![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maculategiraffeI'm still working on "Lee," but for some reason it's really hard going lately. So I thought it might help to give myself leave to work on something different, and when I got an airplane prompt for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
picfor1000 I had to write a Wonder Woman fic, and, well, it sort of seemed like it wanted to be a prologue to this other story.
It's pretty different from my Slave Breakers stuff, and it's fairly rough as yet, but-- as long as my Slave Breakers muse is on her coffee break-- here's chapter one.
Title: A Matter For the Goddess, OR, Babysitter of Themyscira!
Fandom: JLA/Teen Titans
Summary: Alternate universe. After the events of Infinite Crisis, Wonder Woman took Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) back to Themyscira to recover from the Crisis and from the death of Superboy (Conner Kent). Four years later, Cassie has built a life for herself on Themyscira. When Diana, still acting as Wonder Woman, brings back a homeless waif to Cassie's adopted home, Cassie is furious, until drastic action by Queen Hippolyta forces her into a closer understanding of her visitor's demons.
Rating: R for language and concepts.
Prologue: Here
Chapter One:
I'm always a little distracted at the first sight of Diana-- trust me, so would you be, even if she wasn't your mentor and your ex-lover and your best friend and the rest of the dysfunctional bag of tricks. I mean to say she's gorgeous, and about two feet taller than me, and my running jump into her arms, that day in June (month of Juno, goddess of heterosexual marriage and the best argument against it I know of) was about sixty percent happiness to see her, thirty percent determination not to have my head mashed against her perfect breasts, and ten percent reversion to the way I used to jump on my mom when she came to pick me up from daycare.
She hugged me hard, my feet dangling miles off the ground, and with my chin on her shoulder I spotted the person standing behind her. Though I didn't spot everything, not right off.
"Hello,” I said in Greek over Diana's shoulder, wiggling like a little kid to be put down, since this wasn't the most dignified position I could think of for meeting new people. When Diana set me down, I looked the stranger up and down curiously. Not many strangers on the island, but I'm not exactly a social butterfly and it wasn't that weird that, even after four years here, I didn't know the girl.
She was nice-looking, with strong features and close-cropped black hair, and dressed funny. Well, not funny-- jeans and a baggy T-shirt. I was wearing the clay-stained homespun chiton and lace-up sandals I usually wear, and Diana was wearing her spandex Wonder Woman uniform and bulletproof slave bracelets, so, you know, to each her own. The stranger was skinny, though, ludicrously skinny, and almost as tall as Diana. All in all she gave me a weird feeling. But the really weird thing, the thing that made my stomach drop as we locked gazes, was the expression on her face. She looked like I felt once when my powers went on the fritz for two seconds in midair, like looking down and knowing there's nothing between you and shattering but miles of empty air.
“Who are you?,” I asked her bluntly, still in Greek, and then looked at Diana, switching to English. We're the only two on the island who can speak it fluently; it can come in pretty handy sometimes. “Who is she? Why does she look like that?”
Diana got that look she gets sometimes, and I knew she'd done something as stupid as only a terminally noble superheroine with a serious nose for trouble can manage, but I didn't guess. Not even then. Not until she said it.
“Not she,” she said, her big blue eyes-- so innocent, in spite of everything, so fucking innocent-- flicking sideways to the stranger. “He.”
It took me a minute to get it. I mean, I'm not stupid, but this really did beggar belief, even for someone who owned a magic lasso.
“You brought a man here,” I said in Greek, staring at the boy. “You brought a man to Themyscira. It's finally happened, Diana. You have finally lost your mind.”
“Cassie,” said Diana in a low voice, which didn't seem necessary. The kid clearly wasn't from around here and he didn't exactly look like a Classics professor, so Greek would do just fine as a means of rudely excluding him from the conversation. “Please listen. This boy’s name is Ian. I knew his mother before he was born, and now I find that she is dead these many years, and her son, this child, is in trouble. Serious trouble. I could not leave him friendless in the world of men.”
