Author Note: Welcome to Song of the Lark, an É/E Zorro AU written for TcEm, a.k.a. can-it-be-you-fear-to-die on tumblr. Written for the fic war.

Anyway, I was lazy and didn't research the history as deeply as I should have (I'm sorry!) but this fic does have mentions of the casta system that Spain used in their colonies to legally and socially classify people by race. Please tell me if you are offended by its usage and I will do my best to fix the parts that are problematic.

Also, like in the film The Mask of Zorro—which is what I based this on—the story starts in 1821, then there's a timeskip to 1841. These were important years for Mexico and California, considering that the Mexican War for Independence ended in 1821, and the Mexican-American War would begin five years after 1841, though hostilities were already escalating. And finally, I changed genderbent Zorro and renamed her Alondra because Zorra has unfortunate connotations in the Spanish language.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoy the story. :)

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Song of the Lark

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There is a masked woman dressed all in black who stands for the people, who fights for the poor, who protects Las Californias with a blade of steel and can fight better than any man, even with one hand tied behind her back.

They call her Alondra, the Lark, both for her ability to vanish into the night without being seen and for the song her sword makes in battle, meeting each blow brought to bear against her with swiftness and grace.

No one knows who she is or where she came from—no one knows how she learned her art or why she fights. Nevertheless, she is the people's hero, and when she leaves her mark carved upon the wall, the lines of the letter "A" standing straight and bold, they press their hands to it in gratitude and pride.

To a mestiza orphan like Eponina, who was poor at birth and likely to be poorer at death, whose future grows darker and bleaker day after day, Alondra is everything she wants to be.

"Do you think she's coming?" Zelma asks.

"Of course she's coming," she tells her younger sister. "Alondra would never let innocent men die."

They're huddled together on the rooftop, watching the crowd seethe below them as three men await execution for the crime of stealing bread to feed their starving families. They're seconds away from death, and Nina and Zelma wait anxiously for a glimpse of their hero.

She has to come. She has to, she thinks.

It doesn't take long—soon Alondra appears and frees the men with a quick slash of her blade, moving like a dancer amongst the soldiers who try to capture her.

She's magnificent; Nina can feel her heart race whilst watching her.

"Oh, no! Look!" Zelma says, pointing to a group of solders right below them who are readying their muskets and waiting to fire.

Nina gasps, and she and Zelma exchange a look before quickly moving to the statue on the roof, knocking it over so it falls and scatters the soldiers below.

Alondra hears the commotion and looks up at them; she laughs and touches her sword to her forehead in a quick salute before using her whip to propel her onto the corrupt governor's balcony. A few minutes later, she reappears to toss a quick kiss to the adoring crowd beneath her, climbing the rooftops as skillfully as a cat, while the governor screams obscenities and demands her arrest, pressing his hand to his bleeding neck where Alondra has left her mark.

Nina and Zelma hug each other in awe, then shriek as a hand lands on each of their shoulders.

"Thank you for your help, girls," Alondra says, eyes shining behind her mask. "Here, little one, take this as a reminder of my gratitude."

She places a silver necklace around Zelma's neck as the two girls gape at her in awe. She gives them one last wink before racing away, her black stallion coming to meet her and bear her off to safety.

"Viva Alondra! Viva California!" the people shout.

Nina and Zelma shout with them, voices as strong as their hearts and just as hopeful.

Hope doesn't last.

Alondra disappears without a trace.

The dons gain more and more power and the people gain only misery.

Twenty years later, the little convent where she and Zelma live is ransacked and burned to the ground in the middle of a skirmish between American cavalry and Mexican soldiers.

Zelma is shot in the stomach.

Eponina screams and screams and screams for help, but her sister dies anyway, blood staining the parched, dusty ground a brilliant, ghastly red.

There aren't a lot of options for a nun whose entire convent has been killed, who literally has nothing more than the blood-stained habit on her back and the ornery old donkey who probably too stubborn to die.

(She also has the silver locket that Alondra gave to Zelma, kept hidden under her clothes right against her heart, but Eponina thinks she would rather slit her own throat than give away the last reminder she has of her sister.)

She walks the twenty miles to town, sells the donkey for a few silver coins, and walks into the nearest bar.

"Give me all the whiskey this will buy," she says, placing the coins onto the counter.

"Don't serve women," the barkeep answers. "And shouldn't a nun like you be holed up in some little convent somewhere?"

Eponina bears her teeth in a semblance of a smile then grabs his head to slam it hard against the wooden counter, knocking him out. She stalks behind the bar and grabs the whiskey herself, taking a swig and letting the alcohol burn her throat.

