12033/Unconvential Entrance

Unconvential Entrance
Date of Scene:	07 July 2022
Location:	105 W 29th - Jon and Cael's Apartment
Synopsis:	Donna drops by Jon's apartment and uses the DOOR like a HEATHEN. And then they talk about identity and trust and what it's not to not exist.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Jonathan Sims

---

Donna Troy has posed:
    It has been a little while since Donna became Donna again. A busy while for her, catching up on what has been going on, dealing with the /regular/ emergencies that crop up, and trying to find the time to be deeply introspective. Mostly failing, though.

    Time for introspection can be a scarce commodity for those who lead the lifestyle of a superhero. Donna and Jon both have good reason to be aware of that right now.

    She has been ticking things off her list, though, and one of the things on the list is to talk to Jonathan Sims. She probably owes Jon a thank you for his contributions to dealing with the problem of Wonderland, which she has been absent for. She definitely needs to discuss the final resolution with Michael; she'd missed out on that, with the whole not existing thing.

    Mostly though, she needs to check up on them. Jon has taken a lot on their shoulders lately with the Justice League Dark, and someone of the more established heroes needs to be around to give support where needed. The Justice League tends to be a bit hands-off when it comes to their newer, darker sibling. The Titans are perhaps a little more comfortable dealing with the arcane.

    If there is some irony in Donna worrying about other people taking too much on their shoulders, it is at least an irony she is aware of. Were she questioned about it, she would probably say 'Nevertheless...' and leave it at that. And she'd be right.

    Messages have been exchanged, and a meeting arranged. A visit to Jon's house is no hardship; it's not that far from the embassy, and Donna is there a lot. It will perhaps be startling to Jon, given his experience of visitations from Titans, that when she shows up, it is not at his balcony. Rather, just a few minutes later than arranged, Donna rings on his door bell like a complete /savage./

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon was very busy for deeply personal reasons--between his girlfriend become a werewolf/jackal, and then facing down his former mentor/nemesis, and having some... issues... with Ma'at, life's been a little nuts. And he's terribly depressed just now, though he's treating it as an illness more than anything else. Staying home a lot, gardening, taking care of his cat.

    Oh, and there was all the business with killing a couple of people, and then trying to /not/ kill a couple of people, and Beast Boy coming to berate him for his part in Terry's part in that. Wonderland was practically a vacation, compared to some of what's been going on in Jon's life lately.

    The ring on his door bell /does/ surprise Jon. They don't have many visitors, and most of those have, indeed, come in through the balcony. People can fly, so why /not/ come in through the balcony? Jon didn't /only/ move into the larger apartment because the balcony makes it easier to go flying if he wants to, but it was a big part of the draw.

    At the ring of the door bell, he puts down the book he's reading--Die unendliche Geschichte or The Neverending Story, in the original German--and goes to flip on the kettle before opening the door.

    He looks... different. His hair's black rather than wild colors, and he's shaved off his beard. He's wearing a bronze ankle-length skirt and a green t-shirt, and he looks both terribly tired and somehow more relaxed than Donna might even remembering him looking. As if he'd been putting up a front that hid all the wear and tear, even after coming back from being tortured, and he's just dropped all the pretense.

    They smile broadly and... actually offer Donna a hug as they open the door. "It's good to see you! I've put the kettle on, if you want tea or anything."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Jon has spent time with Donna more recently than Donna has spent time with Jon, sort of. To be more specific, while Donna was in a state of non-existence, the Jon had spent time with the Troia-Who-Might-Have-Been in her place. There were a lot of similarities, but also many differences.

    That Troia never smiled this wide.

    "It's good to see you Jon," she says, returning the hug warmly once it's offered. She had been good at giving Jon physical space when they returned from Duat not feeling the mood for hugs, but if Jon's going to offer, she wouldn't say no.

    "You know what? Make it a chai," she says with a grin. "I assume that's what you're having." She accompanies him to the kitchen rather than leaving him to fetch two cups, moving through the apartment with a polite deference to Jon's lead that he can probably read intent in. She has a confidence and self-possession some can find intimidating; she makes an effort not to let herself seem /too/ at home in other people's domains. It does not preclude a subtle but definite attention paid to her surroundings though - visiting someone's home can tell you a lot about them.

    "It has been a while since we talked properly," she says as they wait for the kettle to boil. "I... kind of missed a lot. The climax to the Michael thing. A whole lot of Wonderland nonsense that sounds even more nonsensical that usual, from the reports. And I'm pretty sure at least a dozen other items of trouble you've managed to get into without any Titan assistance."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon laughs. "Actually, I often have Earl Grey of an afternoon, but I can make chai." There's a couple of dog beds and a cat tower; the latter is inhabited by a truly large black-and-red cat who peers at Donna lazily and then goes back to sleeping. The dog on one of the beds, shaggy and large, all cream and grey like the tea Jon just mentioned, gets up to pad over and wag her tail at Donna and then bark a greeting. A friendly greeting; Donna doesn't seem to read as dangerous to the dog.