“Everyone in the world of men is in serious trouble, Diana,” I gritted back. “That is why they call it the world of men. And this place, our home, is called Paradise Island. Do you know why?”
“Cassie–“
“Right. Because there are no men here. I will not hear you, Diana. Get him out of here, right now. He cannot be on Themyscira, and he certainly cannot be in my house.”
“Look,” the boy said to Diana, in English, his voice husky and unhappy, “I don't want to cause trouble.”
“It's no trouble,” Diana said kindly.
“It most certainly is,” I said in Greek. “Trouble is exactly what it is. Also it is lunacy.”
“Really, Diana,” he said softly. “If you take me back, I'll be okay.”
“You won’t be okay,” said Diana flatly. “You have nowhere to go. Rob will find you.”
He swallowed and shrugged. “He won’t kill me. I’ve talked my way out of worse than this.”
“Who is Rob?” I asked.
“Rob is an evil man,” said Diana, her black brows drawing together in a scowl that made me glad I wasn't Rob. “He was the boy’s– master.”
“The boy is a slave? Where did you pick him up, Thailand?”
“America,” said Diana. “It was not legal slavery. Rob gave Ian opiates and food and shelter, and sold him to others. For sex. Now Ian has run from him, and he has no home, and he is in grave danger. We must offer him sanctuary, Cassie.”
"Opiates?" I eyeballed Ian’s skinny arms, which, sure enough, were pocked with track marks, and thought carefully about how to express my next sentence in Greek.
“You are out of your having-penetrative-sex-with-your-mother mind,” I said, very grammatically.
“Mother will understand,” said Diana determinedly. “I am sure of it.”
****
“Diana,” said Queen Hippolyta wearily from her throne at the center of the semicircle of glaring Amazon councillors, “you know perfectly well that is not acceptable.”
Ian stood hunched in on himself in the protective, heroic curve of Di's arm, looking down miserably. I almost felt sorry for him– after all he’d been through, and now dragged into the middle of all these tall scary women speaking an incomprehensible language and obviously arguing over him. Scratch almost– I did feel sorry for him. It wasn’t his fault Diana was a lunatic.
“This is the sanctuary granted to the Amazons by the goddess Aphrodite,” said Hippolyta, as if explaining to a child.
“It is also my home, Mother, and Ian is a human being in need of help.” Di's blue eyes were flashing. “You let Cassie stay when I brought her here, weary and sick at heart!”
“Unwillingly,” said Hippolyta, “for the very reason that I knew you would take it as a precedent, my headstrong daughter. But Cassandra Sandsmark had been of great assistance to the Amazons, and to you in particular, and she is favored of our goddess, and most importantly, she is female. This is a man. And he may not stay here. It is too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Diana demanded scornfully. “Look at him, Mother! Any girl on this island could break him in half. A child could do it. Are you so weak that you fear a boy who has suffered the tortures of a damned soul in Tartarus and lives now as a wraith, blinking in the light of the sun?”
Did I mention Diana can be a bit of a drama queen?
“A man need not be physically strong to cause chaos among women,” said Hippolyta, “and though I am sorry for his sufferings, they do not make your case stronger. Men who have suffered are very likely to enjoy the suffering of others. I am thinking of his own welfare as well, daughter. How could he live here? He could never understand our ways. He does not even speak our language.”
“He is very intelligent. I have talked to him a great deal. And he is gentle and good. He would never do anything to cause chaos or suffering among us.”
“This is final,” said the queen, with pity in her voice, but no doubt. “He may not stay.”
“I will not take him back,” said Diana, the set of her jaw identical to that of her mother's. “It would be murder.”
“It is a matter for the goddess, then,” said Hippolyta, after staring into her daughter's frighteningly luminous eyes for a few moments. “When is her next visit?”
“Seven days from now, my queen,” said her little assistant, Phoebe, promptly.
“Then Diana must stay at home until then, to guard her foundling and see that he does not come to harm, nor harm anyone else, until the goddess has delivered her edict.”
