thanks to me there's more interest in Themysciran culture these days, but Diana's most ardent admirers would have struggled to name a single piece of Themysciran music before I jollied the theatre company into touring. Actually, that applies to Thanagar as well. The Hawks have been around for eight years now, and I don't remember any cultural data release. Or any interest in one. Same with Mars.

"I don't recognise your uniform. That is a uniform, right?"

I glance down at my robes. "Official clothing, certainly. I'm a member of the Orange Lantern Corps."

"Like the Green Lanterns, only orange?"

"The rings work slightly differently and we're more a military than a police force, but… Yes."

She leans forward slightly. "Are you recruiting? Or have you already recruited someone and you're here to train them?"

"Lantern Dul is already receiving training, but she's not assigned to this region of space. She hasn't actually.. been back to Thanagar for years, that's one of the reasons we made this trip. The other is because my-" I gesture to where Ms Parker and Mr Cantrell are talking to.. a thanagarian I don't know. "-colleagues are able to provide information to the Thanagarian government relating to something that's worrying them."

"Like what?"

"Magic. They're worried about Hyathis' exotic threat potential, so they're here to offer their services as consultants."

"That's… Kind of a big deal. Shouldn't there be more guards around?"

"They're accomplished fighters, I'm a Lantern and we're on Thanagar, a short flight from the main city garrison and under its home defence fleet. There's only so safe you can get before it starts getting absurd."

"I suppose you've got a point. So… Why are you here?"

"I'm just a glorified taxi service at the moment. My top speed is far faster than anyone else's, and I can bring passengers. And while I know a good deal about magic, I wouldn't expect the Thanagarian government to trust me. Um." She looks at me expectantly. "This is… Probably something of a personal question, but… Is your mother nagging you about getting married?"

"Yes! You have no idea how annoying it is! I tried saying 'mother, I'm focusing on my career right now, can't it wait?' and she's all 'you are the great granddaughter of Prince Yiiqi and my sole heir, you must marry and have children right now'. The main reason I'm on this tour is so I can get my manager to pretend I'm working whenever she calls to try and introduce me to some.. baronet's son or something." She blinks. "How did you know that?" She leans in again, looking at me expectantly. "Are you like a spy? Are you spying on me? No, are you trying to groom me as an intelligence source?"

"Ah-. No, just trying to verify.. information I'd heard from elsewhere."

She pulls back slightly. "She didn't.. put you up to-?"

"No."

"Not that you're, you know, unattractive-."

I raise my eyebrows, then create construct wings and fan them out. "I'm gorgeous. But no." I fold the wings behind my back as she blinks at me. "I've never met your mother. My species uses magic for all sorts of things, not just for controlling plants. One of the things we do with it is… Seeing the future, with… Varying degrees of reliability. And one of the things that got seen was your mother entertaining a.. suitor to whom you were not well suited."

"So your species' prophets say I should focus on my career?"

I suppose it.. keeps her away from home. That way there can't be a Lantern Bleez. "You could interpret it like that. Although… An equally valid reading would be that you should pick someone yourself because her suggestions are all terrible."

"That's true. They are. Ugh, they're just so backwards. I mean, we have legally defined citizenship tiers, why do we even need slaves!?"

…

"Quite. Um. Have you.. been on Thanagar long?"

"Not that long this trip, but Mother and Father used to bring me here every year to make sure I grew up as a 'proper lady of the nobility'." She looks at me speculatively. "Wanna help me do something that would really burr her feathers?"