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The air is unearthly quiet... still. Even now, weeks after the massacre, it is silent and empty. The bodies of Veld's people were removed in the wake of the attack, tended to and buried by Diana herself when she returned to Veld after the memorial. She had found them untouched, still as they had fallen when the noxious orange cloud billowed through the town. She had approached the nearest surviving town, enraged at the lack of respect shown to those who had sheltered them, then been killed. She was told that the surrounding villages considered Veld to be cursed, and no one would set foot near it. She did not blame them, not when she knew what had happened there. Even now, the memory of the events that transpired caused her physical pain, not from Dr Maru's toxic weapon, its fumes having long dissipated, but from the realization of all the lives cut short in the war, not just in Veld, but across all the countries torn and ravaged by this War to End All Wars.
Why she is back here, she doesn't know. She felt a pull and followed it... and here she stands. She picks her way through broken streets... the uneven ground crunching beneath her boots. The air is still, not stirring even a wisp of her hair as she stands beneath the ruined clocktower, lost in thought and memories. In her mind, she sees her friends hunkering down beneath a heavy metal door as Steve yells for her... "SHIELD!"... and she feels the grief and loss hit her all over again, a physical blow that knocks her back to the wall in a way few things could. Her legs betray her and she slides downward, sinking to the dusty floor and clutching her knees to her chest to protect against the feeling, somehow. As if she could.
Lost in her thoughts, her attention drifts, winding its way through thought and memory. Time passes and she is disturbed from her introspection by an unfamiliar sound. Turning her head to listen, she hears it again... a plaintive cry, weak and close to giving up entirely. Pushing back against the wall, Diana rises to her feet, dusting herself off as she seeks out the origin of the sound. She listens carefully, trying to pin down the direction of this single dissident note, breaking the oppressive silence that suffuses the town. Cocking her head, she strains to hear it again... but the sound is echoing off the crumbling walls and making it difficult to hear. With a sick feeling in her stomach, Diana speeds up, her heart in her throat as she dashes from doorway to doorway, glancing inside each dilapidated building as she listens for a repeat of the tiny cry.
Rounding a corner between two buildings Diana sees a fox skitter away from a doorway half-sealed with fallen rubble and she smells the familiar copper scent of blood. With a sinking feeling she quickly clears the rubble, gasping out barely-formed prayers to the gods for... something... she doesn't know what.
Having cleared a pathway, Diana pauses before entering, frozen with apprehension. The coppery air in her nostrils offers no comfort and she is hesitant to add another horror to a mind already overflowing with them. A repeat of the small noise from within the doorway galvanises her into action and she steps forward, ducking her head past the low doorframe, heart braced for what she will find.
The interior is dark and it takes Diana’s eyes a second or two to adjust. She scans the room, searching for some sign of human habitation… but all she sees is a pile of threadbare and dirty blankets piled on an old and poorly stuffed mattress, tucked away in a corner. Her heart sinks as she makes out the shape of a small person among the rags, curled on their side and facing the wall with their back to the room. Diana cautiously makes her way over to the mattress, her steps making enough noise that her approach should prompt a response but there is none.
Diana drops to one knee by the mattress, laying a hand softly on the arm of the young … Boy? Girl? She can’t tell. There is no response to her touch and the smell of blood is overpowering. She doesn’t need to look further, the body beneath her hand is cold. She is too late. Diana turns to leave but as she glances away her attention is caught by movement from beneath the blankets. She reaches out a trembling hand to draw back a corner of the thin fabric and gasps at what she finds beneath it.
Before she has any conscious awareness of what she is doing Diana scoops up the tiny, squirming body, wrapping it in the cleanest thing to hand, her fur mantle. She tries to stand but meets resistance, the bundle in her arms is still tethered, a greyish cord disappearing beneath the blankets. Quickly she severs it with her sword and stands fully, sweeping the infant child away from the darkness and through the doorway, into the light.
“A baby…” she breathes in wonder, gazing into the tiny and scrunched up face of the tiny creature she now holds. It is both terribly ugly and astonishingly beautiful, and she finds herself marvelling at the contradiction as she mentally catalogues its features, checking for signs of health or illness. To Diana’s relief, the baby’s skin is pink and healthy and she can feel its warmth through the furs she has wrapped it in. The newborn’s eyes are closed and it seems to be sleeping peacefully, surprisingly immune to all the jostling and bouncing involved in its rescue. Diana shifts to hold it in the crook of one arm and touches a careful fingertip to its wrinkled forehead, amazed at how velvety soft it feels. She notes the tiny white spots on the baby’s snub nose, and the creases formed in little pursed lips. She strokes a round cheek, reassuring both herself and the child that despite the tragedies surrounding them both, it is safe now.
Lost in her relief and reverie she almost fails to notice that her gentle ministrations have woken the child, and it is now gazing at her with slate-blue eyes, which quickly squinch shut against the harsh sunlight surrounding them. Diana can’t help but smile at the face it pulls but her expression turns quickly from amusement to panic as the little lips part, the face reddens and with tiny fists clenched tight, the innocent little bundle morphs into an unholy screaming demon of hunger and rage. Moving quickly back to her horse, Diana mounts up and sets off at a canter to the nearest inhabited village, grateful despite the noise, that the future of humanity clearly has so very much fight left in it.