    "Wonderland actually made /perfect/ sense," Jon notes as he goes into the kitchen and pulls out a saucepan, puts in some water, and puts it on the heat. "It's all actually a frenzied attempt to pretend all is well in the face of overwhelming grief. That's why so much of the logic holds together in its strange way, but certain things fall apart the moment you poke at them. But there /was/ some pretty... wacky stuff going on."

    He goes about pulling out milk and spices and a mortar and pestle, as if grinding up spices for tea is a normal everyday occurrence. Cardamom, pepper, cinnamon, gloves, a bit of ginger, star anise, nutmeg--and then /rose petals/, evidently. Hunh.

    "I've managed to get into /all/ sorts of trouble, some of it Titan-associated but most of it not. I'm... hmm. Not doing too well? Managing. I hope you're doing--better?" A glance over, as they start to grind spices with a practiced air. It's one of those 'I don't need to bother measuring this anymore' things.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Better than you, I cannot say without more information. Better than before, as in not actually existing at all?" Donna asks with a wry smile. "On that basis I can have no complaints."

    She drops into a crouch as the dog approaches, her movements slow and measured, and holds out a hand for nasal examinations. "/Khaire kuon,/" she greets the animal softly, giving her the chance to get used to her voice as well. "What's her name?" she asks Jon as the canine satisfies her curiosity.

    "Some time ago, I was told that Wonderland was the creation of a dreaming sorcerer. There was no mention of trauma involved, but it was something of an aside. I am sure that the source of that information. knew far more than I was told. It does make a lot of sense, doesn't it? When a mind that is unable to deal with reality has access to that much power, what makes more sense to such a mind than to retreat into a nonsense world of its own creation. It must have been reassuring. When logic is that painful, deny logic."

    "I've read the reports. You did well. Thank you. And Terry did well too. It was his own world -- he had to. He has great doubts about himself, and uses those as excuses for stepping back from being the person he is capable of being. He has slowly been overcoming that, but this was a case where he had no choice. He had to lead. Arguably he took that too far, but I am very proud of him."

    "We will not leave him where he is. I am sure you have said the same yourself to some of the younger Titans. Raven and I may have found a solution, but we await the decisions of people who perhaps consider the case less urgent than we do. I'm not sure who all those people are, even. There may be some negotiations to get through, but at least our part in the negotiations is done. We will wait a little while and see what happens, but we'll be trying to find a back-up plan too."

    Once hand-sniffing has been negotiated and Donna established her not-a-threat credentials with the hound of the house, she stands straight carefully, so as not to startle away any newly-found trust. She's obviously quite used to spending time with animals. "And you, Jon? People say 'managing' when they mean 'struggling'. Anyone who leads quickly learns the importance of seeming strong to those they wish to lead. Knowing how to escape from that when you need it, how to relieve the pressure that entails -- that is the harder part of leadership to learn. The better leader you prove yourself to be, the more people will slip into relying on you. For their sake and your own, you need to know when not to lead. So that they do not become over-reliant on your leadership, and that you do not become drained of your strength."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "That's Lady Grey," Jon says. "We usually call her 'Lady.' My husband named her, because, well--tea." A brief, fond smirk, as the dog snuffles at Donna's hand, licks her, and then happily submits to whatever pets are to be given. Whenever Donna stops, she heads toward the kitchen like she's decided to investigate what Jon is doing.

    Jon, for his part, has put the spices and ginger into the boiling water, and the scent is starting to fill the room. "Thank you, actually, for--I worried." He frowns. "The Red King... he'd lost his daughter, Alais. He thought it was his fault. She--or, well, her spirit, I think--begged me to get him to 'let her in.' And... I did, and they talked, and that's... good. It truly is. I... should have expected that might make Wonderland fall apart."

    He sighs, and frowns down at the pot as he goes to add loose leaf black tea to the pot. "But I could not... mmmm. Have you ever read Ursula K. LeGuin? If you haven't, you should. Specifically, there's a short story of hers, 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,' that envisions a paradisical utopia, full of beautiful, strong citizen, a vibrant culture full of art and sport, technological wonders. Nobody goes without, nobody wants for anything. Except one person, one miserable soul who must live in the worst possible conditions, in order for the whole utopia to hold up. Not by choice--not as a willing sacrifice or anything like that. But just the one. And all the citizens are shown this miserable wretch when they're old enough to understand, and the situation explained, and that knowledge of the suffering of that /one/ person for all the others makes their art more vibrant, their music more soulful."