The sound of slow clapping reaches her ears, and she turns to see a lean, gray-haired whipcord of a woman dressed all in black applauding her.

"What the hell are you looking at?" Eponina demands.

"The feistiest nun this side of the Sierra Nevada," the woman answers.

Nina scoffs and turns away, but the woman grabs her shoulder.

"Where did you get that?" she asks sharply, tugging at the silver locket which had come out from underneath Eponina's dress during the fight.

"It was my sister's. She's dead," Eponina answers, swallowing down the bitterness that comes with those words.

The woman's face softens. "I'm sorry to hear that. How did she die?"

"Soldiers killed her. American, Mexican, it doesn't really matter." Eponina takes another swig. "She's just as dead. And so's the rest of my family. They killed our whole convent—even the orphans."

Orphans like she and Zelma had been, before Padre Myriel had found them and brought them to the convent. Just children, most of them mestizo or mulatto or zambo, mixed race boys and girls with nowhere else to go.

Now they were with El Señor in heaven. She hoped He was kinder to them in death than He'd been in life.

They were so small with their little bodies huddled on the ground…

The woman swears softly under her breath.

Eponina grins. "Yeah, I wouldn't argue with you there. I only wish I could do the same to those responsible for it—those damned dons with their rich estates and their safes full of gold and not a care in the world for the people under their protection."

The woman takes in the anger in her eyes and the stubborn set of her mouth, looks down at the locket hanging from her neck, and says, "I could help you with that."

The woman turns out to be Alondra, freshly escaped from a twenty-year-stint in jail.

Her name is Fantina Valdez and she wants to kill Feliz Tholomyès, the governor of California, recently returned from Spain with his delicate debutante of a daughter in tow.

Fantina wants Eponina to don the mask and help her.

Eponina smiles, the edges of it sharp and cutting, and says yes.

Fantina is not an easy taskmistress.

The training is hard, brutal, and merciless.

She stands in that stupid circle and concentrates. She does pushups over burning candles while Fantina uses her back as a footstool. She learns that using a whip is harder than it looks and becomes intimately acquainted with the sharp sting of it. She accumulates cuts and bruises and scrapes and scars. She runs, she jumps, she lunges, she does drill after drill after drill, until it seems the sword she wields will become permanently fused to her hand.

She learns how to read her opponent's intent in the lines of their body. She learns how to feint and dodge and use her enemy's strength against them. She learns when to yield and when to stand firm. She learns to move like a wraith, like a shadow, like a lark darting through the air.

Every day Eponina is pushed to her limits, muscles screaming in pain and mind blurring with exhaustion. Still, her heart burns bright with passion and her spirit burns brighter with determination, and every day she grows stronger, faster, more skilled than the day before.

(Fantina will never tell her this, but of all possible students she could have chosen, she doesn't think she could have ever found any better than Eponina.)

The day comes when Eponina bests Fantina in a duel.

"I think you're almost ready to be Alondra," her teacher says, smiling. "We just need to teach you how to be a lady."

"Wait, what?" Eponina says.

The lessons to turn her into a lady are less successful and far more painful than the sword-fighting lessons.

"Why do I even need to know which spoon to use?" she complains.

Fantina smacks her. "So you can blend in. So you can infiltrate the dons' world. So you can bring them down from within. Now tell me, how would you address Signor Hernandez if he approached you in the evening?"

Eponina groans.

She steals a horse, a black stallion with as much spirit as she has and leaves the "A" carved on the wall, the only witness the rebellious son of the don she liberates Toronado from.

He's blond and handsome and looking torn between upbraiding her and applauding her, so she gives him a wink and tosses him a kiss, savoring the blush that touches his pale cheeks.

She grins as she and her new horse race away, feeling the mask on her face shift to accommodate it.

She is Alondra now.

"This will never work," Eponina hisses, dressed to the nines in a blood-red dress and heaps of golden jewelry. "Nobody is going to believe that some mestiza orphaned nun from the barrio belongs here."

"Ah, but you are not Hermana Eponina any longer. You are Señorita Eponina Valencia y Alvarez, only daughter and heir to one of the richest men in California. You have the documents and the clothes to prove it. Now you just need the attitude," Fantina says. "Just turn your nose up at everybody in that way you have. You'll be just fine."

And she walks away, playing the part of dutiful older maid and leaving Eponina stranded in the foyer of the grandest house she's ever seen.