“Mother, you know I cannot do that,” said Diana, surprised. “I have responsibilities in the world outside.”
Hippolyta looked really angry. “Daughter, have you no sense of what you are asking of us? You would bring a man to our island and then simply leave him here for us to care for? If you intend to force him upon us, someone must guard him at every moment, and what woman on our island besides you can claim to speak the language or understand the world of men well enough to undertake it?”
Diana looked at me. So did Hippolyta.
“Oh, no,” I said. “No, my queen. I refuse.” I glared at Diana, dropping into English. “And you can turn that Mother of All Sorrows gaze off right now. I won't, and you can't make me.”
Ian glanced at me quickly, then looked back down at his feet.
“Cassandra,” said Hippolyta slowly, “I think you must not refuse.”
“My queen, please,” I began desperately.
“No one else is qualified,” my queen said reasonably. “It will only be for seven days, Cassandra. If my daughter refuses to return this-- man-- to his proper home--“
“He has no home!” said Diana angrily. “And I will not put him back on the street like a mongrel stray!”
“--and I for one am not prepared to continue arguing with her for a week-- then I must command you, Cassandra, to take him on as your charge.”
Diana would have needed better reflexes than Aphrodite's blessing and Amazon training can bestow to dodge the death glare I shot at her then. Unfortunately, looks can’t actually kill, and since I traded in my lasso, there wasn’t much more I could manage. Diana smiled weakly at me.
“All right,” I said, trying hard not to actually snarl it. “As my queen commands. Before you fly away, Diana, can you tell me how often he needs to be injected with opiates, or shall I wait until his eyes roll back?”
“Don’t be a bitch,” said Diana. “His body is clean of opiates, and was so before I found him. He is a brave young man, and was determined to free himself from bondage.” She turned to Ian, switching into cheery, reassuring English. “You're going to stay with my friend for a few days, Ian. Just until we can come up with something more permanent.”
“More permanent?” I echoed incredulously. “You mean until the goddess arrives and makes you take his butt back home? Hi, Ian. Cassie Sandsmark.” I held out my hand. “Nice to meet you. I'll be your babysitter for the next week.”
He hesitated, then took my hand nervously. “Ian Candy. Thanks for–”
I started to drop his hand, but he wasn't letting go. I glanced at him, surprised, and saw he looked puzzled and a little scared. He wasn't the one not letting go, and neither was I. I looked at the queen. I was right. She had drawn herself up– or actually grown taller, I wasn’t sure– and put on the full High Priestess of Aphrodite aspect: faint crackling glow, awe-inspiring beauty, the works.
“Cassandra Sandsmark, citizen of Themyscira,” she said to me, “do you accept authority over the movements of this man for the period that he shall remain on this island?”
“Like I have a choice,” I muttered, incurring the Priestess Eyebrows of Doom. “I mean, I accept it.”
“And do you, male foreigner, accept this woman as our representative and consent to submit to her authority for the period that you shall remain on this island?”
“She's asking if you agree to behave yourself while you're living with me,” I said under my breath to the kid. “Say 'sugkatithemai.'”
“I consent,” he parroted automatically.
Blue lightning crackled around our linked hands, and he jerked his away, obviously freaked. I wasn’t feeling precisely serene about it myself as I whirled on Hippolyta, who was looking slightly shorter and extremely smug. There was a murmuring from the circle of Amazons, sounding like the appalled chorus to a Euripedes play.
“I have invoked the power of the goddess as a safeguard,” Hippolyta said, not at all helpfully. “Let us test the mettle of my binding. Give the foreigner an order, Cassandra.”
“An order?” I repeated, goggling at her.
“An order,” she said coolly. “An instruction.”
“Excuse me,” said Ian politely, “but what the fuck just happened?”
“I'm not sure,” I said. “What kind of an order, my queen?”
“Something that he would not readily obey, given his choice,” she said, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. I gaped at her.