    A pause, and then, more softly, "The end of the story relates that some leave. They walk away. They refuse to accept that even /one/ must live in misery, for all the rest to be happy. It had quite a profound effect on me, when I read it. I think I must have been twelve or so?" A smirk. "It spurred more than one argument with the teachers at Sunday school. But I knew, from the start, I would have walked away, even from such beauty and wonder. So, now, I could not countenance that /one/ man should suffer, even for a world he created, even a world as wondrous as Wonderland. Not when he could be reconciled, and his grief lessened. So I don't regret that. I just... hmmm. I am glad to hear there's another option. No world should exist on the sacrifice of so few."

    Then he sighs. "I say 'managing' because I mean 'managing,' because I get out of bed in the morning. The way I feel lately, that's 'managing.' I've been dealing with rather too much in too short a time. Too much pressure, and not just from being a leader. All the metaphorical chickens coming home to roost."

Donna Troy has posed:
"Left Hand of Darkness. Vic recommended it to me. And Earthsea. I liked that one a lot."

    Donna accompanies Lady Gray into the kitchen to give her ear scritches as she investigates the exciting smells of chai being prepared. "One person sacrificing themselves for a world. Isn't that a metaphor for heroism? Tell me -- would it be better if it was three people, instead of one? Or a hundred? Or ten percent? It could be argued that if only one person has to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, the price is cheap."

    "I was raised in a paradise. There is no temple on Themyscira where some lonely Amazon suffers so the rest of us can live in that paradise. However there is a temple there where every Amazon takes her turn at earning that paradise. There are two gates to Tartarus, Jon. The Gate of Iron, guarded by Kerberos, stands on the banks of Acheron. The Gate of Bronze is guarded by the Themyscirans. We have a permanent guard on that gate, every Amazon taking turns to serve her weeks as a guard. If you are lucky, your turn is boring. If you are unlucky, it can be fatal. Yet nobody goes reluctantly, because it is why we all get to live in paradise, and it is why the world is plagued by far fewer monsters than it once was."

    "Terry's problem is that he doesn't /share/." Donna breaks into a broad grin. "So greedy. Maybe, if we cannot find a better way, that could be the answer. Each Wonderlander takes a turn at dreaming Wonderland, rather than expecting the same people to dream forever."

    One eyebrow lifts ever so slowly, until Donna regards Jon from under a very arched brow. "And could we say the same for you, Jon? If there are other things than leadership bearing on you, then you need to share the burden. Either the burden of leadership, or those other burdens. Or both."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "One person sacrificing themself? Perhaps that's heroism. One child being forced to live in misery and squalor, so the rest can be happy? That's scapegoating." Jon shakes his head, pulling the nearly-overboiling tea off the heat, letting it settle down, then putting it back on the heat. "As I've grown, I've decided that walking away from my society isn't the solution. /Fixing/ it is the solution. Because all that walking away doesn't help."

    Then he smiles at her. "But taking turns? That's quite different. That's a proper solution to the problem, hmm? Everyone spends some time in misery and squalor, so they can appreciate the beauty of Omelas, and so it never falls only on the one person forever. Not the best solution, but maybe a workable one. Better than how things are now."

    He hesitates a moment, pouring milk into the pan and turning down the heat so it can simmer, then turning away to pull out kulhad cups and coasters that look like swirled flowers, all terracotta. It's only turned away that he says, "I killed a man. Two, really, but one of them was in the course of my duties as Archivist. The other--" He hunches his shoulders, a little. "We were fighting. I--got angry, and used too much force. Broke his neck. With /magic/." The way he says that, the fact that it was with magic is part of the entire problem.

    "That's not the only thing. But it's--it's been downhill from there. Everything else has just been more of the same, this feeling that I--perhaps made a mistake, becoming Ma'at's avatar." He sighs, and frowns down at the counter.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "That's all about choice, Jon." Donna tilts her head curiously, studying Jon closely for a few moments. "Choosing to sacrifice yourself for the greater good is heroism. Choosing someone else to sacrifice for the greater good is cowardice. Whatever it is you do in Ma'at's name, make sure that it is about you being heroic, not Ma'at being cowardly. That means do what you do because it is your choice, not because it is Ma'at's. If that being does not trust your judgement, I would ask her why she appointed you. "

    Donna holds the gaze a little longer, then gives a slight shrug and looks away. "Either she trusts you, or she picked the wrong person. I can think of no other answer to that other than that she is trying to avoid doing her own dirty work. "

    "The Titans give lip service to a policy of no killing. I suppose it comes from Nightwing, really. It's a policy Batman follows very strictly, after all. The truth almost nobody in this business wants to admit is that we say that for our own benefit and nobody else's. It's a way people think they differentiate themselves from those they fight. Yet in truth, if you hit people sometimes they die. And there are always excuses in the right circumstances, alien invasions and so forth, where we are forced to fight as hard as we can. The excuses usually amount to nothing more than 'I didn't really /see/ the people I was killing, so it doesn't count.'"

