Archive of Our Own

Many years from now, Etta will learn that the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 killed one in every twenty people living on God’s green earth. Oh, she will say. It seemed like more.

In the months following Captain Trevor’s death and Sir Patrick’s disappearance Etta finds herself shunted from pillar to post in a civil service that, to be quite honest, is not ready for peace. It doesn’t help that clever, competent women are ten a penny, and no amount of cleverness or competency will keep you in your position when the Home Secretary’s cousin’s youngest son comes back from the Front. So Etta focuses on her strengths: managing those who need to be managed, coaxing those who need to be coaxed, and hiding her light under her ability to bustle.

February 1919 sees her in Manchester, standing in front of a Scottish doctor with sharp eyes and a well-kept beard, trying to decide if he needs to be managed, coaxed or bustled.

“Miss Candy,” Dr Niven says. “What do you know about nursing?”

He gives her a twenty-year-old book bound in well-worn leather, and tells her to come back when she’s read it cover to cover.

Notes on Nursing, she reads. What it is, and what it is not.

She comes back the next day, having read Miss Nightingale’s treatise twice through -- the first time quickly, fascinated by the clear, concise certainty in its pages; the second time at leisure, taking copious notes in the same neat hand she’d used for Captain Trevor’s dictation. It really is jolly good.

“Miss Candy.” Dr Niven has kept his Aberdeen accent, despite a Cambridge education and years in Manchester. Etta, whose Solihull origins can’t be heard beneath years of the Received Pronunciation, feels a twinge of envy. “We are facing our third wave of the influenza epidemic. If hard work and dedication were enough, our nursing staff would have eradicated the disease five times over. We need new solutions, and we need them now.”

Etta starts with the gravediggers.

No one knows what makes this epidemic so bloody terrible. There are guesses -- there are always guesses -- but Etta has always been a woman for the job in front of her. Without gravediggers, the dead cannot be buried. Without burial, the dead remain at large -- in the undertakers, in the mortuaries, in private homes. Whether this contributes to the spread of the epidemic or not, Etta knows it can’t be good.

Etta recruits women from munitions factories, from farms. Practical women unafraid of hard labour, the kind who have lost too much to be fussy about digging a few graves. Annie and Gladys, whose young men came home from the War only to die in the same overcrowded hospital ward two days apart. Preeti, who lost four children to polio and a husband to the trenches. Ivy, whose mother nursed in the Crimea under Nightingale herself.

Her girls dig graves and fill them, and if anyone has anything to say about that, they can take it up with the City of Manchester’s Medical Officer of Health himself. Funny how, after going to toe to toe with Etta, no one does.

February becomes March, March becomes April. Gladys marries a widower twenty years her senior, and all the girls on her shift are there at her wedding, scrubbed up nice without a hint of dirt under their fingernails. He seems a good sort of chap, Gladys’s widower; with three young children to mother, Gladys will be happy as a clam at high tide.

April becomes May, May becomes June. For Manchester, the third wave of the epidemic is officially over. There’s time to take stock, write up the reports, prepare for the fourth wave.

“You’ve done fine work,” Dr Niven says. He’s not what you would call generous with his praise -- Etta doesn’t mind, but makes sure never to be stingy with her own. Her girls deserve to be recognised every damned day for the work they’re doing. “Thank you, Miss Candy.”

Etta has been working flat out for ten solid months, managing and coaxing and bustling her way into indispensability through the last days of the war and the first days of this new peace. Her last ‘holiday’ was the week after her father’s funeral, August of last year, to sort through and sell his possessions.

“Thank you, Doctor,” she says. She opens her mouth to ask about the new coffins, but closes it again. She can ask him tomorrow.

“Take a week, Miss Candy. Go to the seaside. Get some fresh air.”

Fresh air, light, warmth, quiet, cleanliness, a punctual and careful diet. Nightingale’s prescription for the sick.

She thanks him again, is about to leave, when he says, “Did we do enough, do you think?”

Now there’s a question. Etta thinks about her girls’ calloused hands, Dr Niven’s late nights, the nurses and health visitors and doctors and volunteers whose shifts stretched from day to night to day again. She thinks, because she still misses him, about Captain Trevor, a true hero and a patriot, whose death saved thousands, maybe millions of lives. She thinks about Annie and Gladys and Preeti and Ivy. She thinks about Diana, a princess who has shaded into a dream, whose light still inspires her to keep on keeping on.

She thinks for long enough that Dr Niven takes this as her answer, nodding his agreement with whatever he thinks she’s saying.

“Yes,” she says at last. “I think we did enough.”

#

Blackpool is a delight in June. A delight. Over in France, Sir Patrick’s successor is working on a treaty that will bring peace for generations to come; back in Manchester, Dr Niven is writing reports and poring over charts late into the night; and here in Blackpool, Etta Candy is eating an ice cream as she walks barefoot along the beach. She’s loving every second of it.

When she’s finished this ice cream, she’s going to buy another one. She’s seen a shop that sells pineapple sherbet, and this too is her destiny. Florence Nightingale would approve.

The waves splash coolly at her ankles. She’s tiny against the vastness of the ocean, inconsequential in the massed crowd, utterly unimportant and uninteresting to anyone but the man who’s going to sell her pineapple sherbet.

“Etta!”

Etta turns to see Diana, Princess of Themyscira, the woman who lived when Captain Trevor died, standing on Blackpool Beach holding an ice cream cone in each hand. Gosh.

She’s stunningly beautiful. It’s a thing Etta tries not to notice outside of certain select venues, but with Diana it would be more suspicious not to. She’s a vision, an actual demigod -- every eye is drawn to her, whatever its owner’s temperament or inclination.

Etta is very far from immune.

“Diana.” She finishes the last bit of her ice cream cone -- invented in Manchester, at least according to Ivy -- in two big bites, and flings her arms open. “Diana, my dear, you’re a sight for sore eyes!”

Diana embraces her, somehow keeping her own ice creams neatly away from them. She feels solid in Etta’s arms, a goddess made flesh, and Etta kisses her on her soft, perfect cheek when they pull apart.

“Have you tried these?” Diana says, holding one of the ice creams out. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

Etta has never yet said no to an ice cream, and she doesn’t intend to start now. “Stunning,” she agrees. “It’s so -- pardon my language -- it’s so damned good to see you. What brings you to sunny Blackpool? I should have thought you’d be in Versailles -- I can’t imagine there’s a man there who’d dare to keep you out.”

“There’s not a man there who can keep me in,” Diana corrects her. “Themyscira needs us.”

Right then. Goodness. “Is it the fare? I’m sure we can apply to the Home Office for funds, and if not, I may be able to help. I can’t manage your whole fare myself, but I’ve enough to be getting started.”

“Money is not an object,” Diana says. “And it is not one fare. Themyscira needs us both.”

Etta very nearly chokes on her ice cream.

Themyscira, Diana says, doesn’t think terribly highly of the world of men right now. Frankly, Etta can’t blame them. There are factions on the island -- one of Diana’s allies has sent her an omen, whatever that may be, warning her that if she doesn’t return soon, the island may take drastic action. Diana doesn’t expand on this point, and Etta senses that now is not the time to push her. So Diana needs to go home, and she needs to bring someone with her, a living, breathing argument for her side.

“That’s all very flattering,” Etta says when Diana has finally run out of steam, “but surely you have more qualified candidates than me?”

“You are of the world of men.” Diana looks a little embarrassed. “But not a man.”

A compromise. Now that, Etta can understand. She supposes that while Diana has been out there hobnobbing with the great and the good, she hasn’t run across too many women with the freedom to up and leave for a mysterious mission in a far away land.

“Not everyone will be pleased to see you.” But even as she says this, Diana brightens. “We will tell them you are my consort.”

That can’t possibly mean what Etta thinks it means. “Your lady in waiting?” she tries, digging deep into what little she knows about royalty.

“My consort. Or, is that not the word? My lover.”

Etta blinks. Then, when that changes nothing, not Diana’s hopeful expression, not the utter silliness coming out of her impractically perfect mouth, she blinks again. And again. Third time, it turns out, is not the charm.

“Diana, petal, we don’t--”

“Oh,” Diana says breezily. “I know your customs are different. But you are not quite so different, I think?” She looks for all the world like she’s asking how Etta takes her tea.

Panic rises bitter in Etta’s throat. There’s no one close enough to hear, but good women have lost their jobs, their children for less. “Listen to me. In our world, you can’t say that.” Honesty -- and the sudden pity on Diana’s face -- compels her to correct herself. “You can’t say that in public. It’s a private thing, a secret we share very carefully, with people we know we can trust.”

The pity has not left Diana’s expression. “That must be very difficult.”

“We get by.”

Whether Diana understands her tone or not, she nods -- and Etta suspects she does understand, suspects that even on the island of improbably beautiful warrior women they have I don’t want to talk about it. “To Themyscira, you will be my consort, but we will tell your world of men that you are my -- what did you say? -- my lady in waiting.”

The minor matter of Etta’s unnatural perversions now closed, there is only the severe and improbable imbalance of their looks to contend with. Jolly good. Oh, and that pesky global influenza pandemic.

In the world of spinsters and merry widows, Etta has always done quite well for herself. She’s not one to go dancing or join a movement, although she’s quietly pleased for those who do, but she has the odd school friend or former colleague she might visit on occasion. Or of course there are those lovely governesses, Nellie and Frances, who set up together on a surprise inheritance and always welcome a well-mannered houseguest.