“Mother–“ said Diana, and when I looked at her I saw that she was pale. “What have you done?”
“I have safeguarded us,” the queen said, all imperial dignity. “Cassandra, order the man to kneel and kiss the ground.”
I squinted at her, then turned to Ian. “Sorry. The queen’s acting weird. Just– kneel and kiss the ground.”
I expected him to ask why, or give me a weird look at least, but instead he dropped instantly to his knees and laid his lips to the ground, then jerked his head up, staring at me with astonishment and the beginnings of panic.
“Wait,” I said, looking at Hippolyta. She’s never bothered to learn English– the language of the patriarchy, she calls it, like classical Greek isn’t– but I’ve said what I said next around her often enough and in an expressive enough tone that she gets the gist. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I can’t stand up,” said Ian. “Diana? I can’t–“
The queen glared at me, ignoring Ian, and Diana, whose hands were pressed to her mouth as if she were about to throw up. “You have accepted the responsibility of his care, and I have ensured that he will keep to the agreement. I fail to see the problem.”
“Look, it's okay,” I said to Ian, still staring at Hippolyta. “Um. Stand up.”
He scrambled to his feet. “Was that– what happened there, exactly?”
“Spin around once,” I said, and he did it, looking at me now like I was the most horrifying sight he’d ever seen. It made me feel sick.
“Shit,” I muttered. “Sorry. I’m really sorry. She, um, did a– a spell– without telling me. But it's cool. I won't make you– I mean, I won’t do that again.”
“You won’t make me what?” he demanded wildly. “What else could you make me do?”
“Forget about it,” I said, trying to calm him down, and his face went blank for a moment, then blinked at me, disoriented.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I think I just-- what did you say?”
“I was saying forget about it, I won't– oh, fucking hell!” I turned furiously on Hippolyta. “I telled he not to concern him of the matter,“ I shouted– my Greek grammar tends to suffer when I’m upset– “and he–”
“Forgot?” said Hippolyta, with what I considered to be completely inappropriate satisfaction. “We are well warded. The man may stay.”
TBC
picfor1000 I had to write a Wonder Woman fic, and, well, it sort of seemed like it wanted to be a prologue to this other story.It's pretty different from my Slave Breakers stuff, and it's fairly rough as yet, but-- as long as my Slave Breakers muse is on her coffee break-- here's chapter one.
Title: A Matter For the Goddess, OR, Babysitter of Themyscira!
Fandom: JLA/Teen Titans
Summary: Alternate universe. After the events of Infinite Crisis, Wonder Woman took Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) back to Themyscira to recover from the Crisis and from the death of Superboy (Conner Kent). Four years later, Cassie has built a life for herself on Themyscira. When Diana, still acting as Wonder Woman, brings back a homeless waif to Cassie's adopted home, Cassie is furious, until drastic action by Queen Hippolyta forces her into a closer understanding of her visitor's demons.
Rating: R for language and concepts.
Prologue: Here
Chapter One:
I'm always a little distracted at the first sight of Diana-- trust me, so would you be, even if she wasn't your mentor and your ex-lover and your best friend and the rest of the dysfunctional bag of tricks. I mean to say she's gorgeous, and about two feet taller than me, and my running jump into her arms, that day in June (month of Juno, goddess of heterosexual marriage and the best argument against it I know of) was about sixty percent happiness to see her, thirty percent determination not to have my head mashed against her perfect breasts, and ten percent reversion to the way I used to jump on my mom when she came to pick me up from daycare.
She hugged me hard, my feet dangling miles off the ground, and with my chin on her shoulder I spotted the person standing behind her. Though I didn't spot everything, not right off.
"Hello,” I said in Greek over Diana's shoulder, wiggling like a little kid to be put down, since this wasn't the most dignified position I could think of for meeting new people. When Diana set me down, I looked the stranger up and down curiously. Not many strangers on the island, but I'm not exactly a social butterfly and it wasn't that weird that, even after four years here, I didn't know the girl.
