InsaneJournal

Author: Bitterfig

Title: In the Garden of Love

Fandom: Promethea

Paring: Sophie Bangs/Barbara Shelley

Summary: Set during Promethea #22. In the garden of Chokmah Sophie and Barbara reflect on what they mean to each other.

Beta-reader: bookworm_2005

Word Count: 1110

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Mature themes (identity, ambiguous feelings towards parents, confusion over culture, a bit of sexuality), pseudo-Alan Moore trippiness.

Author’s Note: Written for the choc_fic  prompt Sept. 24 #1. America's Best Comics (Promethea), Barbara Shelley/Sophie Bangs: passing the baton - "How long shall they kill our prophets /While we stand aside and look /Some say it's just a part of it / We've got to fulfill the book" (Marley, "Redemption Song") All dialogue is directly from the comic book.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator .

In the Garden of Love

            It seemed right that they were together, Sophie as Promethea in her red robes, Barbara naked, basking in the silvery radiance of the garden.  They had always belonged together - they were connected on as many levels as there were branches on the Tree of Life. 

Sophie had come to Barbara uninvited, stirring up sad memories and old enemies.  Barbara hadn’t  just saved Sophie’s life, she had passed along the power of Promethea.   Passed it along like a royal crown or an inheritance.  And, as is so often the case with crowns and fortunes, the ascension of the new led to the death of the old.  Barbara had been mortally wounded the night Sophie become Prometheus. 

They were, then, Queen and Princess, Mother and Daughter. 

They were Mother and Daughter in other ways as well.   

Growing up as the only brown girl in an all-white family, Sophie had often hated her mother.  She had assumed that she had no father, because Trish had done something wrong.  Driven him away, failed to keep him, or simply used bad judgment in choosing him to be her lover and the father of her child.  When she was young, Sophie had both hated being Latino and wanted desperately to be more so.  She had felt like her dark hair, eyes, and complexion branded her - visual evidence of her mother’s wanton ways.  She was Trish’s mistakes made manifest, a living cautionary tale.  “This is Sophie Bangs, girls; she’s what happens if you run around with Mexicans.” 

And yet, part of her had longed for belonging, for connection with a culture she knew only superficially.  To Sophie, Latino culture was bright and dark.  Sugar skulls, white confirmation dresses, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Frida Khalo, versus  a thousand negative stereotypes of noise, dirt, chaos, crime and poverty.  In the midst of all these mixed feelings, Sophie had sometimes wished that she could find out Trish wasn’t her mother at all, that there had been some kind of mix-up and that her real mother was someone not so different than Barbara.  A warm, earthy woman with dark eyes and hair and skin like her own who could hold her own against the scary stuff and initiate Sophie into her heritage while protecting her.

In a way, Barbara had done just that, introducing Sophie to a culture, a world, and a universe far brighter and darker than she could have ever imagined.   Because of Barbara, Sophie had laid aside and fulfilled her childhood dreams of belonging.  Through Barbara she had found the way to become Sophie at her fullest. 

In a way, Barbara had birthed Sophie and yet they were companions, fellow-travelers.  They were like sisters in a fairy tale, leaving their parents’ home hand in hand, journeying together into the unknown.   They had learned and grown side by side as they had negotiated each stage of consciousness in the Tree of Life. 

In some ways, it was as if they were the same person.  After all, weren’t they both Promethea?  Both that frightened little girl who lost her father but received the power of imagination? 

They were both Promethea, but they manifested her in different ways: Sophie was taking Promethea to a new level, while Barbara had been Promethea as part of a partnership.  That was something Sophie didn’t really know about or understand, loving and being loved.  Her relationship with her mother was such a mess, and things with Stacia were almost as weird.  There was love, but there was always anger mixed in, jealousy, resentment, fear of losing.  But Barbara had really loved, and had really lost as well.   There was a depth to her experience that Sophie just couldn’t fathom yet.  It was this knowledge of love and loss that had led Barbara to make the journey through the mystical realms.  In this way, though her power was greater, Sophie remained Barbara’s follower, her acolyte. 

They were so many things to each other. 

They were mother and daughter, teacher and protégée (though which was which seemed to shift and change and never remain the same).  They were sisters, fellow travelers, and friends.  Unequal equals, they were each other and they were themselves. Barbara and Sophie’s quests had been wrapped around each other like the snakes around Promethea’s staff. 

This was the reason Sophie hadn’t been able to let Barbara go, to just disappear into the afterlife.  Why she had travel to the furthest realms of the ethereal.  That first time they’d met, when Sophie was a know-it-all college student and Barbara her less-than-willing subject, Sophie had thought that Barbara was coarse and ugly; but now she had come far enough to understand how beautiful she was, how she glowed with love, strength and courage.  Sophie felt so close to Barbara she could only explain it as a form of union, like lovers fused together at the moment of orgasm.   

“Barbara, you look so good,” Sophie said aloud.  “This will sound wrong, but I wish we’d had sex while you were alive.”

Barbara gave a silvery laugh.  “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

She felt all the things that Sophie felt.  She felt all the connections between them.  She too knew that they belonged together, but also that soon they would part.  They would follow very different paths to very different forms of fulfillment. 

Barbara had been Promethea because Steve saw her as an amazing woman, someone who was strong, beautiful and did right.  After Steve died, Promethea was Barbara as she saw herself: a chunky, chain-smoking woman who was getting on in years and felt somewhat ridiculous as a costumed Science Heroine.  It wasn’t like that for Sophie.  She could imagine Promethea into being for herself and in ways that no one else ever had.  So much imagination, so much power and promise in that little girl.  She would be the final Promethea, the one to really make a difference. 

Sophie had a big job before her and Barbara didn’t envy her.  Out in the real world, they could be downright vicious to the ones who tried to change it, look at what they did to Jesus Christ! And not just the killing, it was the way they twisted everything around, turning freedom to slavery, love to hate. 

Yet here in the garden, there was only love and love was the truth.  Love was real, and the real world was the lie.  Barbara had no doubts that Sophie would show everyone the truth.  It wasn’t something Barbara had ever had the ability to do, but she’d done her part.  She’d passed on the baton; it was for Sophie to carry it the final mile.