Which is all to say that it’s not a lack of self-regard that makes her raise the former of the two points. Anyone who has been hosted so thoroughly by Nellie and Frances would be a fool to doubt her own charms. But Diana is a demigod, and Etta is very much mortal.

“Am I not to your taste?” Diana asks, projecting an innocence that doesn’t fool Etta for a second. “If you do not think you could pretend...?”

Etta thinks about lying. Then she thinks about telling the truth. Neither seems very appealing.

“I think I could pretend,” she says instead. She aims for wry, but she’s out of practice -- instead it comes out just a little too sincere.

Diana’s smile is a tiny, beautiful thing.

After that, the whole global pandemic nonsense is barely worth mentioning. The Themyscirans -- the Amazons -- are immune to the diseases of man, because of course they are, why did she even bother asking?

And so the holiday in Blackpool is cut short, but not so short that they can’t make it to the shop with the pineapple sherbet.

It’s a good, solid confectioner’s, the kind it had been Etta’s childhood dream to set up, before reality put itself squarely between her and the shop she would have called Candy’s Emporium. Shelves upon shelves of sweets and chocolates and flavoured sugars and oh, so much sherbet.

Etta’s smiling fit to burst, and that’s even before she turns her gaze to Diana, who is looking at the jars as if she’s been given the keys to the gates of heaven. Her eyes are wide, her mouth ajar, and her whole body radiates a glee so pure Etta wants to protect her, no matter that Diana can knock out ten men in the time it would take Etta to deliver one solid punch.

“All these. They’re sweets?”

“You don’t have sweets on Themyscira?”

“Not like this?”

A small part of Etta is reassured. An island full of women like Diana and sweets? She’d never want to leave. “Well then,” she says, “we’d best make sure we take some with us, hadn’t we?”

Etta feels Diana’s answering smile right to her bones.

#

Logistics are, in the end, just logistics, and Diana wasn’t joking about the money. They find a steamer that will take them most of the way; Diana’s purse even gets them one of the ship’s boats for the last stretch. It’s a dinghy that has seen better days, but with Diana rowing it they all but glide across the waves, Diana’s strength in every pull of her arms, in every flex of her shoulders. A girl could lose herself watching the ocean spray against the curve of Diana’s back. If she weren’t careful, that is.

“Your form could use some work,” Etta says, contorting her body to mimic Diana’s slight list to the right. “Keep those shoulders level.”

Diana’s irritation isn’t feigned, but it melts into laughter when she sees Etta’s exaggerated hunch of an impression.

“You are welcome to do your part.” She makes as if to offer the oars. There are beads of water on the backs of her hands. It’s all terribly unfair.

“Oh no,” Etta says. “Your island, your labour.”

Right then. If Etta is going to get through this in one piece, there will have to be some ground rules.

Number one, she thinks to herself as she watches the fall of Diana’s hair across her shoulders, is to set clear boundaries. They may pretend to be whatever they pretend to be in public, but in private, it’s best not to get confused.

The curve of Diana’s neck is not helping matters.

Number two, now, number two is to stay focused. Etta will be friendly, she will be charming, she will be a model representative of a world any race of goddess warriors be delighted to concern themselves with. She will be a delight, and that tiny, pleased little smile Diana is wearing has no say in the matter.

Number three--

There’s a faint sound from behind Diana, barely audible above the waves. Etta would think she’d imagined it, but then it happens again.

“Did you--?” She cuts herself off. It doesn’t matter whether Diana heard it or not -- Etta did. It sounded alive, and it sounded distressed. “Can I get past?”

Diana shrugs permission. There’s not quite enough room for Etta to pass without brushing some part of herself against some part of Diana -- they’ll need a ground rule about that, too.

The end of the dinghy has seen better decades. It’s a wonder they’re still afloat -- the planks are swollen and barely in place, which at least makes it easy for Etta to push one aside and peer into a dark, foul-smelling space she’d have been happier not knowing existed.

The noise again. It’s not a baby, thank all that’s good in the world. She’d hadn’t realised she’d been worried about that, but something in her unclenches -- a stray animal is one thing, a stray baby would have been quite another.

“Hello, my petal,” Etta croons into the gap between the planks. “Who’s a beautiful dog, cat, or other? Come out and let me see your perfect face.”

The noise turns hopeful. Two eyes glint at her from the darkness.

“A kitten!” Etta exclaims. “You’re a kitten! Hello, my lovely one, hello!”

They have rations -- they’d be fools not to -- but nothing particularly palatable to a cat. Etta looks up at Diana, who is watching Etta with an unreadable expression. “Do your godlike powers extend themselves to fishing?”

Without a word, Diana dives straight into the freezing water.

Oh no.

Etta makes an undignified noise that might be a scream and might be a sigh. There are no witnesses, if you don’t count the kitten -- the dark, unfriendly water has swallowed Diana whole. This is not good. This is very, very far from good.

“She’s a menace,” Etta says to the kitten, because five years of service as Captain Trevor’s secretary have taught her a lot about staying calm in trying circumstances. “All I can say is she’d better come back with some fish.”

The kitten, kindly, doesn’t remark on the way she’s frantically scanning the waves, hoping against hope that she’ll catch the sleek line of Diana’s body break the choppy surface.

The water is ice cold. It doesn’t matter how strong a swimmer Diana is -- the hypothermia will get her even if she can struggle against the currents. It’s senseless and terrifying. Etta swallows down bile.

She mutters some more nonsense at the kitten, enough to drown out the thudding of her heart. The kitten mews back. That’s nice.

And then, oh God, thank God, Diana close to flies out of the water, drawing herself up onto the boat with an elegance and grace that Etta couldn’t have managed on her best day, let alone soaking wet, freezing cold, and holding two flapping fish in each clenched hand.

By God do Diana’s godlike powers extend themselves to fishing.

“You idiot!” Etta rushes to Diana, clutching uselessly at Diana’s ice-cold arms. “Here, look, take this, come on.” She wraps her coat around Diana, trying to use it to warm and dry her at the same time.

Diana is regarding her with quiet amusement, as if Etta’s the one pulling bizarre stunts for no good reason. “I will be fine,” she says. She’s -- the idiot, no -- she’s trying to shrug Etta’s coat off. “I think you need this more than me.”

There’s a brief, undignified struggle. Etta does not win.

“I will be fine,” Diana repeats. “I do not catch chill easily.”

Etta, uncomfortably shoved back into her own damp coat, thinks this a new and exciting definition of ‘easily’ that could, perhaps, have been shared with her before Diana plunged headfirst into the freezing water. She shares this insight with Diana, loudly and at length.

Diana just blinks at her. “You asked for fish. For your new pet.”

In Manchester, when the third wave of the influenza was not yet at its height, Etta’s girls had not always been well-received when they’d come to collect the dead from public mortuaries. It was all very well when there was a war on, some people had felt, but this was peacetime. What had our brave boys been fighting for, if not to keep their precious womenfolk from the harsh realities of death?

Empiricists all, Etta’s girls had tried a number of approaches before settling on the one Diana is now trying on her -- the simple, innocent confusion of one who will interpret whatever you say as permission for doing exactly what she wanted in the first place.

“Fine,” Etta says with bad grace. “Thank you.”

The corner of Diana’s lip twitches.

Fortunately, Etta has gutted many a fish in her life. She has a sharp knife, and so it’s just the matter of a few quick, efficient cuts before the kitten has a veritable feast before it.

“Aren’t you going to feed it yourself?” Diana asks when Etta just leaves the fish outside the kitten’s hidey-hole. Then, at Etta’s look, “We don’t have such animals on Themyscira.”

Diana has been in the world of men, as she insists on calling it, for coming up for a year now. Still, perhaps she’s been too busy stopping wars and hammering out a new kind of forever peace to meet many cats.

Diana listens to Etta explaining the psychology of the feline individual as if Etta is imparting the most fascinating and useful wisdom that any woman has ever shared. Irritatingly, she’s already warm and dry, despite having done nothing more than shake her wet hair and start rowing again.

“They bury their waste?” She’s particularly taken by this, and asks Etta to explain it in what some might call excessive detail. “What clever animals!”

Half an hour later, the sun is setting and not one but two kittens have crawled their way out of the back of the boat. They’re sniffing at the fish warily. If Etta had left it all in one piece, she has no doubt they would have just dragged it back into the darkness, but a childhood love of stray cats -- and a very indulgent mother -- has taught her better than that. She’s cut the flesh into small pieces, large enough the kittens won’t choke but small enough they can’t just escape with their haul.

They watch the kittens eat in silence. They’re gangly, half-grown things, well past old enough to be away from their mother, still young enough they haven’t quite grown into their paws. One is more black than white, the other more white than black -- they eat side-by-side, happy enough with each other’s company they’re either littermates or as good as.

“We must protect them,” Diana says solemnly.

Etta looks from the goddess warrior princess to the cats and back again. “I think we’ll manage.”

The dusk and the quiet are good at eliciting confidences. Etta has spent long enough bustling behind the scenes, tweaking things here and nudging things there, that she feels the opportunity to push on Themysciran politics almost as a compulsion. She needs to know what she’s facing, after all.

“I think it’s time,” she says, as gently as she can.

Guilt flashes across Diana’s face, obvious even in the half-light. God help her, but Etta finds it charming.

“What’s happening on Themyscira? What is this ‘something drastic’ you were so worried about?”