She was nice-looking, with strong features and close-cropped black hair, and dressed funny. Well, not funny-- jeans and a baggy T-shirt. I was wearing the clay-stained homespun chiton and lace-up sandals I usually wear, and Diana was wearing her spandex Wonder Woman uniform and bulletproof slave bracelets, so, you know, to each her own. The stranger was skinny, though, ludicrously skinny, and almost as tall as Diana. All in all she gave me a weird feeling. But the really weird thing, the thing that made my stomach drop as we locked gazes, was the expression on her face. She looked like I felt once when my powers went on the fritz for two seconds in midair, like looking down and knowing there's nothing between you and shattering but miles of empty air.
“Who are you?,” I asked her bluntly, still in Greek, and then looked at Diana, switching to English. We're the only two on the island who can speak it fluently; it can come in pretty handy sometimes. “Who is she? Why does she look like that?”
Diana got that look she gets sometimes, and I knew she'd done something as stupid as only a terminally noble superheroine with a serious nose for trouble can manage, but I didn't guess. Not even then. Not until she said it.
“Not she,” she said, her big blue eyes-- so innocent, in spite of everything, so fucking innocent-- flicking sideways to the stranger. “He.”
It took me a minute to get it. I mean, I'm not stupid, but this really did beggar belief, even for someone who owned a magic lasso.
“You brought a man here,” I said in Greek, staring at the boy. “You brought a man to Themyscira. It's finally happened, Diana. You have finally lost your mind.”
“Cassie,” said Diana in a low voice, which didn't seem necessary. The kid clearly wasn't from around here and he didn't exactly look like a Classics professor, so Greek would do just fine as a means of rudely excluding him from the conversation. “Please listen. This boy’s name is Ian. I knew his mother before he was born, and now I find that she is dead these many years, and her son, this child, is in trouble. Serious trouble. I could not leave him friendless in the world of men.”
“Everyone in the world of men is in serious trouble, Diana,” I gritted back. “That is why they call it the world of men. And this place, our home, is called Paradise Island. Do you know why?”
“Cassie–“
“Right. Because there are no men here. I will not hear you, Diana. Get him out of here, right now. He cannot be on Themyscira, and he certainly cannot be in my house.”
“Look,” the boy said to Diana, in English, his voice husky and unhappy, “I don't want to cause trouble.”
“It's no trouble,” Diana said kindly.
“It most certainly is,” I said in Greek. “Trouble is exactly what it is. Also it is lunacy.”
“Really, Diana,” he said softly. “If you take me back, I'll be okay.”
“You won’t be okay,” said Diana flatly. “You have nowhere to go. Rob will find you.”
He swallowed and shrugged. “He won’t kill me. I’ve talked my way out of worse than this.”
“Who is Rob?” I asked.
“Rob is an evil man,” said Diana, her black brows drawing together in a scowl that made me glad I wasn't Rob. “He was the boy’s– master.”
“The boy is a slave? Where did you pick him up, Thailand?”
“America,” said Diana. “It was not legal slavery. Rob gave Ian opiates and food and shelter, and sold him to others. For sex. Now Ian has run from him, and he has no home, and he is in grave danger. We must offer him sanctuary, Cassie.”
"Opiates?" I eyeballed Ian’s skinny arms, which, sure enough, were pocked with track marks, and thought carefully about how to express my next sentence in Greek.
“You are out of your having-penetrative-sex-with-your-mother mind,” I said, very grammatically.
“Mother will understand,” said Diana determinedly. “I am sure of it.”
****
“Diana,” said Queen Hippolyta wearily from her throne at the center of the semicircle of glaring Amazon councillors, “you know perfectly well that is not acceptable.”
Ian stood hunched in on himself in the protective, heroic curve of Di's arm, looking down miserably. I almost felt sorry for him– after all he’d been through, and now dragged into the middle of all these tall scary women speaking an incomprehensible language and obviously arguing over him. Scratch almost– I did feel sorry for him. It wasn’t his fault Diana was a lunatic.
