10379/What Are We Doing Here

What Are We Doing Here
Date of Scene:	07 March 2022
Location:	Diana's Office: Themysciran Embassy
Synopsis:	Cassie tries to learn kewl powers but FAILS. To be continued!
Cast of Characters:	Diana Prince, Cassie Sandsmark

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Diana Prince has posed:
Diana had woken Cassie up from her room at the Embassy pretty early, and told her she was going to go with her for a 'task' in a far away place. How vague...

Once the blond was indeed awake, she'd been told Diana was already waiting for her up within the Invisible Jet on the roof. Sure enough, when the young Amazon girl made her way up THERE, she'd find Diana behind the controls of the Jet, within its spacious interior, hovering over the courtyard at the heart of the impressive New York building.

"Ah, finally." Diana quips, as she sees Cassie entering the Jet, her eyes casting back over her shoulder. "I am not sure if you are waking up quicker, or taking longer, the older you get." She teases with a grin before she would look forward to the front of the unusual vehicle for which the Amazons use to traverse the world, let alone what lies beyond...

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Although Cassie embodies many stereotypes of an 'American Youth,' the inability to get up early is not one of them. She's far too used to Amazon training regimens, as well as far more boring things like her own very crowded combination of class schedule and hero-ing.

That doesn't mean she LIKES it, tho.

So there's some yawning and stretching, some mumbled questions about where they're going and if the world is gonna be destroyed. Which it doesn't really SEEM like it is. So she takes a moment or two to throw water in her face and otherwise freshen up, before changing into some of her typical WonderBrand gear and making it up to the roof. Apparently, her route went through the kitchen, because she's munching on a muffin as she walks up the walkway into the invisible jet. Ferdinand, always a life-saver!

She starts to answer, mouth still, pauses to chew and swallow and then continues, "It didn't sound like an emergency," she answers, ambling over to plop into the co-pilot seat that extrudes itself from the ever-changing plane to accomodate her as she approaches. "So I figured it could wait long enough that I wouldn't be crime-fighting in my undies. Where ARE we going?"

Diana Prince has posed:
"Europe." Diana replied to the still drowsy Amazon warrior.

The Invisible Jet had shot off up up and away! In to the sky it flew, but at this kind of speed, it wouldn't take all day!

It didn't take more than a few hours, in fact, and they were around the globe and heading across rural European landscape. "We have been asked to meet someone today, who has a very special project out here, that I thought you might enjoy helping me with..." The Princess finally explained as they drew closer to the spot they were apparently headed.

Eventually the Jet flies right over a series of trucks, that look military in nature. It starts to lower down before Diana puts it in stand-by mode, and she turns around in her chair and reaches for her blue and gold Eagle robe. With it draped over her shoulders, Diana makes sure Cassie is coming, and heads for the ramp that is extended down toward the ground below.

Outside is a beautiful scene of rolling green grassy hills, and distant trees, with the tops of buildings peaking up just over them, such as the steeple of a distant church. Truly classic iconic European style, but between that and here, is long stretching fields of swaying grass...

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Sadly, Cassie's heroic exploits and experience have brought her to the point where even such a sudden, rapid, globe-trotting trip to an exciting location is... well, not really anything special! Her response: "Oh yeah?"

Not even (quite) old enough to drink, and already so jaded!

Still, the alternative was probably an even less exciting day of her usual routine in the city. And with Diana being so mysterious about everything, she's only left to wonder about exactly what it is they're going to do, who they're going to meet. There's no applicable guesswork, even: she has no clue! So all there is to do is wait, feet kicked up on the alien dashboard.

And then... they're here! There? Wherever!

Cassie, indeed, is right behind Diana, since there's no purpose in lingering. No fancy regalia for her to put on... although she does give her actual gear a quick check, bracers, lassos, shuriken earrings (what?!), etc. Then once the ramp opens, she walks to the edge and all too casually steps off, sailing downward the small remaining distance at a controlled pace.

"Alright, well, this is pretty," she remarks, enjoying the view from up high before they get any nearer to the ground. "Don't think I recognize it." Her head turns left, and right. "Don't see any smoke or signs of disaster, either..."

Diana Prince has posed:
There is a pathway on the ground that is painted similarly to that of the lines on a football field. They run straight to where the Invisible Jet is hovering, and where the two Amazons appear in the sky...