Diana looks away. Etta wants to study her face for every possible clue about this situation they’re barrelling into, but she knows the value of discretion -- in the absence of any knitting to attend to, she busies herself scrubbing at an imaginary stain on her gloves. Etta has had a lifetime of making herself non-threatening to far more skittish types.

“My sisters are not easy with my presence in the world of men. They worry.”

There are two major factions at play here, Diana explains.

One faction believes the world of men is a mess. The Amazons -- Diana’s sisters -- exist to protect humanity, not to coddle them from one excess of violence to the next. If humanity means to stumble its way into every form of ghastliness imaginable, then the only choice is to sever ties.

The other faction also believes the world of men is a mess. Etta can’t bring herself to argue. However, this faction, to which Diana whole-heartedly belongs, believes it is the role of the Amazons to guide and support, not to judge and abandon. Humanity may mean to stumble its way into every form of ghastliness imaginable, but that doesn’t mean Diana’s people have to stand idly by.

“But this ‘something drastic’ you mentioned,” Etta pushes. “What could they do?” Surely they wouldn’t go to war with humanity?

“The God Killer.” Out of the corner of her eye, Etta can see Diana’s hands tighten on the oars. “The sword I thought was the God Killer. Ares destroyed it, and with it, he cut a tie that binds us to your world. It would be hard, but we could part from you now. Completely.”

Two years ago Etta never knew Themyscira existed, and now she feels a heart-deep pang at the thought of losing it. A world of near-immortal warrior women, all as just and as good and as brave as Diana, all bound to protect humanity. It was a dream to cling to when the dead lay unburied, when all her quiet bustling couldn’t bring back a generation’s sons.

“Anything I can do to help, Diana. You know that.”

#

The cats are asleep on each other on Etta’s lap. She feels rather justifiably smug, and is doing her very best to focus on them and not the tiny, soft smile Diana is wearing when Diana’s entire face transforms. If Etta thought her smile was blinding before, she’ll have to invent whole new types of eye injury for this -- Diana’s whole body is smiling, a happiness that Etta can barely look at directly.

“We’re here!” Diana says.

They’re in a patch of ocean that seems very much like every other patch of ocean.

“Not to question your expertise, dear,” Etta says, “but I had imagined more of an island to your island.”

Diana laughs at her as one might laugh at a sweet but not particularly bright child. It’s not a laugh that says, You and I are equals, Etta Candy, and, awed by your cat-wrangling, I have every faith in your abilities. But then, that could be too much to ask from a laugh.

One moment they’re on the grey, choppy ocean, cold and blustery and broadly unpleasant, the next -- it’s as if they’ve passed through a veil. The sea is still and blue, the sky near cloudless, the rough winds reduced to a gentle, refreshing breeze. Six impossible things before breakfast, Etta thinks to herself as the cats stir on her lap.

Some response seems to be expected of her -- Diana is watching her with something approaching impatience.

“Gosh,” Etta tries. “That’s. Goodness me.”

Diana nods. “Is this enough island to my island?” Her tone is solemn, but Etta isn’t fooled.

The cats are now yawning and stretching their soft tiny legs, saving Etta from having to answer. They mew up at her hopefully, rather quicker to trust than any of the strays she’d fed as a child. Etta considers making them wait until they’re ashore -- it will be easier to coax two hungry cats into a new location -- but between them and Diana she has three pairs of trusting eyes fixed on her, imploring her to do the right thing, the merciful thing, the just thing.

She wouldn’t have been able to resist the cats, let alone the cats and the ridiculous goddess warrior princess who has never met a cat before.

“Just a bit, then,” she says, cutting up a little more of the fresh fish. “To take the edge off.”

“Etta,” Diana says, suddenly serious, not the gentle solemnity Etta has come to expect from her. “I had meant to speak on this earlier, but--” She makes a faintly sheepish gesture that encompasses the cats, the fish and the whole wide ocean. “Many of the women on this island helped to raise me. They love me very much, and may-- They may be somewhat protective of me. They will be pleased I have chosen a consort, of course, but they will--”

Etta hasn’t known Diana long, all things considered. She’s surprised how surprised she is to see Diana lost for words.

“I asked you to join me because I think you are a fine representative of the world of men, and because you are a woman, and because you are a woman who loves other women.”

It’s easy to hear the matter-of-fact words when they’re alone. Etta has enjoyed what came from many such frank conversations. But she feels a twinge of worry -- will she flinch the first time Diana says this in public? Diana acts as if on this island of women such inclinations are not taboo, but. But it’s hard to unlearn a life on another’s say so, no matter who the other is.

“The Amazons are a kind and just people, and I have no doubt that they will see the truth and depth of the good in you. But it may be easier for them if they are not blinded by their protective impulses. I think our mission will be easier if-- I mean to say.” And then, inside a magical bubble on a magical sea rowing towards a magical island of impossible people, the most beautiful, captivating woman Etta has ever met says, “Please pretend that you love me very much.”

One of the cats chooses this moment to look up from its meal and stare right at Etta. Its piercing gaze is probably not a judgment on her, but who knows?

“Of course,” Etta says helplessly. “Of course I will, Diana.”

Some -- but not all -- of the tension seeps out of Diana. She rows them towards the shore in silence, her powerful strokes cutting through the water at speed. The cats are nosing around the bottom of the dinghy by Etta’s feet, and Etta takes the time to remind herself that she is a clever, competent woman, who has saved lives and changed minds. Diana chose her for this mission, to convince the women of Themyscira not to do anything ‘drastic’ to or about the world of men. Diana can appear naive on occasion, but she’s no fool -- Etta may have been one of a limited set of options, but Diana wouldn’t have asked her if she weren’t confident Etta would improve her chances.

Etta has done her part against a war, and she’s done her part against a global pandemic. She’s not going to fail now.

Diana perks, not entirely unlike a dog sensing its master’s approach, and puts on another burst of speed. A moment later, Etta hears it too -- voices raised together, shouting over the distance: “Diana! Diana!”

They draw closer, and Etta spots the women ranged along the shore, tiny figures shouting and waving and hugging each other. They’re wearing more armour than Diana, but otherwise the styles match -- even from this distance, Etta can tell they have the same casual attitude towards modesty.

One of the women pulls away from the others and in a single fluid movement sheds her armour and dives into the water. She swims towards them with impossible speed, and barely has Etta had time to warn Diana than the woman is pulling herself aboard, clasping Diana to herself and crying, repeating the same words over and over, something too quick and unfamiliar for Etta to understand.

The woman pulls back. She is blonde, fair-skinned, with a face that on a normal woman Etta would place near the start of middle-age. She lets go a flood of something that has Diana making a soft, achingly fond response, the two of them clutching at each other as if each is the most precious thing the other has ever seen.

Etta’s Modern Greek is not strong, and she’s never heard Ancient Greek spoken, but she needs none of either to guess that this is Diana’s mother.

As if embarrassed to be witnessing something so private, the cats have disappeared. Etta half wishes she could join them. God knows she doesn’t begrudge Diana any happiness, but this isn’t Etta’s to share, and nothing could have been quite so calculated to remind Etta she has no place here. Suddenly, fiercely, she misses her own mother, who passed away not long before the start of the war.

“Mother, mother,” Diana is saying in English, pulling back enough to take her mother by the shoulders. “This is Etta. My consort, if you will allow it.”

Diana’s mother’s gaze turns to Etta with all the intensity of a future mother-in-law. It’s not a scrutiny Etta has ever faced before, and she finds herself rising to it.

“Your Majesty,” she says, bowing as much as she can while sitting in a dinghy.

Diana’s mother takes Etta’s chin in her hand and turns her face from side to side, examining her as one might a new gelding. Etta has endured worse treatment from worse people.

“Do you love my daughter?” Diana’s mother asks in the same unplaceable accent Diana uses. “Are you worthy of her?”

Etta probably shouldn’t smile, but she’s pleased, she finds, that these are the questions Diana’s mother asks. Everyone should have someone who loves them like this.

“Yes,” she lies. “And no.” That, at least, is the truth.

Diana’s mother nods once, not entirely satisfied, and lets go of Etta’s face. “We will be formally introduced. There will a ceremony.” She pauses. “But I trust my daughter’s judgment. When the three of us are alone, you may call me Hippolyta.”

Diana hugs her mother. Her mother hugs her back. Together, the two of them row to the shore.

#

Etta had assumed she’d stand back while Diana was welcomed by the rest of the Amazons. Maybe coax the cats out of their bolthole, see if someone could help her find them a place to stay.

This assumption lasts for exactly the time it takes Diana’s mother – Queen Hippolyta, and goodness, isn’t that something -- to say a few quiet words to one of the other women, who in turn speaks to two of her companions, and from there three tall, beautiful women wearing between them less material than Etta gently but firmly try to usher her away.

“One moment, please,” Etta says, no stranger to the school of gentle but firm ushering. She signals her intent with her whole body, stepping carefully back to the boat and calling out to the cats, “Kittens! Kittens!”

They don’t come when called. Goodness, what a surprise.

“Do you have any meat?” Etta says in slow but passable Modern Greek to the closest of her three new companions. Diana said they all knew hundreds of languages, but there’s such a thing as showing willing.

“What kind of meat would you like?” the woman replies in English. “You must be very hungry -- we’ll have a selection brought up to your quarters.”