“This is the sanctuary granted to the Amazons by the goddess Aphrodite,” said Hippolyta, as if explaining to a child.
“It is also my home, Mother, and Ian is a human being in need of help.” Di's blue eyes were flashing. “You let Cassie stay when I brought her here, weary and sick at heart!”
“Unwillingly,” said Hippolyta, “for the very reason that I knew you would take it as a precedent, my headstrong daughter. But Cassandra Sandsmark had been of great assistance to the Amazons, and to you in particular, and she is favored of our goddess, and most importantly, she is female. This is a man. And he may not stay here. It is too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Diana demanded scornfully. “Look at him, Mother! Any girl on this island could break him in half. A child could do it. Are you so weak that you fear a boy who has suffered the tortures of a damned soul in Tartarus and lives now as a wraith, blinking in the light of the sun?”
Did I mention Diana can be a bit of a drama queen?
“A man need not be physically strong to cause chaos among women,” said Hippolyta, “and though I am sorry for his sufferings, they do not make your case stronger. Men who have suffered are very likely to enjoy the suffering of others. I am thinking of his own welfare as well, daughter. How could he live here? He could never understand our ways. He does not even speak our language.”
“He is very intelligent. I have talked to him a great deal. And he is gentle and good. He would never do anything to cause chaos or suffering among us.”
“This is final,” said the queen, with pity in her voice, but no doubt. “He may not stay.”
“I will not take him back,” said Diana, the set of her jaw identical to that of her mother's. “It would be murder.”
“It is a matter for the goddess, then,” said Hippolyta, after staring into her daughter's frighteningly luminous eyes for a few moments. “When is her next visit?”
“Seven days from now, my queen,” said her little assistant, Phoebe, promptly.
“Then Diana must stay at home until then, to guard her foundling and see that he does not come to harm, nor harm anyone else, until the goddess has delivered her edict.”
“Mother, you know I cannot do that,” said Diana, surprised. “I have responsibilities in the world outside.”
Hippolyta looked really angry. “Daughter, have you no sense of what you are asking of us? You would bring a man to our island and then simply leave him here for us to care for? If you intend to force him upon us, someone must guard him at every moment, and what woman on our island besides you can claim to speak the language or understand the world of men well enough to undertake it?”
Diana looked at me. So did Hippolyta.
“Oh, no,” I said. “No, my queen. I refuse.” I glared at Diana, dropping into English. “And you can turn that Mother of All Sorrows gaze off right now. I won't, and you can't make me.”
Ian glanced at me quickly, then looked back down at his feet.
“Cassandra,” said Hippolyta slowly, “I think you must not refuse.”
“My queen, please,” I began desperately.
“No one else is qualified,” my queen said reasonably. “It will only be for seven days, Cassandra. If my daughter refuses to return this-- man-- to his proper home--“
“He has no home!” said Diana angrily. “And I will not put him back on the street like a mongrel stray!”
“--and I for one am not prepared to continue arguing with her for a week-- then I must command you, Cassandra, to take him on as your charge.”
Diana would have needed better reflexes than Aphrodite's blessing and Amazon training can bestow to dodge the death glare I shot at her then. Unfortunately, looks can’t actually kill, and since I traded in my lasso, there wasn’t much more I could manage. Diana smiled weakly at me.
“All right,” I said, trying hard not to actually snarl it. “As my queen commands. Before you fly away, Diana, can you tell me how often he needs to be injected with opiates, or shall I wait until his eyes roll back?”
“Don’t be a bitch,” said Diana. “His body is clean of opiates, and was so before I found him. He is a brave young man, and was determined to free himself from bondage.” She turned to Ian, switching into cheery, reassuring English. “You're going to stay with my friend for a few days, Ian. Just until we can come up with something more permanent.”
