Chapter Text
I. DIANA
Soft blades of grass brushed against her calves, but she didn’t feel it.
The salty breeze tickled her nose, but she didn't stop to enjoy it.
The sun glittered spectacularly off the sea, but she didn’t look out.
Instead, she closed her eyes and lifted her head toward the sky, her arms hanging loosely by her side. The view was never what drew Diana to the cliffs; it was the sound.
The gentle crashing of the waves against the beach far below, the dull roar of the wind whipping through her hair, the clamor of weapons and shouts from the city, dampened by distance into a soft hum. Up here, it all blended together into one cohesive frequency, a balance she’d never quite found anywhere else.
The cliffs were where she came to think, to breathe, to speak. Her upturned face was unchanged, her lips not budging, but even still, Diana spoke. She spoke to the gods, confessing her fears, recounting her pride, whispering her desires. Her mother said that the gods were dead, but Diana knew that couldn’t be true, because here on the cliffs, in that peaceful blanket of sound, the gods whispered back.
Diana snapped her eyes open, her relaxed stance jolting to a defensive guard in milliseconds. Something was off. A quick scan of the cliff and sea revealed nothing, and she had just enough time to ponder if she’d overreacted before she saw it fall from the sky.
She crossed to the edge of the cliff in a leap, her eyes tracking the descent of the object. Distance rendered any details unknowable, but she estimated it was smaller than a horse but larger than a shield, making it just about the size of— Diana widened her eyes. A person.
In a heartbeat, she was in the air; the next, she was slicing through the water, swimming as fast as her body would allow. A crash filtered through the air as a wave smashed against her face, sending her underwater; the target must’ve made contact with the sea. She quickened her strokes, her veins filling with dread. Not even an Amazon could survive a fall from such a height.
She spotted the body floating face-down a few meters away. Diana pushed forward with mounting anxiety, close enough now to see that it was a woman outfitted in shreds of red and blue clothing. She slung an arm around the woman’s shoulders and rolled into a backstroke, not daring to waste a second to check for a pulse. One excruciatingly long minute later, they made it to the shore.
Diana tossed the woman on the sand, resting for a moment at the water’s edge and recapturing her runaway breath. Cautiously, she picked up the woman’s wrist and felt for a pulse. Relief flooded her body as she felt it beating strong and steady, and she sat back, relaxing slightly.
Almost immediately, she jumped straight back up and drew her sword. In her mind, Antiope was already admonishing her. How many times had her aunt drilled it into her head to never let her guard down? This woman had somehow penetrated Themyscira’s divine protections and survived a 200 meter fall almost completely unscathed; there was no telling what other powers she possessed or what motivations she held. Diana had been foolish to even save her.
The woman’s eyes flashed open, widening with shock as they took in the sword at her throat.
“Who are you?” Diana barked. “What business have you on Themyscira?”
The woman tried and failed to speak, her voice interrupted by violent coughs as her lungs expelled water on to the sand. Despite herself, Diana felt a twinge of sympathy and a pang of shame. She should be helping this newcomer, not pointing a sword at her— but she knew what her mother would say, what Antiope would say, so the sword stayed.
“Themy— what?” The woman finally managed, looking up at Diana with genuine confusion in her cornflower eyes. “Where am I? Where’s J’onn? Did they follow?”
“Did who follow?” Diana asked, thrown.
The woman’s eyes caught on something in the distance and a grimace slid over her features. “Them,” she said, pointing over Diana’s shoulder.