“That’s very kind of you,” she says, abandoning her slow but passable Modern Greek with relief, “but before we leave, I need a small amount of raw meat to tempt out some cats.” She tries to hold herself as if this is a perfectly reasonable request, but her voice doesn’t quite keep steady. That’s all right, it’s been a long few days, and she’s the foreigner here -- they can write this off as one of the many peculiarities she’s bringing with her from the world of men. She hopes they’re not part of the faction already unimpressed by that.

Her companions are called Celaneo, Eurybe and Phoebe. They all tower above her, and they all seem just as enchanted by the idea of cats as Diana was. Celaneo is slender, with dark skin and piercing dark eyes. Eurybe is closer to Etta’s bulk, but moves in a way that hints at solid muscle -- her skin and features are such that if they were not on a magical island far from all human understanding, Etta would assume she traced her origins from the subcontinent. And Phoebe is pale, with long limbs, dark hair, a full smile -- the closest in features to Diana herself.

They find some lamb for the cats. Careful placement and quick hands lure both out and into Etta’s arms. “Hush, my darlings,” Etta mutters to them. They squirm, but don’t claw. They must have been someone’s much-loved pets before they found their way onto the dinghy. “You’ll be safe soon.”

She looks up to see that they have quite the audience -- not just her three newest friends, but most of the throng surrounding Diana, and even Diana herself, who is watching the cats with that same soft smile she wore on the boat. Etta’s heart swoops for no good reason.

Celaneo cuts in. “Oh, you mustn’t-- Before you are introduced to the queen, you should not look at Diana like that.”

Etta pretends to be flustered, using that to hide her very real panic. Look at Diana like what? Until recently, she would have said she was rather good at hiding her inclinations -- now she seems surrounded by people who can see her every thought before she can herself. It is not a pleasant feeling.

Talking with Celaneo, Eurybe and Phoebe on their way to her new quarters, Etta comes to the conclusion that age means something very different here than it does to her. These women are thousands of years old, with experiences and abilities past Etta’s wildest imaginings, but it’s not just their appearances that are youthful. They’re so curious, so playful; they walk with the same easy confidence as Diana, but none of the knowledge she brought back with her from the Front.

She’s reminded of something her mother used to say, despairing of some new foolishness in their neighbours: Some people have forty years of experience, and some people have the same year forty times over. Her mother had meant such people were too foolish to learn from their lives, would make the same mistakes over and over again -- that’s not the case here, but still. But still.

Unwillingly, Etta thinks of Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing: Once insure that the air in a house is stagnant, and sickness is certain to follow.

That’s not this. These women are not ailing. One might as well look at a world with no smallpox and judge it to be lacking because it doesn’t have enough grieving mothers. But a part of Etta begins to think for the first time that maybe, perhaps, she does have something to offer this island paradise.

This realisation coincides with their arrival at the entrance to what looks like a cave.

Celaneo goes first, gesturing for Etta to follow her, and oh, goodness, well, if it’s not a cave, it’s certainly rather more cavernous and rocky than a hotel. In her arms, the cats have gone from struggling to slumped. She keeps a tight hold in case they decide to make a break for it.

“These are the Caves of Aglaea,” Celaneo says.

Ah. Good. So, definitely caves then. She can see a pool of water ahead big enough to fit their entire dinghy. It shimmers as if reflecting a thousand unseen stars.

If Celaneo was expecting a response, she hides her disappointment well. After a pause not quite long enough to be awkward, she explains: “Before you are presented to Queen Hippolyta, you must be cleansed and purified. The Caves of Aglaea contain pools filled with the freshest, purest water on all of Themyscira -- you must bathe in them until you are fit to meet the queen.”

One of the cats -- the one more black than white -- begins squirming again.

Etta thinks for a moment. These women are perhaps a few dozen times Etta’s age, but they are used to taking orders. She reminds herself that Diana chose her for this, and says, “That’s all well and good, and of course I’ll be delighted to purify myself in your caves, what an honour, thank you, but first, we need to do something about these cats.”

Celaneo keeps her face clear, but Eurybe and Phoebe begin to look slightly abashed.

“Will they, is this a suitable home?” Phoebe asks, showing Etta a shallow bed of rock that the cats will climb out of quick as you like.

Etta thanks her and explains that no, sadly not.

Eurybe suggests a high ledge with no lip. Celaneo offers a deep rock bed with five inches of water at its base.

Eventually, they agree that Phoebe and Celaneo will take one each to the quarters the two of them share with Eurybe, and Eurybe will stay here in case Etta needs anything. As they disappear into the darkness further inside the caves, Etta hears Celaneo say very seriously to the more-white-than-black cat, “You will behave. Yes. You are a good cat, I know it.”

There is an order to events, Eurybe explains: The Cleansing, The Freeing, The Binding. They have the sound of meaningful terms translated literally.

Etta has never enjoyed bathing. As a young child, she used to hide under her parents’ bed rather than take her turn to slip into the grimy, chilly water that had already cleaned both her parents and her older brother. They moved to Solihull proper around the time she got too big to fit under the bed, at which point it was public baths or nothing, and Etta’s mother wasn’t about to let her get away with nothing. Then, as now, the public baths were at least heated -- but for a growing girl, they were a source of awkwardness and embarrassment, and for a busy woman with other priorities they can still hardly be called a pleasure.

All of which is to say she’ll tolerate whatever series of baths and scrubs the Caves of Aglaea hold in store for her, but anything more than that would break the habit of a lifetime.

Thirty seconds into The Cleansing, Etta’s habit of lifetime lies forgotten on the floor. She doesn’t miss it one bit.

The water embraces her with a pure, perfect heat, the kind to warm her bones and melt away her worries. There’s something in it to thicken it, not enough to be uncomfortable but enough to make it feel rich, soft against her skin, like being caressed all over by plush velvet. She leans back into it, letting her head go under, letting her hair spread around her, letting herself just relax, just be.

It transports her. She’s never felt anything quite like this before, not like what she finds in the gentle current between her toes and against her breasts and behind her ears, not like whatever magic is smoothing away her frown lines and running through her fingers. She stays under as long as she can, then breaks the surface to a cool breeze -- the perfect contrast to the warmth that surrounds her. Her skin goosepimples where it’s exposed to the air, and she enjoys the way the shiver runs down her spine and into the water.

Eurybe is sitting on the high ledge she’d suggested for the cats, sharpening a blade.

Etta goes under again, relaxing back into the magic, and it must be magic, that unknots the muscles in her back and washes away the constant low-level ache in her ribs. For the first time in too long, even her neck isn’t stiff.

If all baths were like this, she’d never leave the water again.

Oh, this is worth the journey all on its own.

Some indeterminate but amazing period of time later, Eurybe coughs discreetly. Etta considers ignoring her, but she’s been in Eurybe’s place too many times for the thought to really tempt her -- she can’t rid the world of entitled fools, but she can avoid being one of them.

After the rich heat of The Cleansing, the cool, clear water of The Freeing is its own kind of heaven, gentle and refreshing against Etta’s skin. There’s no unnatural shimmering to this pool, and Etta watches her toes wiggle in the water with an easy joy.

“Do not be afraid,” Eurybe says, somewhat counterproductively. “They will not hurt you.”

“What--”

Eurybe does something complicated outside of Etta’s line of sight, and a panel at the side of the pool comes open, letting out hundreds of tiny, silvery fish that immediately make for Etta’s feet.

It takes a lot not to scramble backwards, but somehow Etta manages it, though she can feel the tension creeping right back into her shoulders.

“They eat dead skin only,” Eurybe says. She could, perhaps, have said that first. Still, no use crying over split fish.

Etta can’t quite relax, but she has remained calm in the face of much more extreme provocation. The fish tickle, and she can’t bring her to watch them nibble against her callouses, but they’re not actively unpleasant. Worse things, after all, happen at sea.

She has to admit that when Eurybe finally lets her out, her skin is softer and smoother than she can remember it being, and there’s no evidence of damage. Eurybe gives her some oil to rub over herself -- it smells of unfamiliar herbs and feels like a blessing.

“I’ve run out of things to sharpen,” Eurybe says without a trace of irony once she’s shown Etta to the third and final pool. “You may remain here as long as you wish -- when you’re finished, simply put on these robes and walk through the middle tunnel.”

“Robes, tunnel,” Etta repeats. “How will I know when I’m sufficiently Bound?”

“You’ll know.” With that, Eurybe gives her a half-nod, half-bow and walks off into the darkness.

Etta waits until she can no longer hear Eurybe’s footsteps before she says, “Of course. That wasn’t ominous at all.”

It’s not too ominous, though. The third pool is at the warmer end of comfort, a little more so than The Cleansing, with water spilling down from the rocks above to pound gently on Etta’s shoulders. She tips her head back to let it splash on her face, and if she stays there for a long while, lost in the sensation of it all, well, there’s no one there to see.

She doesn’t feel Bound yet, so after communing with her own personal waterfall, she settles down to let the waters of Aglaea do their work. She can feel her body adapting to the temperature of the pool -- if anything, now, she could almost stand it to be a little warmer. She slides back, resting her head against a cleverly shaped ridge designed to keep her from slipping underwater, and closes her eyes.

#

There’s something, someone shaking her. She can’t quite, it’s not, she doesn’t want to wake up, she shouldn’t have to wake up. She’s comfortable, so warm, so safe, and she doesn’t want to be shaken, she just wants to be left alone. Her body is floating, it’s free, why would anyone want to bring her back from this?