“More permanent?” I echoed incredulously. “You mean until the goddess arrives and makes you take his butt back home? Hi, Ian. Cassie Sandsmark.” I held out my hand. “Nice to meet you. I'll be your babysitter for the next week.”
He hesitated, then took my hand nervously. “Ian Candy. Thanks for–”
I started to drop his hand, but he wasn't letting go. I glanced at him, surprised, and saw he looked puzzled and a little scared. He wasn't the one not letting go, and neither was I. I looked at the queen. I was right. She had drawn herself up– or actually grown taller, I wasn’t sure– and put on the full High Priestess of Aphrodite aspect: faint crackling glow, awe-inspiring beauty, the works.
“Cassandra Sandsmark, citizen of Themyscira,” she said to me, “do you accept authority over the movements of this man for the period that he shall remain on this island?”
“Like I have a choice,” I muttered, incurring the Priestess Eyebrows of Doom. “I mean, I accept it.”
“And do you, male foreigner, accept this woman as our representative and consent to submit to her authority for the period that you shall remain on this island?”
“She's asking if you agree to behave yourself while you're living with me,” I said under my breath to the kid. “Say 'sugkatithemai.'”
“I consent,” he parroted automatically.
Blue lightning crackled around our linked hands, and he jerked his away, obviously freaked. I wasn’t feeling precisely serene about it myself as I whirled on Hippolyta, who was looking slightly shorter and extremely smug. There was a murmuring from the circle of Amazons, sounding like the appalled chorus to a Euripedes play.
“I have invoked the power of the goddess as a safeguard,” Hippolyta said, not at all helpfully. “Let us test the mettle of my binding. Give the foreigner an order, Cassandra.”
“An order?” I repeated, goggling at her.
“An order,” she said coolly. “An instruction.”
“Excuse me,” said Ian politely, “but what the fuck just happened?”
“I'm not sure,” I said. “What kind of an order, my queen?”
“Something that he would not readily obey, given his choice,” she said, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. I gaped at her.
“Mother–“ said Diana, and when I looked at her I saw that she was pale. “What have you done?”
“I have safeguarded us,” the queen said, all imperial dignity. “Cassandra, order the man to kneel and kiss the ground.”
I squinted at her, then turned to Ian. “Sorry. The queen’s acting weird. Just– kneel and kiss the ground.”
I expected him to ask why, or give me a weird look at least, but instead he dropped instantly to his knees and laid his lips to the ground, then jerked his head up, staring at me with astonishment and the beginnings of panic.
“Wait,” I said, looking at Hippolyta. She’s never bothered to learn English– the language of the patriarchy, she calls it, like classical Greek isn’t– but I’ve said what I said next around her often enough and in an expressive enough tone that she gets the gist. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I can’t stand up,” said Ian. “Diana? I can’t–“
The queen glared at me, ignoring Ian, and Diana, whose hands were pressed to her mouth as if she were about to throw up. “You have accepted the responsibility of his care, and I have ensured that he will keep to the agreement. I fail to see the problem.”
“Look, it's okay,” I said to Ian, still staring at Hippolyta. “Um. Stand up.”
He scrambled to his feet. “Was that– what happened there, exactly?”
“Spin around once,” I said, and he did it, looking at me now like I was the most horrifying sight he’d ever seen. It made me feel sick.
“Shit,” I muttered. “Sorry. I’m really sorry. She, um, did a– a spell– without telling me. But it's cool. I won't make you– I mean, I won’t do that again.”
“You won’t make me what?” he demanded wildly. “What else could you make me do?”
“Forget about it,” I said, trying to calm him down, and his face went blank for a moment, then blinked at me, disoriented.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I think I just-- what did you say?”
“I was saying forget about it, I won't– oh, fucking hell!” I turned furiously on Hippolyta. “I telled he not to concern him of the matter,“ I shouted– my Greek grammar tends to suffer when I’m upset– “and he–”
“Forgot?” said Hippolyta, with what I considered to be completely inappropriate satisfaction. “We are well warded. The man may stay.”
TBC
