breathtaking (though dense) prose, telling of a journey in supergirl's life when she crossed paths with a vengeful alien girl, and of a supergirl somewhere between a state of hopelessness and endless optimism in her grief and perseverance. ruthye as a character is representative of supergirl's undying will to believe in hope for everyone and everything despite her past, despite all of what she witnessed during krypton's destruction as a teenager, and ruthye being the character to change her own (and supergirl's mind) about revenge and killing, after ruthye's strong determination to find some sort of revenge for her father's murder all throughout the plot, is poignant in how it represents supergirl's wavering in her beliefs and how she ultimately returns to her ideals above all else.
and despite all this, in the end, when they do silently murder krem after his hundred year imprisonment, after he's found himself to have changed in his confinement and after the three seem to have found some sort of acceptance with the matter... it also shows that justice is not something that is black and white for supergirl, despite how the story had framed it. she came to the compromise that his imprisonment can happen as well as his murder for his crimes, and so did ruthye. and the story ends there - make of that what you will, king seems to say with that final page, and as evely seems to say with the direct parallel in artwork from this final page and the first page in the initial issue.
ok that's a lot of dense analysis lol. overall: beautiful and thought provoking story, drenched in magical girl aesthetics and filled to the brim with themes typical of fairy tales side-by-side with superhero-typical themes. it's short and direct even with ruthye's dense inner monologue and reaches a conclusion that is satisfactory just as much as it is inquisitive of the book's themes.