Dimly, an echo of an echo, she can hear her own name. The shaking and shouting seem worried, but there’s nothing to worry about, she’s fine, she’s warm, she’ll be up in a minute, just a few more minutes. She would lift an arm to push away the shaking, shouting worrier, but her limbs are so heavy and comfortable, she’s so content here. It doesn’t seem worth the effort.

“Etta! Please, oh--” Etta can’t understand anything else. Through a haze she realises maybe this isn’t English, but she can’t place it and she’s not inclined to try. That’s a problem for another day. All she wants now is to be left alone to sleep.

“Shush,” she tries to say, but her lips won’t move.

What.

Her lips won’t move. Her lips won’t move and her arms won’t move. She can’t move.

Breathe. Breathe. She pulls herself, one painful inch at a time, away from the sleep that’s trying to claim her. Her body is lying to her -- she’s not comfortable, she hurts. She can’t feel her fingers or her toes, and she’s not tired, she’s exhausted, like she’s been punched in the chest by a fist made of ice.

She forces her eyes open to see Diana’s panicked face above hers. What on earth has happened here?

“Etta! Etta, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

Diana is rubbing her hands up and down Etta’s arms, trying to coax the warmth back into her limbs.

“Let’s get you up,” Diana says. “We can use the pool of --” Etta doesn’t understand the last word, though whether that’s a language difficulty or just her own delayed comprehension is unclear.

“No,” Etta tries to say. On the third attempt, she manages it, croaking out the word and ignoring Diana’s wince. “And don’t.” This is important. “Don’t rub my arms.”

She’s mildly hypothermic, that much is clear. At least she’s still shivering. That’s a relief. The worst thing you can do for hypothermia is a hot bath -- well, second worst after trying to force-feed them whiskey. You mustn’t heat someone up too quickly -- hot baths, hot coals, massaging their limbs, she’s seen the effects of all of those in her time working for Dr Niven.

“Wrap me up,” Etta manages. “Blankets.”

Diana shouts some things. She sounds scared, angry. Etta hopes she’s shouting for blankets.

“Shush.” This time Etta gets the word out. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay. Just stay with me.”

Diana has stopped rubbing Etta’s arms, but hasn’t let go. “Is this okay? Can I, will it hurt you if I hold you?”

Etta tries to nod, but that’s too much, and for a dizzying moment she thinks she’s going to lose consciousness again. “That’s okay. What happened?”

Diana wraps Etta in her arms, half hug and half human blanket, and presses her cheek against Etta’s. That can’t be comfortable.

“You catch cold far too easily,” Diana says. “They didn’t realise-- I didn’t realise. For us, the last stage of Fastening is a little uncomfortable, but no more so than a dip in the ocean or a walk in the mountains. I should have known, I should have thought -- you told me yourself, when I got you your fish. For you, it’s far worse than just discomfort.”

Etta tries to think of something reassuring to say, but all she can think is, “How long was I in there?”

Pain creeps back in from Etta’s fingers and toes -- it’s ice and fire shooting up her nerves, but at least she can move them now, enough that she can bring one hand round to Diana’s back, to hold her there.

“Too long,” Diana says. “I should have been there.”

If Etta could move her face properly, she’d raise an eyebrow at that, regardless of whether Diana could see.

“I was the one who fell asleep,” she says instead. “And I’ll be fine. You caught me in time. I’ll live.”

She’s not quite sure how much she believes what she’s saying. She’ll live, that much is true -- in the time Diana’s been flagellating herself, Etta’s shivering has become more intense, almost as good a sign as the pain. But she’s not a doctor, and she doesn’t know how likely her fingers and toes -- or even her hands and feet -- are to come out of this in one piece.

“I’ll be fine,” she says again.

The blankets arrive, and there’s a lot of shouting in which Etta is neither able nor willing to partake. Diana seems to be wavering from anger to guilt and back again, and Etta pats her comfortingly. She reminds herself that Diana isn’t used to death -- for all that she’s seen and done in the last year, for all that she carries with her, she’s spent the first God knows how many years of her life on an island of women who are all but immortal. No wonder Diana takes this personally. And Etta is a tie to Captain Trevor, too. It must have felt like losing yet another part of him.

Diana helps her into the blankets, wrapping each one around her with all the care and dedication Florence Nightingale herself could have asked for. She smoothes each one down before putting on the next one, making sure that Etta is as warm and comfortable as she could be.

By now, enough of Etta’s brain is working that she can take in their audience. Half a dozen Amazons are standing around them -- three she doesn’t recognise, and three she very much does. Celaneo and Phoebe are flanking Eurybe, all three of them shame-faced and very clearly upset.

“Tell Eurybe it wasn’t her fault,” Etta says. She still can’t speak above a croak, or she’d tell Eurybe herself. She tries an encouraging smile in the girls’ direction, but it doesn’t seem to help.

Diana pauses in her blanket-positioning to give Etta what can only be called a Look. “Indeed. It was mine.”

Oh for the love of-- “It was no one’s fault. Not yours, not Eurybe’s, not mine.”

The series of expressions that flicker across Diana’s face would be too fast to catch if Etta hadn’t been watching her so closely. They looked, in order, a lot like, I’ll punch whoever says it could be your fault, followed by, Wait, that would be you, followed by something that might be, I’m sorry for thinking about punching you.

Etta tries and fails not to be charmed, and continues, wheezing and creaking but determined to get the words out: “We’ve all learned something valuable, and we’ll all be more careful in the future. Now tell Eurybe to stop looking like she single-handedly pushed me under, and send the three of them back to look after the cats.” She has to pause for breath a couple of times in the middle, but she thinks she’s got her point across.

“Etta says you aren’t to blame yourself,” Diana says, for all the world like a child made to apologise to the class. “She says no one is at fault, and we are all wiser for the experience.” Diana looks back at Etta, raises her eyebrows in question.

Etta’s not letting her get away with that. “And?”

“And,” Diana adds reluctantly, “she’d like the three of you to return to her cats. Please attend to their needs.”

That duty discharged, Diana applies herself to making sure Etta is double, triple wrapped in all the blankets this island has to offer. She steps back just enough to scrutinise Etta from tip to toe, then wraps herself around Etta’s blanketed form, as if she can single-handedly force the warmth back into Etta’s body.

Their audience has melted away, leaving Etta entirely to Diana’s ministrations.

“Is this right?” Diana asks. Etta can feel her through the blankets, a solid presence against her back. Her mouth brushes Etta’s ear as she speaks.

It’s certainly distracting, that’s for sure. Etta mumbles something reassuring and tries to convince herself the heat pooling in her belly is just a natural part of recovering from mild hypothermia.

“I was scared,” Diana continues in that terrifyingly open way of hers. She’s got her chin hooked over Etta’s multiply padded shoulder, all the better to make sure those blankets stay in place. The cumulative effect is overwhelming: the hot-cold pain in her limbs; the strength of Diana at her back; the strange, artificial intimacy of it all; and, on top of that, to know that Diana, soldier goddess princess, had worried about her.

“It must have been very scary.” Etta is pretty sure she won’t be in trouble if she goes to sleep. They caught her well in time; she isn’t Scott of the Antarctic, after all. She just had a nap in some cold water and gave everyone a bit of a fright. But she doesn’t want to go to sleep, not right now -- however sure her rational mind is that she’ll be fine, a part of her is terrified if she goes to sleep now, she won’t wake up.

Diana doesn’t respond except to tighten her arms around Etta.

It still hurts a bit to speak, but at least Etta’s breathing is coming steadily now, and her cheeks are flushed reassuringly hot. “On all your travels, did you ever hear the story of a detective called Miss Marple? I think you might enjoy her adventures.”

They lie there, together on a pallet in the Caves of Aglaea, Etta and her blankets and Diana and the lingering danger of what might have been, and Etta tells Diana all about a murder at a vicarage solved by a spirited lady detective.

Diana laughs when she’s meant to and gasps when she’s meant to, and never lets Etta go.

#

The next few days pass in a flurry of unfamiliar delights -- none of which Etta has to organise.

Collectively abashed by nearly freezing their guest to death, the Amazons seem to have decided the usual rules don’t apply. Etta will still have to be formally introduced to Queen Hippolyta at some point, but that’s been put off “until you are fully recovered” -- and in the meantime, they are determined to entertain and amaze her until she quite forgets about that whole unfortunate hypothermia incident.

Etta tries to protest at first -- it really was no one’s fault -- but Celaneo quietly suggests that this way Etta and Diana can spend as much time as they like together, and Etta still has just enough of her wits about her to remember that this is supposed to be what she desires most in the world. It’s not what one might call a hardship.

They ply her with crisp, sweet apples and rich, plump tomatoes, figs whose juice runs down her chin, grapes so full of flavour she could almost get drunk on them alone. They grill fish caught before her eyes -- as a treat, she and Diana feed the cats white flakes of succulent cod from their fingers, laughing as the cats dart between the two of them. The cats start to hunt, pouncing on flies and bees and unsuspecting toes.

Diana takes her to watch the training -- women all but flying through the air in a fast-moving dance of swords and shields, arrows and armour. Celaneo, Eurybe and Phoebe are on horseback, throwing spears at spinning targets with unerring precision. Eurybe sees them, shouts something to her friends, and the three of them pull together, racing side-by-side. At some unseen signal, they leap into the air, tumbling and moving round each other, and before Etta even has time to understand the danger they’re in, Celaneo and Phoebe are re-seated on each other’s horses, and Eurbye is holding all three women’s shields.