    Donna gives a grin that lacks any humor. "As you can imagine, we Amazons are a little less squeamish about such matters. What differentiates a hero from a villain is not that the villain kills and the hero does not; it is that the villain kills for their own benefit, while the hero only kills for the benefit of others, and only if they cannot possibly avoid it. This is not something I would say to most people. Terry, for example. It wouldn't do him any good. He would struggle to understand. He would suffer guilt. And it would cause him to hesitate at times when he cannot afford hesitation."

    "Don't beat yourself up about having caused deaths, Jon. If you must, if you doubt yourself -- then consider the calculus of lives. How many people have died because you live? How many people live, because you live? Consider the balance of your actions. To consider the harm without the context it was caused in is not fair on yourself. But saying that..." her grin changes, lightens. "You know what I'm gonna say, right? Training, Jon. Training. That's how you learn how not to hit people too hard."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "It's not that Ma'at doesn't trust my judgement," Jon says with a frown. He's busying himself with setting saucers and cups on a tray, and pulling out cookies--looks like snickerdoodles--from the fridge. "It's that--I suppose, in the end, I don't trust my own judgement. The people around me have been questioning me, for one reason and another, and in some cases rightly so. And that just... feeds into my own self-doubt."

    He sighs. "That night--Cael died. She only came back because someone else healed her. I froze, when I had the chance. And then I killed two men. So in the balance..." He waggles his hand. "It doesn't help that I'm supposed to be a healer. I just... failed, all around. I upset Cael, I killed a man who maybe shouldn't be dead..." He reaches up to rub at his face.

    Then a huff of breath. "But, no, my issue with Ma'at is--well, we've been arguing over all of this, see. Over what I think is right, and what she thinks is right. Over... mmf. There's an avatar of Ra now, a proper one. I tried to refuse to declare him such, because he was working with a /bad/ person. I got shoved out of my body for the trouble, and Ma'at, she just--did what they asked." He shakes his head. "To her, it's right. Ra chose him, so she declares him. To me--well. I suppose all of my issues with the 'divine right of kings' really don't square with being the avatar of a god, hmm?" He rolls his eyes.

    Then a glance aside, as he goes to get the chai off the stove and pour it through strainers into the cups. "I might have expected that, yes. Training. Actually in this case, arugably--I had a flashback, to Michael removing my arm. Therapy, perhaps, or just accepting that I'm an angrier person than I always thought. That's the thing that's really led to the depression--I discovered that something is off in my memories. And I remember /everything/, so that's... disconcerting. Like there's a hole in my life that's always been there and I only just noticed."

    Then he stops. Blinks. Stares at the cups. "Oh. Maybe /that's/ why Ma'at keeps telling me I'm lying to myself. Maybe I am, without meaning to."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Perhaps the worst invention in the history of humankind is the fantasy that gods might be infallible," Donna says, punctuating it with a short laugh. "Tell me... isn't Ma'at both a deity and a concept? Ma'at cannot simply do what she is asked, she has to be ma'at. I mean... it's a verb as well as a goddess, right? If she does what she is asked because of who asks it, rather than because the request is in tune with ma'at, she is denying herself. Denying what she is. "

    She gives another short shrug, and leans back against a kitchen cabinet, one arm stretching down to keep rubbing Lady Gray's ears. She looks down at the dog with a smile, and as she continues to talk, it's almost as if she's talking to the dog. "I think I can relate to the concept of discovering there's a hole in your life. No fault in my memories -- what I did not know is what happened to me before I was old enough to remember any of it. But memory is not just an internal thing, is it? We live in a world filled with language, and with other people. As long as there are people around to communicate with us, who know things we do not know, or do not remember, they are a kind of external memory for us. And just like our own memories, they are not reliable. "

    She falls silent a while, her attention still fixed on the dog, but eventually she looks up. "Jon, it's... it's virtually impossible to lie to me. But I have discovered I'm very good at lying to myself, when there is a hole that needs filling and I don't realize there is a hole. I do not expect I am exceptional in this. What... what /annoys/ me is that I had been seeing that hole for some time now. I'm not quite sure why I had avoided examining the lies I told myself that fit within that hole. Perhaps I was scared to, because it would have told me the shape of that hole. Perhaps Ma'at is not criticizing you for lying to yourself, but encouraging you to examine the shape of those lies."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon pours chai into cups as he listens to Donna, and then heads for the living room, to set out tea and cookies. The dog, having butted Donna's hand gently one last time, goes with him, to flop down on her dog bed in the sun coming through the windows. The apartment has a southern exposure, but the way the living room's situated, it manages to have windows on three sides, due to a terrace on the floor below. There's a lot of light, is the point.

