Beneath the Skin
Disclaimer: see previous chapters.
It was one of those days, where nothing seems to go right. Grant Ward thought that he had it all figured out – he and Palamas kidnap Bobbi Morse, she apologizes to his girlfriend (i.e. Kara Lynn Palamas) – genuinely or not, the two of them clear the air and he and Kara Lynn return Bobbi back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and everyone can go on with their lives – and Phil Coulson and his high-handed offer of T.A.H.I.T.I. can go hang. (Seriously, Coulson may be a white hat, but the way he gets onto a high horse? That is something else.)
Only...this does not happen. Kara Lynn was certainly right about Bobbi – as soon as the blonde saw her ex-friend (and more, if Grant's past observations are correct), she dug in and refused to apologize. Maybe Ward should have been the bigger man and just let her go – but he did not. He really did want to carry out his promise to Kara Lynn, especially since he had talked her out of taking revenge on Melinda May (he is not scared – he had actually figured out a strategy as to how to defeat the Cavalry, but he still doesn't want to fight her, not if he can help it), and so he cranked up his persuasion methodology, utilizing the skills that Garrett had taught him, until the final piece of the plot – the one where he had laid a death trap either for Morse or for her boyfriend, the one with the crazy hats, and would've worked, if the Cavalry hadn't shown up after all.
Now...he was waiting for her, ready to give her the double-tap, something that not even the Cavalry would survive, and it would've worked, if across the world something else didn't happen – Illyria and Koh had restarted the Seed of Magic, and all the magic in the world comes back.
The result is a brief rush through Grant Ward's being; for a moment he becomes quite aware of his surroundings and everyone around him – and then he shoves it all back down, and asks the woman that he had almost shot:
"Kara Lynn?"
"Yeah?"
"You want to talk?"
"No...Yes...can you go first?"
"Of course."
/
There once was a Rakshasa, a high-ranking noble warrior of Ravana, (the great Maharajah, the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the King of all the Rakshasas), who had done something unexpected – fell in love with an Apsara. This sort of thing just was not done, not since the whole Rama and Sita incident (i.e. the Ramayana), and so the Rakshasa, whose name, incidentally, was Hudima, the Kinslayer, was brought to Ravana for judgement. The great Maharajah was feeling magnanimous on that day, and gave his good servant a choice – to snap out of it and move on (the Apsara didn't appear to reciprocate the feelings to begin with), or to move on via reincarnation, to see if the Kinslayer will have better luck in his next life (and he could always return to the state of being a Rakshasa by dying). It is unknown what the great Maharajah expected of Hudima in regards to the lesser Rakshasa's reply, but when the other asked for reincarnation, he was somewhat surprised – but not enough to give the latter a chance to rethink it all. Off came Hudima's head, and off went Hudima to be reincarnated...
/
"Wow," Kara Lynn nodded thoughtfully, "simply wow. This is one amazing tale!" (she received a longer one from Ward directly; the readers of this tale get a more condensed version to save time here). "I don't have anything to match it. I am – I was – a Vouvre. My mother was a Philocatrix. I fell in love with Morse, who was a Valkyrie, and followed her into S.H.I.E.L.D. under a human guise, same as she did. I thought that I could win her over – I did not. Then the magic died, I became more human than I have liked, got captured by Hydra, broken by them, then you came along and helped me." A pause. "Now the magic is back, and I can go back to being a Vouvre, daughter of a Philocatrix-"
"I have no idea what either of these is," Ward admitted.
Kara Lynn makes a gesture. For several moments an image of a great serpent-dragon, eyeless, save for one gemstone of an eye in the middle of its' – hers – forehead – looks at Ward, before dispelling into mist. "That's who I really am," Kara Lynn explains, as Ward looks on without being too terribly impressed or intimidated by this revelation. "And this is who I'll be once more once I leave the human shell behind." She grimaces in an admission of fact. "Of course, after the lean months of no magic this will be harder, I have grown used to being a real human-" She pauses. "You want to say anything?" she asked Ward.
"What's with the opal in the forehead?" he asks quietly.
"It's my stone – the source of my power," Kara Lynn says quietly. "Why, do you want it?"
"Kara Lynn," the response is equally quiet, "I was once obsessed with Skye – you cured me of that. You showed me what true love is, and I tried to repay you – and it almost went horribly wrong. I once thought of marrying you, but this is ridiculous now, isn't it?"
"I don't know, if you would go back to your roots," Kara Lynn falls quiet, as Ward looks at her.
"No. It's more of a masculine thing – I have to see it through the end," Ward shakes his head. "I'm sorry if I've dragged you into this-"
"The only thing you did was make me feel human after everything that Whitehall did to me," Kara Lynn hisses – in an ordinary manner, not how a serpent-dragon would. "You made me feel human, without any sex, even – something that I never knew was possible! I am not giving up on you – or giving you up, period."
"Then you want to get married?" Ward asks, still quietly. "S.H.I.E.L.D. – and Skye – can go hang if they want to."
"Do I?" Kara Lynn replies, smiling brilliantly. "Let's!"