Etta whoops and claps, delighted beyond measure. She turns to Diana, looking to share in the wonder of it all, but Diana is carefully expressionless. Oh. Oh. She must want to be down there with the training, not held back here by Etta the fragile mortal.

“If you want to--” Etta starts, just as Diana says, “They are very--”

It’s the good kind of awkwardness, the easy clumsiness between friends, and Etta smiles as she insists Diana goes first. Diana may be a fearsome warrior, but she’s no match for Etta’s years of No, no, I insist.

“They are very skilled,” Diana says. “There’s a lot to admire in their talent and dedication.”

It’s a charming combination of sincere and grudging. Diana must really have missed fighting alongside her Amazons.

“If you wanted to join them, I wouldn’t mind.” Etta is smiling as she says it. She really wouldn’t -- Diana is being very kind, keeping her company like this, but there’s really no need. This isn’t Etta’s world; she’s happy enough to watch. Then, when Diana doesn’t immediately leap at the chance, Etta pushes: “I’d love to see what you can do.”

That’s all the excuse Diana needs. She grins at Etta, quick and challenging and utterly secure in herself, and flings herself towards the practice ground.

Etta is expecting some sort of break while Diana kits up or at least speaks to the practice coordinator, a poised, stern-looking woman of Sameer’s colouring. Etta is, on reflection, not very good at learning from experience.

Diana hits the practice ground in a flying leap that puts her squaring in the path of Phoebe’s oncoming horse. She ducks and rolls out of the way, taking a swing at Phoebe that nearly unseats her, at the same time deflecting a stray arrow with one of her wristbands.

The smile on her fact is wicked even from this distance. Diana is in her element -- she moves as if these are the steps to a dance she’s known all her life, twisting and weaving between duelling Amazons who happily break from their fights to attack her, blades clashing with Diana’s wrists, sweeping at her feet, cutting so close to her neck Etta can’t help but gasp.

Diana is a whirling agent of chaos, dodging and feinting, ducking and somersaulting, contorting her body in shapes as graceful as they are inhuman. She does a full circuit of the practice ground, disarming maybe a third of the women whose paths she crosses, drawing attacks and laughter in equal measure, often both at the same time.

Her final move is an impossibility of physics, an eyewatering jump onto the back of Celaneo’s horse. The two of them grapple while the horse races on, seemingly unperturbed by all this bipedal nonsense, until they fall as one. The dust blurs for a moment, and Celaneo and Diana have been swept up -- Celaneo by Phoebe, Diana by Eurybe -- the four of them riding forward together on two horses, panting and laughing, glowing with their own success.

Etta whoops and claps and jumps up and down. Diana looks up at her and salutes, to the indulgent smiles of many on the practice ground. Oh yes, of course, they think Etta is Diana’s consort. Because she can, because she wants to, Etta blows her a kiss.

Along with the food and the fighting, there are many other luxuries: hot baths and fresh perfumes; flowers woven into her hair by Celaneo and Phoebe; beautiful silk dresses draped around her as if she were royalty herself. The Amazons seem to enjoy having someone to pamper -- Etta is reminded uncomfortably of how she behaves towards the cats.

The third evening, there is a revue. The beach is lined with torches, the wine is flowing freely, and one woman after another gets up to sing, to dance, to recite poetry -- in English, of course, in deference to Diana’s consort.

Etta still hasn’t been formally introduced to Hippolyta, so she can’t sit by her and Diana, but her three new friends are by her, whispering explanations and making her laugh.

“This dance is traditionally performed with twelve oxen.” Celaneo is a barefaced liar.

“Indeed, indeed,” Phoebe agrees. “Today Xanthippe dances all their parts.”

There’s no bite to their words -- the joke is purely in its silliness, nothing bovine at all in Xanthippe’s powerfully athletic twisting jumps. When Xanthippe lands at last and bows, Etta and her new friends applaud loudly, cheering and shouting their delight.

“Will you perform?” Diana appears by Etta’s side without warning -- Etta’s heart flutters in surprise, nothing more. Her question is meant for the others, who give the two of them a matching set of knowing looks before agreeing that yes, of course, yes, that’s right, they’re planning to perform, they should go prepare, yes, somewhere that’s not here, that’s where they’re going to prepare for the performance they were absolutely planning on doing. Yes.

Diana shoos them off happily enough. “Are you enjoying the entertainment?” That question is for Etta -- Diana emphasises this by leaning in closely, her voice barely above a murmur.

“Absolutely! Everyone is so talented!” Etta gushes in this vein for a while -- long enough that Diana’s face takes on a slightly fixed expression, as if she hadn’t anticipated quite this level of enthusiasm. Etta must seem terribly gauche to her, like a country bumpkin faced with big city delights for the first time. Still. She asked, and Etta won’t be embarrassed by it. Everyone is so talented. They deserve to be appreciated.

“You see now how I am just one of many,” Diana says lightly.

“Oh no! Don’t be silly.” Etta is about to reassure her further -- no one could ever say that about Diana, not even Diana herself, not even to joke -- when Celaneo, Eurybe and Phoebe take to the brightly lit patch of sand that makes this evening’s stage.

There’s a smattering of applause, led by Etta, and then silence.

She’s not sure what to expect. Dancing? Acrobatics? An epic poem in three voices?

What she gets is none of these. Celaneo clears her throat, takes a sip from a goblet, and then begins to sing. She has a strong, clear voice, not overly practised but all the more evocative for that. She sings in a language Etta doesn’t recognise at all -- before Etta can ask, Diana is translating quietly in her ear.

“She sings of a princess alone in a castle.”

Eurybe starts to sing, a haunting not-quite harmony that threads itself through Celaneo’s melody.

“The sun shines in and the breeze carries the sea air. Through the smallest window flies a bird. Its wings are open. It cannot harm her.”

And Phoebe joins in now, the three of them raising their voices together, three tunes that come together and dart apart. Celaneo’s castle and Eurybe’s sea air and Phoebe’s bird.

“The bird is asking, ‘Why don’t you sing for me? Why don’t you sing with me?’”

Diana is resting a hand on Etta’s shoulder, the better to translate for her. The tip of one finger brushes against the bare skin of Etta’s neck, a barely there sensation that’s somehow all Etta can focus on. It’s all desperately unfair.

“The princess says she can’t sing. She is in love, and her father will not allow it. She must stay here until she has lost her heart.”

In the flickering torchlight, Diana looks more mortal than god. She looks vulnerable. A woman like other women. A heart like other hearts.

“The bird says it will bring the princess whatever she desires. Its wings are open. It cannot harm her.”

The singers’ voices swell together. Their harmonies send shivers down Etta’s spine.

“She asks for a kiss from her beloved. The bird flies away. It loves the princess. It cannot deny her this.”

And then Phoebe’s voice is alone, singing a single refrain over and over, slowly getting quieter.

“The bird is asking, ‘Where are you, my love’s love?’”

Phoebe’s voice fades into nothing. There is a silence like the rushing of the ocean, and then everyone but Etta bursts into rapturous applause.

“That’s it?” Etta demands. “What happens next?” She remembers herself enough to start clapping -- even manages a cheer, because the three of them have earned it and then some -- but she’s not happy. They can’t just end it there.

“That’s the song.” Diana sounds matter-of-fact, as if this isn’t an unnecessary cruelty in an already deeply unjust world. “The bird flies with each of us now.”

Etta humphs.

“Celaneo and her shield sisters can be trusted,” Diana says. Her voice is wistful, as if the song has affected her more than she’d like to let on. “If you wanted to tell them the truth about us, it would not harm our cause.”

In front of them, Celaneo, Eurybe and Phoebe are clutching each other and laughing as they leave the stage. Celaneo bends to hear whatever Phoebe is saying; Eurybe has an arm slung around each of them. Etta feels a twinge of something a little like jealousy. She’s not sure when she realised they’re lovers, but now she knows she can’t unsee it, it’s in every movement, every breath.

Maybe Diana’s wistfulness is for them. Etta doesn’t know the done thing here when it comes to joining an established relationship for a night -- but if Diana wants to be free to indulge, Etta’s not going to stand in her way.

“Do you want me to--?” She’s not quite sure how to phrase it. Or, no, she knows exactly how to phrase it, but she doesn’t want to. Selfishly, she wants to keep this pretence a little longer, to deny Diana this little crumb of happiness for the sake of her own fragile heart. She makes herself say it: “Of course we can tell them. You should feel free to go to them. Obviously.”

Well, if nothing else, she now knows what Diana looks like completely poleaxed. As with every other expression Diana has, it’s rather charming.

“I. That is.” Diana cuts herself off, regroups as if recovering from a blow to the head. “I thought you wanted to?”

The wine and the music and the absurdity of the whole situation are too much. Etta bursts out laughing. “Me?” She can’t help herself -- the more gobsmacked Diana looks, the funnier it gets, until Etta is clutching her sides and trying to stop herself from rolling onto her back. It takes most of a very sweet poem about agriculture for her to get her breath back, through all of which Diana wears an expression like someone has bopped her on the nose.

“They would welcome you,” Diana says at last. “I’m sure of it.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say,” Etta says. She means it. “But --” She tries to think of an explanation that isn’t just they’re not you. “It would be like me trying to wield your sword,” she settles on. “We’re not of the same world.”

