The cart had been loaded with hay before whatever errand had brought the Kents out that evening, and most of it was now pushed aside to make room for the unconscious Batman and Ciri, who sat with her back against the sideboard and her legs folded under her. Finn walked alongside it. The road was flat enough that keeping pace wasn't difficult, and the evening air had cooled enough to make the walking bearable.
Martha twisted on the front bench to look back at them.
"Where do you two come from?" she asked. "If you don't mind me asking."
Ciri glanced at Finn. Finn looked at the road ahead.
"Nowhere in particular," Ciri said. "We've been travelling a good while. It stops feeling like we come from anywhere, after a time."
Martha made a sound that sat somewhere between sympathy and concern. "You two look so young for that kind of life. Did something happen to your families?"
"No," Finn said. "We were with a travelling group for a while. We separated. It happens."
Jonathan didn't say anything, but his shoulders shifted slightly on the bench. He'd been mostly quiet since the crater, his eyes on the road.
After a moment he spoke. "Those clothes you're wearing."
Finn looked down at himself. The shirt and jacket from Solaceon, modern cut, clean stitching, nothing that belonged anywhere near a medieval road in the early evening.
"Where are they from?" Jonathan continued. "They look well made. Strange looking, but well made."
"The far east," Finn simply said.
Jonathan looked at him for a moment, then turned back to the road without pushing it.
"Speaking of which," Finn said, "where are we exactly? We've been travelling long enough that we've lost track of the region."
"Rural side of the Kingdom of El," Jonathan said.
"Kingdom of El," he murmured, more to himself than anyone.
Martha turned again. "Have you heard of it?"
"No," Finn said. "Sorry."
"Really?" Jonathan said. "Our kingdom is rather well known among our neighbours."
"For the wrong reasons," Martha added.
"Still…" Jonathan said. "Famous."
"The wrong reasons?" Ciri asked.
Jonathan turned to look at her from the bench, held the look for a moment, then faced forward again. The road stretched ahead in the dark and he didn't say anything else, and after a while it became clear he wasn't going to.
—
The Kent farmstead sat in the middle of flat land, surrounded on three sides by wheat fields gone gold with the season. The house was small, clearly built to last rather than to impress, with a barn to one side and a fence around the yard that had been mended in several places over the years.
Finn and Ciri lifted Batman between them and carried him inside, the old couple moving ahead to hold the doors. The interior was warm, a fire was already going, the smell of something cooked earlier still in the air.
They quickly noticed that there were people inside.
Finn counted four of them, all young, lounging around the main room. A dark skinned teenager in silvery armor with red gemstones worked into the plating. A pale girl in layered purple clothing with a hood pushed back from her face. A boy with green skin. A redhead sitting closest to the fire.
Teen Titans, Finn instantly thought.
The teenager in the armor was already on his feet, his expression going from relaxed to sharp the moment they came through the door.
"Who are these two?" he said. "And is that who I think it is? Why are we bringing him here?"
He was looking at Batman, not at Finn or Ciri, the last word carrying enough weight to suggest that, clearly, the group didn't like him much.
Martha tried to calm the teenagers down. "We found him by the road, Victor. He needed help." She gestured between Finn and Ciri and the room. "These are travellers. They helped us carry him. Ciri and Finn." Then she swept her hand the other way. "Ciri, Finn, these are Raven, Victor, Kory, and Beast Boy."
Ciri set Batman's legs down on the bed in the side room and straightened. "Beast Boy." She said it plainly, turning back toward the green one. "A nickname, I take it?"
"Nope," said the green boy. He shifted in his seat and then there was a dog where he'd been, large, tail wagging, tongue out, looking up at her.
Ciri's brows went up. The dog became a boy again.
"Ah," she said. "I see why."
Beast Boy grinned.
Martha was already rolling up her sleeves. She turned to the pale girl in purple. "Raven. I need your help."
Raven's expression didn't change much. She was quiet long enough that a refusal seemed to be coming, then she stood without a word and followed Martha into the side room.
The rest of them settled back into the main room. Ciri took a seat near the fire and Finn leaned against the wall, and for a while the only sound was the low murmur of Martha and Raven working in the other room.
Then Ciri said, "You don't like him."
Victor turned his head.
"The lot of you," she continued. "The old couple as well. You brought him in but none of you want him here. So what did he do?"
Victor was quiet for a moment. "Bruce Wayne. The Dark Knight of Steel. Bastard son of the House of Wayne, the ones who ruled this kingdom before they were assassinated."
"Who rules now?" Finn asked.
Kory answered. "Their advisors took power after the assassination. The House of El. They came from the sky, a long time ago, and they've held the throne ever since."
"...I still do not see a cause for hate." Ciri said.
"They hate us," Victor said. "All of us."
Ciri frowned. "Meaning?"
Beast Boy had stopped smiling. He pulled his knees up onto the chair and wrapped his arms around them.
"People with powers," he said. "Magic. Anything that isn't normal. The House of El declared it all outlawed. Anyone caught being one or using some type of arcane knowledge gets taken." He looked at the fire. "And the Dark Knight is the one that hunts them down and puts them there."
"Taken where?" Ciri asked.
"The dungeons beneath their castle."