    "I'm going to go back and talk to her, once I--once I figure things out. It's just... I got angry, and scared, and I blamed her for the situation. And she hasn't had a proper avatar in over five thousand years. We're both adjusting, you know?" They settle in the chair they'd left to answer the door. "I told her if she was going to accuse me of lying to get the hell off my back. I suppose I'll have to apologize. I'm re-living all my teenaged rebellion for some reason."

    After a moment, they look up at Donna and frown slightly. "I heard... some of what's been going on with you. And I felt... well, I suspected... the other version of you, she spoke in the voice of a goddess, sometimes. What was it like, not existing?" A brief smirk, but there's concern in their gaze.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Light! Donna approves. Donna /basks/ as she takes a seat on the sofa. Raised under the hot Aegean sun in a society that favors being outdoors and goes for bright open spaces indoors, sunlight makes Donna happy. Perhaps the reason she's stuck with the Titans so long is that they have such very large windows.

    She settles back comfortably into the sofa with her chai and sunlight, folding one leg beneath her. "Not existing isn't like anything, Jon. There was no me to experience it. I went to sleep one day, I woke up another day weeks later, with a strong sense that the sun was in the wrong part of the sky, and a confusing trace of someone else's memories. There was nothing between."

    "Why does Ma'at /want/ an avatar, Jon? It's something I've never really understood. There's so much that's familiar to me about the Egyptian gods, but they seem to like to act through mortals in a way that my gods never have. Oh they'll inspire mortals, in various ways, to act for them. But a Greek monarch has never been a direct representative of the gods, the way the Pharaohs were. Our greatest priests are not /inhabited/ by their gods, they commune with them. So what's in it for them? Why does Ma'at even want an avatar?"

    "And why now?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "The latter's easy--the universe was out of balance for all of its existence. We fixed the problem with the flow of souls, we got Michael to give up the Demiurgic Force, but there's still a /lot/ to be done." Jon gestures generally toward the city. "You can't tell me that the world as it is, is balanced and ordered and /just/."

    Then a shrug. "And why avatars in general...? I'm not entirely certain. It's just the way they operate. I've met avatars of Khonshu and Bast, Tawaret and Nephthys. Perhaps it's ancient tradition. Perhaps it's because Kemet was one of the first civilizations to exist after Atlantis, and the gods were trying to directly interface with a world with /far/ less magic." A chuckle. "Perhaps they just enjoy the process. Ma'at seems to find the whole thing terribly novel and interesting."

    He eyes Donna for a moment, hands wrapped around the terracotta cup with ease. It's rough and unfinished, providing a different taste to the chai than usual. "It's not as bad as it may seem. Avatars get a lot of benefits, and are chosen for their alignment with the particular god's ideals and needs. Ma'at told me that she had her eye on me in part because I insisted on speaking the truth even when it got me in trouble. That I strove for justice even when it was dangerous. And the work we're supposed to do... it matters to me. It does. It's just..." He sighs. "It's been a shock, you know? That changes."

    He frowns down at the chai. "We killed Michael. Well. Hope killed Michael. And he... reformed. The new one is more directly focused on defense, which is probably a good thing. But that leaves others to fix the mess."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "It seems kinda lazy to me Jon." There's the ghost of a smirk on Donna's face. She may not be being wholly serious. "I feel like gods should get off their asses and do their own work, if they want it done. Is it so they've got someone to blame, if it all goes wrong? 'Oh sorry Ra, it wasn't me it was my avatar. You wouldn't take responsibility for a tenth of the crap your pharaohs have pulled over the centuries, would you.'"

    Donna shrugs a one-armed shrug, the other arm keeping her chai stable. She blows on it and takes a sip. "Well, whatever. But she wants you to do something for her. Don't forget that means you have leverage. I recommend you remind her that you are her partner, not her slave. That you do what you do because your interests and philosophies broadly align, not just because she says so. That means sometimes she is going to have to compromise."

    "Don't let her reinvent you in her own image, Jon. Decide who and what you are by yourself. And once you have decided -- if you will take my advice, let her know that part is non-negotiable."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I intend to," Jon says, quite firmly. "I think it'll go well, ultimately. She's not as bad as Khonshu--I'm friends with Moon Knight, and I was his therapist before that, and their relationship is... awful." He shakes his head. "Tawaret and Scarlet Scarab seem to do better. But who and what I am--I'm still figuring that out, you know?"