Diana’s pokerface does not do well in the torchlight. She breaths out a little oh of disappointment -- she must really have thought Etta wanted to be with the others.

“It was a very nice thought, though,” Etta says, patting her on the hand. “Thank you.”

She leaves her hand there for a moment. For verisimilitude, of course.

#

The next morning, Etta is -- finally -- formally introduced to Queen Hippolyta with all the pomp and ceremony one might imagine. Trumpets are blown, silks are donned, swords and shields are held high. It’s all a bit much fuss, really, for a woman far more used to bustling unnoticed behind the scenes. But tradition is tradition, and Etta wouldn’t offend Diana’s mother for the world.

Everything blurs together, most of it in Amazonian Greek Etta has no hope of following, until Queen Hippolyta takes both of Etta’s hands in hers and says, “Σε γιγνώσκων χαίρω.”

Etta has been coached in this one, and is able to reply in kind: “Σε γιγνώσκων χαίρω.”

Its literal translation, Diana told her, is very close to Pleased to meet you -- but within the context of this particular meeting, it stands for welcome and acceptance, an offer of kinship passed down from queen to queen and offered outwards to a chosen few only.

This moment marks the point where Etta becomes free to court Diana under Amazonian custom. Not that anyone has worried much about that over the last few days -- amazing what a spot of hypothermia will do to grease the wheels of propriety -- but from here on in Etta will have to step it up. It also marks the point where Etta can speak to the Themysciran Council. Politics have been on hold for the last few days, the Amazons united in their delight at Diana’s return, but Diana is keen to make her arguments while the iron of goodwill is still hot.

“I truly am pleased to meet you,” Hippolyta whispers in Etta’s ear, the two of them still holding their tableau of supplicant and benefactor as the trumpets blast on. “I hope to see you stand by Diana’s side.”

Guilt pounds in Etta’s chest. This is Diana’s mother, of all people -- lying to her feels something close to a sin.

“I will do anything I can for her,” Etta says. Your daughter is a miracle, she wants to say. Forget her physical strength; it’s her heart that can move mountains. But she doesn’t say that. It’s a little too honest, a little too close to a truth she can only look at sideways.

Hippolyta’s gaze is rather shrewder than Etta would like.

More pomp, more ceremony, more trumpets, more swords, and Etta is shuffled off stage right to wait in a cool antechamber lavishly supplied with soft cushions and honeyed treats.

The first meeting of the Themysciran Council since Diana returned is this afternoon. Now that Etta’s been formally introduced to -- and accepted by -- Hippolyta, she has as much right to watch the open proceedings as any Amazon.

In the antechamber, eating her third delicious honey-and-pastry morsel, Etta wonders if the Council will recognise the Diana who speaks to them today. Back home, any number of families sent their boys off to war and expected to have the same men return to them -- a year or two older, a year or two wiser, but not substantially changed. And that was out in the world of men, where change was at least a fact of life, not here in this beautiful, stagnant paradise, where a year is no time at all.

She doesn’t want to think about it. She wants to enjoy this pastry, to go and bother the cats -- but too many mothers’ sons returned from the Front too altered for her to push this aside.

Who do they see when they look at Diana? ‘Drastic action,’ that was what Diana had said they might want to take, and that was just based on what mortals like Etta had done to each other, not what they’d done to Diana.

She puts the pastry down. She’s lost her appetite.

Was it worth it? Maybe the isolationists have a point. Maybe the island would be better off without Etta and her wars.

#

“They are cruel,” Xanthippe says. “They choose to be cruel.”

Xanthippe is an isolationist. She has been nothing but welcoming to Etta -- when Etta congratulated her on her beautiful dancing last night, Xanthippe swept her up into a hug and said how pleased she was Diana had found someone. But in her heart, Xanthippe looks at the world of men and sees darkness.

“They find new ways to kill each other at a scale we cannot even imagine. If a man could slay ten thousand others with a snap of his fingers, he would not hesitate.”

Far more than half of the Council’s voting members are nodding. Many of them have raised blue feathers, a non-binding gesture of agreement that makes Diana hiss quietly between her teeth. It puts Etta in mind of a kettle that is coming to the boil.

“We have done our work for them,” Xanthippe argues. Her voice is steady but passionate. She puts Etta in mind of an avenging angel. “We have protected them from Ares. One of our own, our beloved Diana, killed Ares for them, and has been forever altered as a result.”

Etta puts her hand on Diana’s. It’s not a surprise, and yet-- And yet, how dare she? How dare she look at what Diana has done, what Diana has been through, and use that to score points? How dare she treat Diana as a political object?

Etta threads her fingers through Diana’s, thinking as hard as she can, Don’t listen to them. You’re perfect.

Diana gives her a reassuring squeeze back.

“What duty do we owe them now? Must we bleed ourselves dry for them, all of ourselves lost trying to slake their endless thirst for death? They are creatures of horror and pain. We no more help them than we can empty the oceans or cool the sun.”

“They are not creatures!” Diana is up and shouting, dragging Etta’s hand with her. “Don’t talk about them as though they are less than us.”

Etta thinks of offering Diana some advice. She doesn’t pretend to be a leader like Diana, or a hero like Diana, but she knows a little about changing the minds of those who like to think they are rational. Let Xanthippe argue herself out, she wants to say. Let her words sit with the Council, just that little bit too overwrought, and be the calm, quiet voice of reason who suggests to them perhaps their hearts shouldn’t rule their heads.

Instead, she whispers into Diana’s ear, “Thank you.”

Diana doesn’t look at her, too busy glaring defiantly at her mother, but she keeps hold of Etta’s hand.

Xanthippe accepts Diana’s interjection with better grace than Etta expected. Then again, Etta’s only ever watched men debate like this.

“Thank you,” Xanthippe says. “You are right, of course. I should not have spoken like that. They are not creatures. There is nothing in their nature that means they should be less than us. Zeus made them, as he made us, and all Zeus makes has the capacity for great and terrible things.

“And yet they choose to do what they do. They choose to act according to the evil in their hearts, not the goodness. Where there could be peace, they choose war. Where there could be justice, they choose suffering. They are endlessly cruel -- and it is this choice that separates them from us.”

Diana is still quietly fuming, her grip on Etta’s hand just this side of too painful. Xanthippe takes her seat, and Diana whispers to Etta, “She doesn’t mean it. She doesn’t really think of you like that.”

It’s so sweet, so utterly Diana, that Etta can’t help herself. She presses a quick, soft kiss to Diana’s cheek, the merest brush of lips, and tries to ignore the pounding in her chest.

Diana blinks at her, her mouth a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. The tiniest blush dusts along the top of her cheekbones. Dimly, Etta’s aware of the rest of the Council, the other Amazons. But to be quite honest, she doesn’t give two figs.

“Thank you,” Etta says again. Her mouth is dry, and her lips still tingle where they touched Diana’s cheek. Lightning shoots down her spine. “We’re lucky to have you in our corner.”

If Diana has an answer, she waits too long to give it -- it’s her turn up before the Council, her moment to shine.

Good luck! Etta mouths. Diana flashes her something a little too small and private to be called a smile.

“My sisters,” Diana begins. She stands with her hands gripping the podium, every inch of her righteous and unafraid. “I stand before you asking not for judgment, but for hope.

“I cannot tell you that the world of men is a paradise. I cannot tell you that men are good, that what lives in their hearts is pure. But I can tell you of a man I knew, a thief and a liar, a smuggler and a murderer, who gave his life to save others, not because he had to but because he could.”

She paints a picture of Captain Trevor that is at the same time exactly the man Etta knew and nothing like him. Etta’s Captain Trevor was a good man but a driven one, someone who did not always make the time he needed to make for the people and the things he claimed to value, someone who sought thrills as much as duty. She loved him -- still does -- for his faults as much as his virtues, but she never saw the boyishness Diana describes, never saw the gentleness Diana brought out in him. Never saw the hope.

Now she’s describing his friends -- Sameer, Charlie and the Chief -- and Etta’s heart hurts to see them through Diana’s eyes. Sameer the actor, whose passion and loyalty inspires it in all he meets. Charlie the singer, whose heart is too big for the world he has found himself in. The Chief, a man of great dignity and insight, who remakes the world around him a little bit lighter, a little bit kinder than it was before.

Diana’s voice falters a little when it comes to Captain Trevor’s death. Etta knows this story inside and out, had thought she’d cried all the tears she could over it. Turns out there are some more left to shed.

“He did not believe me -- but he brought me to Ares anyway, because he believed in me. And when I abandoned him in my own selfishness and confusion, he continued. His father told him that if you see something wrong in the world, you can either do nothing or you can do something. He did something.

“That is who I am asking you not to abandon. My own choice is clear. Etta and I will return to the world of men, whatever you do or don’t decide. But I am asking you to remember that you were made by Zeus out of his love for man, and that love was neither foolish nor misplaced. They need us, and we need them.”

There are fewer blue feathers than Etta would like. The voting members of the Council look far from convinced. Hippolyta is frowning.

#

Etta falls into a troubled sleep that evening, the kittens curled up one against each shoulder, their soft little noses pressed against her neck.

She wakes to hands shaking her. It’s dark -- Celaneo is the one touching her; Eurybe and Phoebe hover with her, each clutching a candle.

“Diana--?” she asks, her voice instinctively lower, her heart pounding in fear. A quiet voice at the back of her mind suggests that if something had happened to Diana, they wouldn’t come to her like this, but it’s only when Celaneo shakes her head that Etta can calm herself, focus on whatever it is that has really brought them to her like thieves in the night.

