Chapter Text
Perfect.
With a delicate stroke of her knife Hippolyta finished the rounded cheek of the Erotes. All around her sculptures, carvings, reliefs, wreaths, and bouquets of flowers of all colors and materials sat finished or half-finished waiting for the Queen’s loving hand.
Ruling the Amazons was her birthright, battle was a gift to all Amazons, but art was her’s. Ever since she had first walked out of Poseidon’s oceans with her sisters she had enjoyed molding clay and stone to her vision and forging fine designs from precious metals. Her passion had even led her to her greatest treasure.
She sat back in her chair and smiled. Every detail of the clay figure before her had been constructed with painstaking care, from its winking smile to its layered wing feathers. Its bow had taken her three hours and that wasn’t counting how many times she had cut and rolled a piece of clay for the bowstring only to throw it away.
Now came the tricky part. A bulbous pile of clay rested on the sculpture’s otherwise proportionate head. This was to be the hair. Unlike the feathers she could not simply add more clay since it would unbalance the head. It would take all of her concentration to make the lifelike hair she desired for her creation. Wiping her brow, Hippolyta leaned forward to begin carving the first lock.
“My Queen!”
Hippolyta’s hand slipped, jamming her knife deep into the sculpture’s face. Swallowing her frustration and schooling her expression, Hippolyta turned to the door of her quarters. An Amazon stood there, panting and clearly distressed.
“Yes, Io,” said Hippolyta, “what is it?”
The Amazon, Io, bowed low.
“Forgive me, my Queen, but the Lion skin of the Oppressor is missing!”
“What?”
Hippolyta rose and grabbed the golden scepter, the symbol of her rule, where it rested against her carving table. Her own projects would have to wait.
W
The Grand Temple of Themiscyra was a monument to Amazonian engineering, standing proudly on Reformation Island, a scholarly place of renewal and spiritual guidance in the atoll the Amazons called home. Two-hundred cubits wide, twice as long, and fifty cubits high, the marble and limestone columns shone against the sun of Themiscyra’s eternal springtime. Under its roof, statues of the Amazons’ patrons stood in a circle, embellished with gold and precious stones. They numbered nine, eight goddesses and Gaia, the mother earth herself, who had formed the Amazons from the souls of wrongfully slain women and the earth of the ocean floor. Every day, Amazons knelt and prayed before the statues and would be doing so, if they weren’t flocking to Hippolyta in worry. To quiet them, the queen raised her hand. Silence fell in a heartbeat.
“What is this about the Lion Skin?”
One of the priestesses, a girl with red hair in tangling ringlets who was timidly holding her wrist, stepped before the queen.
“I was down in the vaults, making sure that the guards had their meals and...And the Lion Skin was not there with the other relics.”
The temple was not only a place of worship. Within the deepest recesses of the temple, there sat ancient relics of significance and power. Treasures such as the Golden Perfect, a mysterious tool given to the Amazons by their patron goddesses, the Girdle of Gaia from which all Amazons drew a wellspring of strength, and the Lion Skin of the Oppressor, worn by the demi-god who had subjected the Amazons to pain and indignity. Every year, the Amazons would display it on the anniversary of their liberation and proclaim ‘this is the armor of a fallen warrior’. For it to be stolen was to steal Amazon culture.
“Have you told Castalia about this,” asked Hippolyta.
Castalia was the head priestess of the island. While she was not what many would think of as an Amazon, round faced and a serene in countenance, she was known the island over for her acts of kindness and her skill at divination. She had even taken Hippolyta’s own sister, Menalippe, under her wing when she began to have visions of the past and future.
“Menalippe had a vision this morning,” the priestess who had first spoke said, “so she and Lyla are tending to her to find out what it means.”
“Then they should be told of this,” said Hippolyta, “they are the temple’s caretakers.”
“But what if it is nothing,” said another Amazon, this one with skin like copper and hair cut nearly to her scalp, “This could be nothing. Some sick joke for the sake of rebellion.”
“Then who would be the perpetrator,” asked Hippolyta, “who would gain from this? Who would have the audacity to steal the Lion Skin? Most all of us are here.”
“What of the Amazons of Bana-Mighdall?”
The amazon who spoke was long faced and dark-skinned.
Hippolyta sighed.
“My sister may be…”
She trailed off, searching for the right word.
“…Brash, but Bana-Mighdall has always respected the temple and its treasures.”
Bana-Mighdall was the home of a sect of Amazons that prayed to Ares as their Patron, as odd as it was. While many Amazons followed the ways set down by their Goddesses, Bana-Mighdall embraced the warrior heritage of the Amazons, preferring combat to art and spirituality. They lived on the third island of Themiscyra, the ‘Forbidden Isle’, a harsh overgrown landscape of vicious creatures. They also still practiced Kopís Mastoú, which had fallen out of favor with many other Amazons. Their ruler was Hippolyta’s second sister, Antiope, a bold and fearsome combatant.