    He smirks at her briefly. "Remember when we were talking about why Gaea chose me? I really believed that I wasn't a warrior. Wasn't good at fighting, at all. And then I won every battle with Michael. I'm /good/ at sword fighting. I /enjoy/ it. And I'm a deeply angry person, as it turns out. None of that precludes my being a healer, a therapist--I can be those things, too. But for some reason I've just been... terribly resistant to admitting who I really am. I suppose it's been frustrating for her."

    After a moment, he adds, "The gods actually do often work directly through their avatars. What I do in Ma'at's name is considered to be what she has done. So it's certainly not an attempt to get out of responsibility for anything." They grin. "If anything, maybe that's the real reason other pantheons /don't/ do that? The Egyptians worked through mortals, Ma'at and Ra--well, Osiris first--depended on the pharaohs, and they had to answer for so much mortal bullshit the other gods went 'not making /that/ mistake!'"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna looks up from her chai and gives Jon a skeptical eyebrow-raise. "It's an odd kind of middle to live in. I mean the Greek gods used to be very involved. They used to play a direct role in human society. That pretty much ended around the start of the iron age, though -- and that has been noticed. Themysciran philosophers discuss it a lot, but the gods don't give direct answers to things like that. Most theories assume they made a conscious decision to reinvent themselves. To step back. "

    She blows on her chai again and takes another sip. Her eyes remain fixed on the drink in her hands. "The Norse gods seem to have gone almost diametrically opposite. The old tales -- you ever read the Eddas? They're pretty much gods doing god things with other gods. Yet now you wouldn't know they were gods if you weren't told. I've met a few of the Greek gods, and they seem... qualitatively different from us. Larger than life. No, I take that back. That's a bad way to put it. More like /separate/ from life, you know? Other. A few months back I spent an afternoon cleaning out an old farmhouse chimney with Thor. I can't imagine someone using those words about say Hermes."

    "And your lot? Maybe it's a compromise. Maybe it is a way to stay directly involved, without... without /changing/. Without becoming whatever the Asgardians are. A way to keep themselves separated from mortal kind, while still working directly with mortal kind."

    Her eyes flicker up from her drink. "Good chai, by the way."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I have indeed read the Eddas. I intend to go read them in the original, now that I can read every human language. Did I mention I might have become a theologian, if I hadn't been a psychiatrist? Or a philosophy major. Something terribly useless." Jon grins. "It may be partially a cultural thing. The Norse valued individual achievement more than my ancestors did. There were separate afterlives for warriors and other folk, after all. Even if the King comes to Duat by a different road, however, the Field of Reeds is the same for all, and the scales don't care what your station in life was." A shrug. "Not to say one is better than another. Just... different. I suppose we'd have to ask the gods, and as you note--they're not forthcoming on the matter."

    He sits back a bit, and smiles. "It was my grandmother's recipe. She, umm, she grew the roses herself. Cooking was one of the few things--I was a difficult child. Hyperactive, and nosy, and always getting into scrapes. And she didn't really appreciate being saddled with me in her retirement." A brief shadow crosses his face and he shakes his head. "Anyway, I'd stay still for two things: books and cooking. And the latter we did /together/. So... I still use the same spices."

    After a moment, having taking a long sip, he says, "Really, though, how are you adjusting to the... new knowledge? The memories of another life in your head? Whatever it is that's going on?" A pause. "Or is it something you'd rather not talk about, just yet?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna's tempted by Jon's offer of not talking about it, but she also feels that's not entirely fair on people who ask. She gives it some thought and decides to go for honesty. "I'm not sure I am. It's not really memories of another life," she says, shaking her head. "Just whispers. Enough to understand... well, enough to make me take more seriously some things I hadn't really wanted to think about before. It feels like a big change, but at the same time when I ask myself what has actually changed in my life, I have no answer."

    She shifts in her seat, unfolding the leg from beneath her to sit up straight. "Perhaps that /is/ the answer. I realize that... I think we all have a narrative, Jon. Our lives are a story we tell ourselves as we live it, with an unreliable narrator. I have realized just how unreliable my own narrator has been. I know that the framework I've built around myself, the structure of belief that made me who I am was false. But that's not a retroactive thing. It doesn't rewrite the person I have grown into. The knowledge I have now can only change my story going forwards. My past is already written. I'm not reluctant to talk about it really. But if there is anything to talk about, I haven't figured out what yet."

    She sets her cup of chai down on the table, and reaches for a cookie. "I think the truth of it is I may have learned something new about where I came from, but I already knew who I am. I'm also something of a philosopher, as you've noticed. I'm a scholar too, I told you how I'm working on a translation of the Margites. I'm not sure if I've mentioned how a lot of my time at the embassy is spent answering endless emails from historians, archeologists and linguists. I'm also an artist. A photographer, to be specific. I've only had one exhibition so far, but I missed out on actually seeing it because I got stuck inside a black hole two days before the opening. I've recently been contacted by a gallery owner who's interested in giving me another exhibition."