"Damn that woman," Eponina mutters.

It works.

Eponina becomes one of the popular women in the elite circles of the dons of California, second only to the blonde, blue-eyed peninsulares (meaning Spanish-born, full white, legally privileged, special) daughter of Tholomyès.

There's something familiar about the girl, called Cosetta, something about the eyes and the way she tilts her head and the light of her smile.

Eponina asks Fantina about it.

"Is she your daughter?"

The older woman's mouth thins. "Yes."

"You were married to Tholomyès?" she asks incredulously.

"No," Fantina spits out. "I was married to Juan Valdez. Cosetta is his daughter, not that bastard Felix's."

Eponina raises her brows. "The Merciful Mayor?" Everybody knew of Don Valdez, the kindest man in all of California, at least until he and whole household perished in a fire. "Alondra was married to the Merciful Mayor? What's the story behind that?"

Fantina grins, sharp and proud. "Juan was the best man I ever knew—the kindest, the sweetest, the most compassionate. The only gentleman I knew who was also a gentle man." Fantina sighs. "We had our problems, of course—he was not very happy that I was Alondra; he wanted to protect me, keep me safe. But he loved me enough to understand that helping the people was something I needed to do. And it was hard to argue with me when I could best him nine times out of ten."

Eponina raises a brow, impressed despite herself. "He beat you in your prime? I thought you said he was a gentleman."

Fantina smiles. "Remember this, girl: the gentlest men have the fiercest of hearts. Kindness is not weakness. Juan was capable of fighting when he had to—he simply didn't seek it out." The smile fades from her face and she turns her eyes towards the setting sun. "It would have been better if he'd married a woman who did the same. He would still be alive today."

"I thought he died in an accidental fire," Eponina says.

Fantina's eyes darken with barely suppressed rage. "No. Tholomyès killed him. He found out my true identity and barged into our home with twenty armed soldiers, the coward. He shot Juan in front of me. Pushed him to his knees and had him look into my eyes as he died."

Eponina hisses. "That bastard."

"Pretty much," Fantina says, half-smiling. "He never did get over me rejecting him and choosing Juan." She sighs again. "He threw me in jail, took my daughter and raised her as his own. Now she doesn't even know her own mother."

Eponina reaches across and takes her mentor's hand. "After we kill him, you can get to know her."

Fantina places a kiss to her forehead. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

She is dancing with one of the flat-footed American colonels when someone cuts in.

It's the young man whose father's horse she stole.

"Excuse me, but we are trying to dance," her partner complains.

"You were trying," he answers. "She was succeeding."

Eponina bites back a smile as the colonel huffily strides away.

"Really, did you have to be so cruel?" she asks the young man as they begin dancing.

"Perhaps not, but did he have to be so cruel to you, stepping on your toes like that? A graceful dancer like you deserves a better partner, someone who recognizes your true skill," he answers.

"And you are that someone, Don…?"

"Angelo," he says. "And I think I am.

It turns out the rebellious boy whose father's horse she stole is actually a rebel, and he wants her to donate her piles of gold to the cause (really it's Fantina's gold, but she's the one dressing in the damn corsets and dealing with the small talk so she figures she has some claim).

She demurs and evades and hedges, because damn it, if somebody's going to take down Don Fèlix, it's going to be her and Fantina.

But then she catches sight of Cosetta at one of the meetings of Los Amigos.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she hisses, pulling the younger girl aside. "Are you loca? Have you lost your mind? Your father is the governor of California, if he knew what you were doing—"

"It's because I'm his daughter that I'm needed. I can get the plans easier than anybody else. The people need help, and I won't stand aside while the man I love risks his life to give it to them," Cosetta stubbornly insists, the same fire in her eyes as her mother's, and ay Dios mìo, Eponina didn't sign up for this sort of thing.

"Go home—stay home—and don't go snooping in your father's study," Eponina commands.

"But the plans—"

"Have you heard of Alondra?"

Cosetta blinks. "Yes, but—"

"She can get the plans," Eponina says. "Leave a backdoor open for her and light a candle in your window when it is safe for her to retrieve them."

"You know who she is?" Cosetta whispers eagerly.

"No," Eponina lies, "but I can get the message to her."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Now, you must swear on your mother's grave that you will not tell anyone I told you this."

Cosetta nods. "I swear!"

"Good. Now stay away from Mario Ponderosa and the other revolucionarios—"

"Why should I?" Cosetta asks. "You risk your life associating with them, too."

"I've got less to lose," Eponina replies.