“Be that as it may,” the first Amazon said, “she has not appeared in the temple in some time.”
“Neither have I,” said Hippolyta, “nor has our best smith, Althea, nor General Philippus. And is Castalia, our greatest priestess, not attending to Menalippe away from the temple? Does this mean they should be counted as thieves?”
No-one spoke.
“Then we should focus less on blaming one another and more on finding the culprit.”
“Queen Hippolyta!”
It’s going to be one of those days, the queen thought bitterly as she turned to see what the newest problem the day had brought her. An Amazon with richly tanned skin and her hair in a tight braid pushed her way through the throng of her sisters to the Queen.
“Yes, Sophia, what is it?”
“I cannot find Diana, anywhere.”
“Have you checked the stables?”
“And the armory, and the libraries, and I have spoken with Castalia, Antiope, Philippus, and Mala is on her way to Althea to see if she has seen Diana.”
“Have you spoken to Nubia?”
“Twice, my queen.”
Hippolyta turned back to the rest of the Amazons.
“Has anyone seen my daughter?” she asked the crowd.
Each Amazon looked to the sister next to them, a murmur falling over them as one by one each of them answered no.
Hippolyta closed her eyes and partook of a deep calming breath.
“Send out a search party to look for my daughter. At this point, only the Gods know what she’s up to.”
W
The wind whipped her hair, throwing the Lion skin of the oppressor off of her shoulders as Diana rode through the forests of Paradise Island. She didn’t need to keep it anyway. In a few hours at most she would have somebody’s attention. That was why she stole it in the first place. Besides who would want to ride around with a smelly animal skin on their back was beyond her kin.
Dryads, with their willowy arms and wild hair full of foliage and twigs, scattered as Diana bounded out of the woods and into the grassy fields and the sunlight. She answered the raucous calls of the tree spirits with her own, waving to them. The midday sun was out in full, the sky blue and full of bountiful white clouds, as it always was. The island was full of life, as it always was. Birds sang, beasts hunted and played, all was right on Themiscyra, as it always was. This was her home for more than twenty long years, as it always had been.
And after the twenty-first long year, things were starting to get downright dull. Diana leaned down to the ear of her steed.
“Faster, Jumpa, faster!”
Jumpa the Kanga had been her friend since she was no more than ten. Roughly four cubits tall, the Kangas served as the primary mounts of the Amazons, their spindly arms and powerful legs making them expert climbers and leapers. They were easier to train than the wild hearted Pegasi, which only a few Amazons in the history of Themiscyra were able to even get close to. Diana would know, too. She had tried to mount one in her youth, only to find herself thrown from its back and saved from death by a tree branch’s timely intervention. But in the five minutes that she clung to the mane of the winged horse she had managed to wrangle, she experienced flight. The freedom, the thrill, the view, that was something she would give anything to feel again. Here on the ground, the ‘heavenly’ days seemed to run together. Calls for her to stop reached Diana’s ears.
A band of five Amazons, all riding their own Kangas, rode into view from the treeline. Diana turned her gaze back to the path ahead, a smile pulling at her lips. This promised to be fun.
“Head for the cliffs,” she said to Jumpa, “You know what to do.”
Digging her heels into Jumpa’s sides, Diana egged her steed onward. The voices of the other Amazons grew louder and more frantic as her speed increased. She heard their voices shouting, “Diana stop!”
Diana did not stop. Instead, she urged Jumpa to go faster. Over rocks and back into the forest, through streams and weaving between trees, Diana evaded her pursuers. Finally her destination was in her sights. On the southernmost part of Paradise Island, sharp peaks and cliffs rose up like stone knives scraping at the heavens. Diana had already climbed them twice, to see the Griffins that roosted there. She knew how to hold fast to the steep rock face and Jumpa knew her way back to the stables.
With a practiced leap, Diana grabbed an overhanging branch and flipped nimbly onto the side of the cliff. Jumpa continued on underneath her. Just as the Kanga had bounded out of sight, Diana’s pursuers came after, shouting for her to stop. Diana bit a laugh down as the other Amazons rode off into the woods. Undoubtedly, they would end up back at the stables with her nowhere in sight. Turning her gaze upward, Diana began her climb to the peak of plateau she was currently clinging to.
Hand over hand, foot over foot, one at a time and never looking down Diana scaled the cliff, surefooted as any mountain beast. Finally, Diana felt grass and the edge of the plateau under her hand and hoisted herself up onto the ledge.