    "But in the end, I'm a warrior. And yes, I get angry too. A lot. I don't see a conflict in any of these things. They are all parts of me. I wonder if you look at all these different aspects of your life and see them as being in conflict. Maybe that's why you're so unsure of who you are -- because you can't quite believe that you are all of these things."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "That's part of it," Jon says, nodding. "Part of it is... for me, the narrative of my life turns out to have been written by other people. The missing piece isn't something of my origin, but memories overwritten. Things I've done, that didn't happen the way I thought they did. I thought I reached out to an avatar of a goddess, and instead I... called on a friend? A family member? An enemy? I don't--know. There's a hole in my life, and the question is not just what it is, but /why/ it is. Why was this hidden from me?"

    He lifts his gaze to the cat tower. "I also found out I had a... code phrase implanted in me. A core belief that wasn't really mine. That I needed external guidance, that I couldn't trust myself. I cut that out, and now I'm... adjusting. For a few days, I doubted /everything/. Do I even like tea? Do I like cats? Is everything I thought I was just a persona someone else had crafted and implanted for their own ends?"

    They chuckle, and gesture at the cat lounging in the sun. "I like cats. And tea. I am... mostly who I thought I was. But I think I've struggled for /years/ with all of this--I suppose it makes sense, in a way? I have power. I could be dangerous to a lot of very bad people. If you want to cripple an enemy, make them believe they can't even fight you. Make them believe they don't /like/ to fight. Make them believe they don't get righteously angry. I suspect, in the end, it'll work itself out in a way that will surprise exactly nobody who knows me, but in the meantime... I struggle."

    He looks back to Donna. "Did you ever find out... why all that was hidden from you? I mean, what you say about how you're adjusting... it makes a great deal of sense. The same way anyone might adjust to, well, learning they were adopted. It doesn't change who you've been growing up--it changes your sense of where you belong in the world. I imagine that must strain relations with your family."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "I always knew I was adopted. That's not something I've ever had any difficulty with," Donna says. She cracks a wide smile. "I mean who would, if they were as lucky about how they got adopted as I was? Caitlin used to joke that my life was way too Disney princess to be real. Turns out she was right." She gives a shrug, but it's a good humored shrug. "I was adopted to avoid a pointless war. People do stupid things sometimes, and in the end gods are people too. Cassie, Diana's protege -- she has a phrase she loves to use, and I kind of love it too -- 'god nonsense'. I think that's a healthy way to view all this."

    Donna leans back again, taking her cookie with her. She holds it up to her lips but doesn't yet bite. "I think the psychiatrist protests too much. The narrative of everyone's lives is written largely by other people. That's kind of what a society is. In your case, it may be more direct, but how much difference does it really make? If your memories have been overwritten by some external force, or simply by the lies we tell ourselves, how much difference does it truly make?"

    "I don't believe there is some abstract 'true Troia', and that I am in some way failing if I do not match up to. Nor do I think there is such a thing as an ideal Jon. We are who we make of ourselves, Jon. That's true regardless of the circumstances of our lives. If you want to know who you /truly/ are, Jon? If you feel like you're not sure? I have a suggestion for you."

    She looks up, catches Jon's eye, and says "Ask Martin and Cael." The large bite she takes of the cookie hovering by her lips as she speaks punctuates the remark with crisply baked finality.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Well, technically, there /is/ an ideal Jon, somewhere on the Astral Plane, and he no longer has a right arm." Jon smirks. "But I know what you mean. It's just the--the fear. That my memories were overwritten to manipulate me, to use me for some horrible end. Logically, it's more likely to be a way to undercut my power, or hide some horrible thing someone /else/ has done, but fear isn't /rational/."

    He sighs. "I think, too, I'm just... done with pretenses. I'm tired. I was tortured, and I died, and I came back, and I lost people I thought were friends along the way. I'm still adjusting to my new roles, and the things I didn't know about myself. I'm still transitioning, in terms of presentation. Figuring out what gender even... is. Perhaps I've been depressed and anxious for months, or years, and just refused to admit it."

    After a moment, he smirks, and adds, "Martin and Cael--they both refused to believe in magic until recently. They both seem to resent my position. Martin... left." A pause. "He had reason. He's tracking down news of his father, in Nilaa. I made him promise we'd go to couples counseling when he gets back. I know they'd say I'm a good person, that I care, that I work too hard. But I tend to think there /is/ a kind of... mmm. Some things have to come from within, you know?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Ideally, yeah. But if you're questioning yourself, then you're not listening to yourself. Asking Cael and Martin to tell you who you are isn't going to tell you everything. But it'll give you a different perspective." Donna grabs her chai again, and experiments with dunking her cookie in it like some kind of monster.