And a pair of men are walking down the middle of that pathway. One of them raises his hand up to Diana as they appear.

"Diana." He calls out, which causes the Princess to show a light smile as she waves back, then puts a hand on Cassie's back and guides them both down to the ground...

Once boots are on the ground, Diana waits for the two men to approach. "Do not step beyond the white lines." Diana warns Cassie then, as she steps around her to put her back to the approaching men, her blue robe flowing gently about her tall bodied form.

She faces Cassie directly. "This is the middle of a minefield." Diana tells the Wonderous Girl.

"Dating very very far back..."

The two men reach the women, and the leader of the two, in his middle aged years, greets them with kind words, in an accented English voice. "Welcome..." He says "It is so good to see you both here."

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
The lack of explanation and odd setup, lines and all, these draw some curious glances from Cassie, but still... nothing major. It's not until they set down, Diana leading the way, and that explanation is given, that she has more of a reaction. Which is... for her eyes to widen slightly in surprise, before her expression shifts, perhaps not toward terror, as a normal human would if informed of such circumstances, but toward what looks like a bit of frustrated disappointment.

"What, we're gonna spend the day picking them up?"

Humanitarian cause that it would be, she nonetheless sounds about like one might expect any kid to sound if they'd just been told to spend the day cleaning their room. Or maybe even, if you'd dragged them to the beach promising a fun day out and then told them they were picking up trash. Better metaphor, that second one. Valuable volunteer work, but STILL A CHORE.

However, midway through an eyeroll, something does seem to dawn on her, no doubt caused by the last thing Diana said. "Wait, is this-"

But there are people coming to talk to them, and so she turns instead to being her usual sunny self. Oh, they can English. That's great, cause she sucks at ALL the languages she speaks. "Uh, heya. I'm Cassie, nice to meetcha. Glad to be here, sure is a scenic... old battlefield you've got here."

Diana Prince has posed:
The man introduces himself as Henrik Narquell, a specialist in the matter of this type of mine removal process. He shakes hands with Cassie, and with Diana, before he introduces the second man as a member of the local military, who just so happens to be young, and around Cassie's age. Naturally he gives Cassie a big smile, but also gives one to Diana too... so.

"I am so relieved to have your help with this." Henrik begins, apparently Cassie nailed it. Mine removal? Work!? Ugh!

He goes on a little to talk about how the nearby town is cleared out, and should the explosions get loud, no one will mind, as they are the only ones out here for kilometers to spare. Once Henrik rambles a bit, he, and the soldier he's with, start back to their vehicles, while Diana turns to Cassie again, and grins. "Yes. Mine removal... But... with a twist. Come with me."

The Princess heads to the north, while the two men are headed northwest. There's another path that leads up to a near by grassy hill, where flags replace the chalky lines, and gently sway in the winds. "I wanted to take this opportunity to combine two things..." Diana says as they walk. Her hands move to remove the robe from around her shoulders, and then she folds it over her forearms, her bracers now hidden beneath the cloak. "I wanted you to see a bit of the country side that I first laid eyes upon after I left Themyscira... But, I also wanted you to... have precisely what you asked for." She says, following this up with a smile for her sister.

Once the two reach the top of the grassy hill, Diana sets the robe down on the ground, then turns back to the field.

"Are you ready?" She asks, allowing a pregnant pause there to add to the continuous unending mystery of how she's treating Wonder Girl today.

"For your training." Diana says, raising her forearms up now to cross them together, letting that 'hint' feed Cassie's imagination.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Well, that makes Cassie two for two on her guesses!

Still, despite any momentary disappointment at the idea of such a mundane chore, Cassie doesn't really complain beyond that. Despite some tendencies, she's not exactly a kid, either, and knows full well that plenty of the work they do isn't glamorous, and that it's important work! Heck, she's probably given a talk on it at some point, with all that her whole 'Themysciran Youth Ambassador' shtick often has her talking to students and other young people about all those terrible things in the world that they should have raised awareness of. So, trapped by her own heroic rhetoric, here!

Thus the local contingent gets only the best of the Wonder Spirit. "Happy to what we can to help. Sucks that a war so long ago could still leave its mark on a place as nice an' quiet as this, still maybe even hurt people." Maybe there's a little chance for chitchat with Henrik's younger counterpart: where she goes to school, how he got into the military, etc. But not much. Soon work raises its ugly head. They've got things to do. "I'll catch you later maybe, after we're done with all of this."