"Even if that were true, I would still help on behalf of the people."

"It is true," Eponina insists, ignoring the second half because Cosetta really was too kind for her own good and there was no arguing with people like that.

"No, it's not. You have exactly as much to lose as me. I see the way you and Don Angelo look at each other," Cosetta says compassionately.

Eponina nearly chokes on thin air. "What? We don't look at each other! At all! He just likes me for my money!"

Cosetta gives her an incredulous look. "Eponina, he's been courting you for weeks now. Haven't you noticed?"

Eponina splutters and strides away, running into Angelo at the end of the hall and snarling at him to get out of her way.

He does so with a mocking bow, and she assures herself that Cosetta is far too sheltered and romantically inclined to be believed.

Really.

Fèlix Tholomyès is planning on buying Las Californias from General Santa Anna using gold dug up by enslaved citizens—the indios, the mestizos, the poor, the half-caste, the imprisoned, the forgotten. Captain Harrison, the American who led some of the troops that killed her village, is helping him.

It makes Eponina sick to her stomach, so much so that she bares her teeth and clenches her fists in anger, uncaring of the fact that it doesn't fit her lady-like masquerade at all.

Across the room, Angelo does the same once Comferrano's finished with his announcement, and their eyes meet in a blaze of seething, restless fury.

Eponina looks away first, burned by the fire in his gaze. He cares as strongly for the people as her, this spoiled, rich young brat who's never suffered a day in his life. She wonders what drove him to such depths of sympathy and fervor.

She isn't sure she wants to know.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Fantina asks.

Eponina looks up from saddling Toronado. "Stealing the documents?" she answers sarcastically.

"No. Falling in love with a good man."

Eponina frowns. "Who said anything about falling in love with Angelo?"

"Who said anything about Angelo at all?" Fantina counters.

"Who else would you have meant?" Eponina says, exasperated.

"Exactly. Be careful. Good men aren't easy to love, especially good men who believe goodness is as much an action as a state of being. Be careful, Eponina," Fantina says.

Eponina climbs onto Toronado and digs her heels into his side, racing away into the distance and leaving Fantina's knowing gaze far behind them.

The document-theft would have gone off without a hitch if Angelo hadn't tried intercepting her in the stables.

"What the hell are you doing?" she snarls as they cross swords. "I'm on your side, damn it!"

"You're a vigilante who holds no loyalty to the law or the people. I think it's safe to say the information you're holding would be put to better use in the hands of those who can use it," he answers, pushing her forward. Damn the man, his footwork's practically flawless. Stupid rich boys with their stupid fencing lessons.

"You arrogant bastard," she shouts. "Playing at being revolucionarios is such a stupid thing to do—you're going to get yourself killed! Go home and let someone who's got nothing to lose take care of the fighting. I can bring down Tholomyès. I can kill him and Harrison. You keep your hands clean and build a better world afterwards, alright?"

"No, Alondra," he says. "I won't let you do our dirty work. Hand the documents over."

She swears and begins fighting him in earnest, cutting his shirt and his pride to shreds—he's good but she's better (part of her remembers Fantina's wistful smile—"I could beat him nine times out of ten"—but no; it's not like that with the two of them).

Soon, she's beaten him and he's left tied to a post.

"So long, pretty boy," she says, taking one last admiring glance at his bare chest (hey, she's an ex-nun now—a girl's got eyes and you can't blame her for using them) before whistling for Toronado and disappearing into the night.

As it turns out, the plan for taking down Tholomyès is slightly less successful than Eponina and Fantina had hoped.

They'd cornered him at El Dorado, the mine where he'd casually stolen dozens of lives, and honestly they would have taken him down if he hadn't grabbed Cosetta and put a gun to her head.

"Let her go," Fantina threatens, eyes going dark with rage. "Let her go or I will make your death as slow and painful as I can."

"Put your sword down, Fantina," Tholomyès commands, "or I'll blow your daughter's pretty head off."

Cosetta's eyes widen. "What?"

Fantina looks at her. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, mi carina. I just wanted to keep you safe."

"Fantina, don't!" Eponina shouts.

But she's too late. Fantina puts her sword down. Tholomyès shoots her. She lies bleeding on the ground with Cosetta sobbing over her.

"Oh, you bastard," Eponina says, voice shaking with fury as she lands on the little balcony where they're standing. "I'm going to kill you. I'm going to slice your hands off and feed them to the crows, then tear your eyes out and feed them to the dogs, and then I'll take your head and—"

"You and what army?" Tholomyès says mockingly. "You're surrounded. Just give up because no one's coming to save you—"

Shots ring out and the two of them break their staring contest long enough to look down into the valley, where it looks like Los Amigos have come to help.