    "You're questioning assumptions. That's never a bad thing," Donna says. "But it becomes a problem when it leads you to doubt yourself. I'm not suggesting that Cael and Martin will have all the answers, but they'll give you a second opinion. An external perspective, from people who you respect and trust. 'Cos here's the thing, Jon. You're asking yourself for answers, but you obviously don't trust yourself. I think you sometimes have difficulty respecting yourself too, but honestly that's probably a smaller issue. I mean if you don't trust someone, that's a hard limit on how much you can respect them. Solve the trust issue and the rest should follow. "

    Donna's third bite of cookie involves no dunking. She must have decided it wasn't the correct approach. "It's normal to have doubts, Jon. Doing what we do. We're called upon to make decisions that can affect so many lives, you'd have to have something wrong with you if you didn't question and doubt yourself from time to time. It would be unhealthy not to question yourself, but it's also unhealthy to let yourself submerge in doubts. You need a vacation. Themyscira will take some arranging, but I think you should visit. It's a very good place to just /be/. I'll make it happen, but I can't promise when. Somewhere the visa requirements are less stringent might be a good first step though."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon chuckles. "The theoretical Platonic ideal of Jonathan Sims probably doesn't much trust himself, no. Working on that. I /do/ have a therapist. She says some of that just comes with age, but I'm /particularly/ bad. She also says I take extra blame on myself in an attempt to believe I have more control over my life than I actually do. After all, if /I'm/ the problem, I can fix it, right?"

    They nod, picking up a cookie and breaking off a piece. "I'm thinking of going to England. It's... it's /safe/, now. I left, and kept Agnes away, because of my old mentor, but he's dead. And I need to track down these missing memories anyhow. So... I'm thinking of taking them both to see Oxford, and Bournemouth. Agnes has summer school, but there's some time before that."

    After a moment, he adds, "I'd be... truly honored to visit Themiscyra. I actually, ahh--" His cheeks flush darker, and he coughs. "My daughter, Lyra, she was a big fan of the Titans. Of you, specifically. She was /devastated/ when--well, that whole Doomsday business." He says it gently; after all, Donna lost friends. "Ever since it's been more openly revealed, I've been rather--as you say, it's something close to an ideal society. The world could do worse than looking to your people for guidance, you know?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Are you trying to persuade me of that?" Donna asks with an amused smile. "I won't pretend Themyscira is perfect, nor that we don't have certain advantages which make an ideal society a whole lot more practical. Perhaps the biggest of those is immortality. My people have had a long time to figure things out. Most societies have to spend more time relearning the lessons their parents forgot than learning new lessons."

    "The Amazons were created to be an answer to the problems of the world. At first, the biggest problem was that human societies, at least in the Hellenic world, were becoming more stratified and hierarchical. An age of kings who enriched themselves through warfare and oppression. The Amazons were created to be an army that no other army could hope to defeat, but based in principles of compassion rather than greed. That time has passed. For the last three thousand years, mostly what we have done has been about wisdom, rather than war. The Amazons have been isolated on Themyscira since before the fall of Troy, but that never stopped us from protecting the world. We just did it in ways people didn't tend to see so much. Now... now the world changes again. Diana and I urge our mother the queen to an ever greater opening up of Themyscira to the world. To sharing the lessons we have learned more. But don't take my word for it, Jon. Come and see for yourself. See what we have to offer the rest of the world, and what the rest of the world can teach us."

    "But worlds change slowly, Jon. Poeple change faster. Right now, I think more about what we can offer to you. Themyscira is a place that is peaceful in ways that I don't think anyone can truly understand until they have been there. It is a place where there is something new every day to engage and stimulate the mind, yet it feels almost as if time doesn't pass. It is a place people are free to be who they are, and be respected for it. Where they do not have to worry about who is standing behind them, or next to them, because they know that whoever it is, it will be a friend. I think those are all things you could use, these days."

    Donna just sits there smiling a few moments before dragging herself back to the present, and to New York. "I'm sorry that I won't have the chance to meet Lyra, Jon. But I'm pretty sure I could swing an invitation for you, and you could bring Agnes, if that would interest her."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Agnes is more of a Vorpal fan... but I think it might. And I think it'd do her good. She's seen so little of what the world has to offer in general; it would be good for her to see some of the best." Jon smiles. "Which is me saying--I'd love to accept your invitation. Just let me know--and hopefully the world cooperates and doesn't bloody well end in the meantime."

    They stare down at the cookie, like something about it surprises them. "Peace would be nice. For a little while. I have a friend being eaten alive by void energy, and my girlfriend's become a werewolf, and... well, I could go on, but I'm sure you know the drill. It's the life. Even this vacation will be a working one, really. To just /stop/ and /rest/ for a little while... that'd be nice."