And so off they go!

As Diana and Cassie march up the hill, she has her phone out, getting a few shots of the countryside, and then turning on the face cam for a quick video narration. "So today I'm helping Wonder Woman with a very important task. Did you know that world wide, there's estimated to be more than a hundred million unexploded mines, and that yearly they kill or injure..." It may be a stupid tiktok video, but... she's actually good at this stuff.

Further on, as Diana talks about the place where they've ended up, she admits she's figured at least that much out: "I figured, once they said they were so old. It's really pretty. I'd miss it too, I bet." Eventually, they make it to the top of the hill. Why there? Who knows. She's not sure about the process for all of this. Awareness is one thing. "Ready?" She's still in the dark. "I know we're less prone to injury, but this seems a little low-tech a way to go about this. Oughta ask Batman about-"

Then she does the blink-y-blink.

"Haha, what? For real? I mean, yeah, sure!" Suddenly, it's not so boring. She tucks away her phone, turns so she's standing the same way as Diana, and mimics her posture. "But I don't have any idea, like... do you just hit them really hard? I've tried that. All it does is make a really loud CLANG."

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana raises her eyebrows at the video being taken, but even she is aware of Tik Tok. She's made a few of them too. Her attempts at cooking have garnered her the most views... don't ask!

The Princess smiles at the response she gets about the training, and she moves around behind Cassie then, over her left shoulder. "It is more than that..." Diana says calmly to her. She paces around to the other shoulder. "Bring them up." She says. Yes. Like that.." Diana leans forward then so they are ear to ear. "Our father is Zeus. Our bracers are made from his Aegis shield. Our power is the same... To do what I do, you must think the way that I think. Feel the same things I felt the first time I found this power within myself."

Diana steps beside Cassie now, and slowly brings her own bracelets up to press them gently together. "I focus on what means the most to me." Diana says, staring between her fists at the grassy fields below. "I picture what I love the most, what I need, the most, and what I fear to lose the most." She lowers her arms again to her sides, and turns to face the right side of Cassie, watching the younger one's hair flowing in the wind, just like her own on this nice warm afternoon.

"You are not just slamming your arms together. You are channeling your strongest emotions, your strongest ... passions... in to your mind's forefront. Everything... that makes you... get out of bed in the morning, and fight... for what you believe in. You have to /feel/ your passion in yourself, when you do this. It cannot be half hearted."

Diana twinkles her eyes, and shows a little quick grin. "Your whole heart. Sass, and all..."

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Well I kinda figured there had to be more to it, considering it never worked..." Logic!

Still, Cassie stands relatively still and obediently for the correction and instruction that follows. It is far from the first time that Diana has picked apart every little detail of her posture, told her how to stand, hold to hold herself, how to move. How to feel? That might be a little bit trickier. Yet she listens. Well, mostly listens. "Right, right. Dad stuff." It's a reminder, of course, of the big picture that can sometimes be easy to lose in the day-to-day of things, when 'hero stuff' can feel more like a cool job and less like some higher calling. Maybe it's even a bit preferable sometimes, to normalize it, so that everything isn't quite so grandiose. She expels a breath. "Right."

Taking that moment, she shakes her arms loose, rolls her shoulders, and then her neck, as if a wave flows from one set of muscles to the next, drawing away whatever tension is there. After that momentary bit of stretching, she adopts again the posture that Diana first instructs, and then demonstrates in her own movement. Getting the form right isn't the hard part, of course. She's practiced and trained, done the drills for years now. When that French soldier-boy was talking her up about his training, she'd had to stop herself from accidentally saying anything patronizing. Boys often don't like it when you remind them you're as good as their special forces /without/ your powers, that you're already a veteran... of alien war.

Basically, form is the easy part.

But the other part is harder. "Yeah, so... basically all the hero stuff, why you do this in the first place," she reflects, closing her eyes to think about it. "Alright."

A moment of silent meditation, focus, calm. Then she opens her eyes, staring ahead with her typical fiery determination, opens her arms wider from their previous position, holds a moment, and then brings them together again with a shout!

CLANG.

"Ugh."