“Xanthippe means to do the ritual tonight,” Phoebe says. “You must run now.”

“We have readied a boat for you,” Eurybe continues for her. “You can make it to neutral waters before-- Before.”

Sometime in the night the kittens migrated to curl up by her knees. They’re now stirring, making the tiny little mews and chirrups of small mammals disturbed from sleep. Etta wishes she could take comfort from them, but all she can think about is Diana. Oh, oh, poor Diana. Whatever happens, this will break her heart.

Right. Now is not the time for mawkish nonsense. “Where?” she demands.

The three of them look at each other sheepishly, none ready to meet Etta’s gaze but, the saving grace, none ready to tell her no.

“Celaneo. Eurybe. Phoebe. You’ve all done a brave, strong thing tonight, and I’m so, so grateful to you. If you can’t tell me, you can’t tell me, and that’s no shame on you. But don’t you think Diana deserves a choice?”

One of the cats butts at Celaneo’s hand where it’s still resting on Etta’s shoulder. Celaneo looks down at it, then at Etta.

“The Fiveshore Beach,” she says to the cat. “Where we sang for you.”

“Thank you.” Etta means it with every fibre of her being.

“Diana sleeps one floor above you, two rooms towards the coast,” Phoebe adds, pointing up and to Etta’s left.

Ettas rushes barefoot along the cold marble floors, taking the stairs two, maybe three at a time in her haste to make it to Diana before it’s too late. The thumping of her heart and the fear rushing through her veins drown out everything but her need to get to Diana, to tell her, to give her the choice.

“Diana!” She bursts into Diana’s room -- and thank goodness, it is the right one -- and forces the words out, as quickly and concisely as she knows how.

Diana, every inch the soldier, has gone instantly from asleep to alert. She takes in Etta’s panted words and nods once, sharply. Disappointed but not, Etta thinks, surprised.

“My mother’s rooms are in the Summer Tower. Go now, and tell her what is happening, then run to the boat my sisters have prepared for you. I will go to the beach. If I have not come to you in ten minutes, you must leave.”

Etta’s mouth opens and then closes. Diana didn’t see the look on Hippolyta’s face that afternoon. Etta doesn’t want to be the one to break this to her, but she can’t let Diana go into this unprepared.

“Ah.” Diana is no one’s fool. “Yes. You’re right. My mother will already be there.” In that moment she looks older, sadder -- but unbowed. “You must go to the boats now. I will try to stop them, but I may fail, and I could not bear to fail you.”

She takes Etta’s face in her hands and kisses her once, gently, on the side of the mouth, an echo of the kiss Etta gave her earlier today. For a moment, Etta could quite believe that it has burned itself into her skin.

“Go,” Etta says, flapping her hands towards the door, “go! You’re a wonder. I’m infinitely lucky to have known you.”

Diana pauses at the door, her nightdress drawn around her like battle armour, her hair wreathing her face like a crown. “Whatever happens, Etta Candy, know that you are a gift.”

Etta watches her go, takes a deep, painful breath, and counts to fifty. It’s enough time to put one of Diana’s cloaks over her own nightdress and find some shoes to slip on her bare feet.

“Go to the boat,” she mutters to herself. “I mean, really.”

She arrives at the beach to find Diana fighting in earnest, none of the fun and twice the skill she demonstrated on the practice grounds. She’s fending off three people, carefully keeping herself between the Amazons and a large golden bowl that glows with its own eerie inner light. Her mother, Xanthippe and a half dozen other Amazons are waiting, swords drawn, to continue the ritual.

Diana ducks and weaves, dodges and parries -- but even from here it’s obvious she’s not going in for the kill. There’s desperation in her blade, but no anger, no righteousness. It’s not going to be enough. She doesn’t even need to fall for the others to get past her, just to be overwhelmed for a moment.

There’s nothing Etta can do but summon to herself every inch of every person she’s ever fought beside and worked beside, every confrontation and every workaround, every tiny bit of herself she’s hidden away for years, and yell, “STOP!”

To her very great surprise, everyone does. They turn to her as one, and for a moment the only sounds are ragged breathing and the unnatural whine coming from whatever’s happening inside the gold bowl.

Diana is the first to speak. “Mother,” she says, her voice full of a thousand unspoken things.

“Diana,” Hippolyta says.

Etta doesn’t know what it means, but she understands the determination on Diana’s face, and has her hands out to catch something before she even realises Diana has thrown it.

It’s that bloody lasso. Terrified and overwhelmed as Etta is, she still has enough of herself left to think, Oh no.

“Put this around your wrists,” Diana says, “and tell them the truth.”

And what else can she do but obey?

The lasso feels like a trap closing and a door opening all at once. Like being hit by a tank. Like coming home.

“Diana told me about your first encounter with my world as it is now,” she hears herself say. The words rise up from her heart unbidden, and it’s all she can do to marshal them into some sort of order as they spill out from her. “I’m so sorry for your losses that day. I cannot begin to fathom the grief that you still hold.

“We are brutish. We have short little mayfly lives compared to yours, and yet we still find the time to fill them with evil deeds. I can’t pretend we deserve you in all your glory and grace.”

Etta clamps her mouth shut. The rope around her wrists begins to heat. If Captain Trevor couldn’t hold out against this, she has no business trying -- all she wants is the dignity of being able to say this in her own time, in her own way.

At least, she thinks to herself as the rope goes from painful to unbearable, at least she’s already given this one some thought.

“But what I can ask you is this. Who deserves anyone?” She’s had these thoughts before. Quietly, privately. But to hear them out loud, spoken by her and through her, is another, more painful thing. “Hippolyta, dear, do you deserve your daughter? Or do you simply love her as well as you’re able and just hope that’s enough?”

Hippolyta nods at that, a barely-there gesture that acknowledges the truth of motherhood. Etta thinks of her own mother. She thinks of her friends. She thinks of her girls this last year, digging graves with bleeding hands.

“We, humanity, the world of men, we’re all the things you called us and more. We’ve been doing terrible things to each other since Cain murdered Abel. I’ve done some of them. Many of the best men and women I’ve known have been liars, thieves, killers. Many of the worst people I’ve known have been none of those things. I’m--”

I’m not ashamed, she wants to say. The lasso looks into her heart and shapes her words for her.

“I face you, trying to account for our sins, and I’m ashamed.

“But even if we weren’t cruel, and even if we hadn’t done terrible things, could we ever deserve you? And you, coming here in secret, at night, to break a compact you made with Zeus himself. What have you done to deserve us?”

To her embarrassment, Etta realises she’s crying. She wipes at her eyes quickly, then forces a smile. The lasso searches for more truth to eke out of her, but what is there left to say? The Amazons are listening to her. They’ve lowered their swords, though Diana still remains protectively between them and the site of the ritual.

Only one thing. She tries to hold it in. She tries to cover her mouth. She can’t, and she can’t bear to look at Diana, not now, not with this last truth boiling up inside her.

“I could love your daughter.” Shame burns through her, hotter and harsher than the lasso could ever manage. She’s been given so much, and still she’s had the gall to demand more, to put Diana in this ugly, impossible position at a time when she needs only kindness and friendship. “I don’t deserve her either. I could never hope to. But that’s what it is to be human. We are so much less than the grace we receive, and all we do is ask for more.

“And in that, I think, we are not so different from you after all. Diana, I’m sorry, I never--”

Hippolyta is in front of her, pulling the rope from Etta’s wrists. “Enough. We have heard enough.”

With a single graceful swing of her sword, quicker than the eye can follow, she cuts something away from the ritual site. The bowl’s eerie light dims and disappears, leaving them lit only by the thin crescent moon and a couple of torches.

Xanthippe starts to speak, but Hippolyta silences her with a raised hand. “No. We were wrong to do this in the darkness. I was wrong. I was afraid.” She bows her head. “Diana. I am sorry.”

But Diana isn’t looking at Hippolyta. Diana is gazing, with shining eyes, straight at Etta herself.

Etta stumbles towards her, her feet suddenly unsteady.

“I’m sorry, Diana,” Etta says, quiet enough for Diana’s ears only. No truth compels her, only the wish not to pour a drop more trouble into this amazing woman’s life. “I never meant to put you in this position.”

Diana doesn’t reply. She takes Etta’s face in her hands, kisses her on one cheek, then the other, then pulls back, looks her straight in the eye.

“I had thought my heart was safe for a time,” Diana says. She’s speaking quietly, but not hushed, not mindful of their audience -- these are words that can only be shared in quiet tones, between people who trust each other. “It was not.”

Then they’re kissing, in front of God and Hippolyta and near a dozen Amazons. Diana’s lips are a revelation, her embrace warm and certain, a rock against the tide of passion that threatens to sweep Etta off her feet.

She can feel the kiss all the way to her toes -- like the finest of wines, the darkest of chocolates, it’s almost too rich for her, too heady, but at the same time, what else could she expect? She doesn’t deserve Diana -- if Diana chooses her even so, all she can do is hold on, try not to get swept away.

“Goodness,” Etta says, pulling back just enough to check that this is real. Diana wouldn’t be so cruel without good reason, but the fate of the world is worth more than one lightly-used human heart. “I--”

“Yes.” Diana’s voice is an embrace. The truth flows from her eyes to Etta’s heart. There is no room for doubt.

Etta does the only thing she can do -- she kisses Diana again.

###