She’d chosen this place as her refuge, for when things were becoming too stagnant for her tastes on Themiscyra and that was unfortunately becoming the norm as of late. Diana sat on the cliff’s edge and kicked her legs out. From where she sat, Diana could see the entirety of Paradise Island and its two sister islands. In the distance she could see the overgrown tangle of creepers and trees that was Forbidden Island, where her Aunt Antiope’s tribe lived, within the walled city of Bana-Mighdall, and the verdant meadow that was Transformation Island, the place from which she had taken the Lion Skin of the Oppressor. She knew every inch of both of them and of Paradise Island. Diana pushed the balls of her hands against her eyes. She knew every Amazon on the island by name or reputation, every creature that lived on their shores, read every book in their library. Would something new just fall out of the sky and end her malaise?
“The Griffins’ nesting is not until the fall,” a voice behind her said. Diana turned. An Amazon with hair the color of wheat was standing behind her, looking down at her.
“Mala?”
“Hello, Diana.”
Mala had been on of Diana’s closest friends since her eighteenth year, and of the Amazons was one of their most accomplished riders and athletes. None had beaten her in Íppefsi, riding portion of the Games of Liberation.
“I thought I would find you here. It is your favorite spot.”
Mala held out her hand for Diana to take and helped her to her feet.
“And why shouldn’t it be?”
Diana turned her gaze back to the horizon, shining with the golden light of the sun. Diana raised her arms and leaned over the edge of the cliff, a warm updraft keeping her from falling. The serenity of flight and freedom was so close, tantalizingly close.
“When you stand on the edge, it feels like you can fly across the ocean and over the horizon.”
“And come right back?”
Diana turned to look at her friend. Mala’s expression looked hopeful, even longing, though why she would feel like that, Diana couldn’t say.
“Does it matter?”
Mala’s face fell at Diana’s words.
“But Diana, all of your sisters are here.”
Diana nodded.
“And I’ll carry them in my heart wherever I go,” she said, placing her hand over her heart.
“Yes, yes, of course you will…But I came to find you because of the Lion Skin. Did you steal it?”
“Yes.”
“Diana!”
Diana looked to her friend.
“That skin has been in that…crypt for centuries, Mala. What do you expect it to do? Walk out of there?”
“Diana, you caused a panic.”
“At least it is something new around here.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing…it meant nothing.”
Mala ran a stressed hand through her hair.
“Well, it would not be ‘nothing’ if someone else had found you. Diana, you could be in serious trouble.”
“Then what would you have me do?”
“Go to the temple and pray to Athena for wisdom granted by this experience.”
Diana sighed.
“Alright, I will go to the temple today. I have not seen Castalia in some time.”
“What about the skin?”
“I will return that too.”
Mala frowned at Diana.
“I promise. You are not my keeper.”
“With all the grief I have to tell your mother about I might as well be.”
Diana rolled her eyes. She knew the skin was important. That’s why she took it. But then she thought about what her mother would say, what her aunts would say, and she started to regret the decision. Maybe a prayer for wisdom was what she needed. Mala’s hand on her arm broke her thoughts.
“Diana, I was going to ask Lydia if she wanted to go swimming today. Would you like to join us?”
“No thank you,” said Diana, her eyes going back to the horizon, “I went swimming earlier.”
“Then, we could go to visit Nubia. I’m sure that she is getting lonely down near the gate.”
“I will visit her later. Right now, I think I would like to be by myself.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Mala, you do not need to watch over me.”
Mala nodded.
“Very well.”
Mala went to the edge of the cliff where Diana had climbed up before and began her descent. She would feel better soon, Diana thought. Once I return the Lion Skin, I can explain myself to mother and then this ordeal will be over. A soft coo reached Diana’s ears. Landing but a few cubits away from her, was a dove. Diana smiled and crept towards the small creature. It must have only started to fly, it was so little. Diana held out her finger. The dove hopped onto it without a second thought and Diana smiled. Animals always liked Diana. When she was a little girl, she’d once been allowed near a fawn while its mother was near, when every other Amazon was met with the deer bolting into the forest.
“Hello,” Diana said to the dove, “what do you have in store for me?”
The dove said nothing, only turning its head and lifting off from her finger. Diana followed the flight of the dove, grabbing a creeper vine that ran up the side of the cliff and descending. She dropped through the air for the last few Cubits when she was near the ground. She did have to go to the temple, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it the fun way. Above her, the dove glided through the sky and Diana spread her arms as she ran, their path taking both her and the dove down to the beach. As the ground beneath her feet gave way to sand, Diana saw the dove land with a large flock on the beach. Spreading her arms, Diana did her best lion impression and sent the flock scattering. She laughed.
But then she saw the flock head towards the horizon. Birds could fly away from Paradise Island, away from the sameness. But she could not. What she wouldn’t give to fly.