Eponina sees the golden-haired figure in red who leads them and she throws back her head and laughs.

Stubborn boy. Stubborn, idiotic, arrogant, beautiful boy.

"It's down to you and me now, Tholomyès," she says, advancing. "I've killed Harrison. I've freed the workers. Fantina and I placed dynamite to blow this place to smithereens, which was always the plan, and now that Los Amigos are here to take Cosetta away, I think it's time you and I meet the devil in hell, shall we?"

The fight doesn't last long. Fantina was right. He was a coward and weakling.

As it turns out, Angelo disagrees with a crucial part of her plan.

"What do you mean you have to stay behind to blow it up?" he yells.

"I mean that's the only way for any of us to survive! Somebody has to wait for everyone else to escape, then light the fuse!" she shouts back.

"You crazy woman! No! I'm not leaving you behind! I refuse to let you die, Nina!"

She opens her mouth to retort when muffled chuckles reach their ears.

"Stupid children," Fantina gasps out. "Let me do it. I'm a goner anyway."

"No," Cosetta says. "Mama, no, I just found you again, please."

"Fantina," Eponina says, falling to her knees beside the weeping girl and the bleeding woman. "You can still survive this. You're going to be okay. You're going to see your daughter get married, and hold your grandchildren, and, and, and—"

"No. I'm dying. It's best I do this—one last hurrah before I see Juan again." She smiles beatifically. "I'm not sad, mis carinas. I got to see both my beautiful daughters one last time."

Eponina feels the tears fall down her face. Yes. Fantina had been a mother to her, too.

Fantina brings Cosetta's and Eponina's hands to her lips. "Go. Live. Name your babies after me. I'll say hello to all the ones who're waiting for us in heaven. I expect to see you there after you each live long, full lives." She shoots a stern look at both Mario and Angelo. "You be good to my girls now. They know how to kill you if you aren't."

Los Amigos laugh and each of them take of their caps to pay last respects to the first Alondra, the bravest hero Las Californias had ever known.

She dies in a blaze of glory, giving her life for the people one last time.

Javert, a fair, just man, becomes the new governor of Las Californias.

Angelo and Los Amigos are invited to his advisory council and they immediately begin making plans for social reform and carrying through with it.

Alondra still leaves her marks on the walls of the greedy, the unjust, the ones who use their power to oppress those who cannot fight back.

It's not perfect, but slowly, slowly, life gets better, and the people begin to have hope once more.

"Viva Alondra! Viva California!" they shout.

And somewhere in heaven, Fantina smiles as she holds hands with a quiet, gentle gentleman and talks softly with a dark-haired, laughing nun.

Cosetta and Mario marry.

Eponina catches the bouquet.

Los Amigos laugh and jokingly elbow Angelo, who ignores them in favor of sharing a heated glance with the woman who bears the mantle of Alondra.

"So, Señorita Eponina Valencia y Alvarez was Alondra after all?" Angelo asks her.

"No," Eponina answers. "She never existed. I'm just Eponina."

"Just Eponina?" he says, leaning closer to her. "Ex-nun? Master swordswoman? Excellent thief?"

Her gaze drops to his lips, which curve in a smile. "I wouldn't know about excellent. I only stole one horse and his owner kind of let me," she answers, breath quickening in anticipation.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. After all, you managed to steal my heart."

Her eyes fly up to meet his earnest, serious gaze, and she swallows. "Well, I think that's only fair."

"Fair how?"

"You've stolen mine," she answers.

"Good," he says, and finally, finally he kisses her.

She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him back, mouths moving together as naturally, as right as when their bodies moved when they danced or fought, and Eponina thinks that yes, she's found her partner.

Yes, she's found her home.

She never stops fighting and neither does he. They protect the people together.

Cosetta gives birth to a son named Juan Jorge after both his grandfathers, and Eponina gives birth to a daughter named Fantina Azelma.

Years later, after California's transferred hands from Mexico to the United States, after years of struggle and compromise and change, there will be another wedding.

It's not happily ever, not exactly, but it's happy enough, and when they die, it's after full, long lives spent doing good, and that's as much as anybody can ask for.

And even after they are gone, the legend of Alondra still remains as a beacon of hope that yes, one person can change the world.

Yes, we are all capable of being heroes.

Endnote: Thank you for reading. We hope you enjoyed. Please review. :)