4525/Taking Wing

Taking Wing
Date of Scene:	29 December 2020
Location:	Themyscira City
Synopsis:	Troia returns to Themyscira to let Hippolyta know she's back on Earth - and to talk her into accepting Caitlin Fairchild into the ranks of the Amazons.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Hippolyta

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Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia tends to shy away from using the full extent of her powers. If one were to ask her about this, she would talk in terms of the strategy of not revealing your full hand. She might talk about not using the gifts of the gods wastefully. In truth, it's a combination of factors she doesn't really see herself. Partly it is because of Magala, who warned her when she first started training of the mistakes Diana had made in becoming too arrogant with her power, and she has always sought to avoid that. Partly it is because of Philippus, who drummed into her the importance of not relying on her power at the price of developing her skills. Partly it's an odd form of imposter syndrome, in that knowing she was not born an Amazon, she has always felt a little awkward about being one of the most powerful amongst them, and believes this is a favor the goddesses granted her mother, rather than anything she has earned herself.

    One of the results of this is that she doesn't tend to fly particularly far or fast. Traveling between New York and Metropolis she tends to do by bike, though she could fly it faster. Indeed, she very rarely breaks the sound barrier when flying, though she can.

    There can be exceptions though, and a few days after arriving back on Earth, she takes off from the Tower without a word to anyone, crashes through the sound barrier a hundred miles out to sea, and doesn't drop below the speed of sound again until she sights the strange cloud banks that shroud Themyscira, and feels that odd sensation that accompanies them, that compulsion to /turn aside/ that even an Amazon will sense faintly.

    As she breaks through the clouds and crosses the island from the north, she is moving fast, but not creating any sonic booms. Nevertheless there are groups of sharp-eyed Amazons below who spot the figure flying across the evening sky. She does not follow the unspoken tradition of landing on the island's shore to be met by the guard, who inevitably will have been informed of a visitor's coming, but instead flies straight to the acropolis atop the city. She slows only enough to avoid startling the guards too much when she comes down a dozen or so from the palace steps.

    As she strides up the steps and the mildly startled guards recognize her, she stops to salute them and with the minimum possible formality simply states "I'm back. I need to speak to mother. Where is she?"

Hippolyta has posed:
Being the Queen of the Amazons involves a great deal of faith. Faith in the sisterhood that sustains the island, as well as faith in the gods and their providence.

This is not to say that the queen's faith is as bullet-proof as the famed bracelets that by now have become synonyous with the Amazons in Man's World, alongside the miraculous lasso. At times, she has had her moments of doubt, just as everyone has, but she always strives to inspire confidence in the gods to her sisters, even if she at times is preoccupied with the inevitable 'what ifs.' As of late, it has been the question of... what if Troia never returns?

Prophecies are strange, that way, in that whlie some are seemingly unbreakable, but also frighteningly flexible. Many nights she has stood at her balcony late into the night, tracing the trajectory of the moon in the sky for three months, unspoken questions burdening her.

And so it is that, when the word sweeps over the palace with the speed of a Tsunami, Troia is led into the Queen's own inner sanctum, to which Hippolyta had briefly retire for meditation. What greets the homecoming Titan is a vision she may have only witnessed a scant few times in her life, if ever: the Queen rushing towards her, arms extended as she moves with urgency and very little of the calm and regal grace that accompanies her usual movements.

"Troia-- Daughter!"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia's reaction is quieter but no less emotional - her arms wide, she greets Hippolyta with a fierce embrace and buries her face in her mother's neck. She is silent through the hug, not trusting herself to speak, but when the pair finally part the wetness of her eyes shows the depth of her emotion.

    There are times when she does not feel entirely that she belongs; times when she remembers that she was not born an Amazon, that she was adopted into this strange family, and it seems important. Almost a decade ago, that had been a part of her argument for leaving Themyscira and exploring the World of Men - that she was from that world, not this, and she should explore it.

    There are other times when Troia feels entirely at home, entirely a part of the family. This is the first home she knew, these halls the place she grew up, and this woman the woman who raised her as her own daughter. Hippolyta can be distant and queenly at times, but when she shows her feelings towards her adopted daughter, any doubts melt away.

    "I'm... I'm back," Troia says, struggling to get the words out through laughter at the obviousness of the statement, a displacement of the depth of her emotions. "Caitlin too. We're all back, we made it."

    She wipes her eyes, grinning and shaking her head a little. "Though from what I hear it shouldn't be too much of a surprise. I heard Cassandra consulted the Oracle, and you heard from her that I was alive. You know that as long as I live there is nothing that would keep me from returning. So here I am."

Hippolyta has posed:
"Prophecies have laws of their own, my daughter," Hippolyta says after the moment of laughter, still holding on to Troia in one way or another- touching a shoulder, holding an arm, holding hands, as she guides the Titan towards the private garden where they can speak with the benefit of the breeze. "The prophecy said that you could be found, not whether you would be- but as to when, or where, and whether you would ever be seen here. And the impossibility of the tasks themselves were even above the tasks of... well. You know"

She smiles a little, "your history lessons should have reminded you that there is seldom such thing as a plainly-spoken prophecy. If you have forgotten your epic poems, perhaps I can arrange a few refresher lessons with Amarantha." This is teasing, of course.

"You must tell me everything, daughter, leaving nothing out. I want to know everything... perhaps we should have an impromptu feast to celebrate your return to us, and then you can tell your story. Eriene will add your adventures into our chronicles."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia can't help a broad smile about the teasing, particularly as history was always one of the few more academic subjects that could actually keep her from being distracted by the lure of the training grounds. "Mother, I was alive. That much is all you needed to know to know I would return to you," she responds. "I have seen the words of the prophecy - they made a lot more sense to us than they must have to you. But you didn't know where we were. We were inside a /phaoklops/." A light-thief -- a black hole. "Charikleia will want to hear all about it, I am sure. She will be fascinated to hear how much of her theories are correct, and how much they are wrong. The others... there was a lot of fear that it would be impossible for us to get back, but not me. I knew we would."

    No shortage of confidence there. "I was determined, Mother. Nothing could have stood in our way." She grins as she says it, but all in all it's probably not the best thing to be hearing from the daughter of a Titan, understandable as it is in context.

    When the subject of chronicles is brought up, Troia's face falls a little. "Mother... honestly there is not a lot to tell of adventures. It was a strange place, full of strange people. There was little of glory in what we did, and none of it was mine. But I learned things when I was there. I learned that there are worlds where what an Amazon learns is less important than what an engineer learns. I learned that there are more muses in the world than those of song, and dance, and /kithera/, and that we should rethink what we think we know of the law of /Tekhne/ that bright-eyed Athena passed down to us."

    Troia steps back a little, looking her mother in the eyes, and smiles again. "I suppose my time away has changed me a little, mother. But so too the world I return to has changed. While I was away your feet stood upon the soil of man's world for the first time in three thousand years and more. Diana tells me you stood together and looked at the lights of Metropolis. Did you see the building on the water, shaped like a letter tau? That is where I live, when I am there."

Hippolyta has posed:
"So we did," Hippolyta agrees, "even in its damaged state, I couldn't help but understand what allure it holds for you." Even her means of keeping in touch with the world don't convey the same immediacy as being there, after all. "Much has changed..."

Charikleia would certainly love to hear about Troia's experiences, but that would come later. She had once remarked to Hippolyta how the heavens were a treacherous illusion- those without knowledge of the stars saw he firmament as unchanging and immutable- even its perceived changes were cyclical and the stars that would be gone this season would be back the next. Immutable. Imperturbable.

"And all of it," said Charikleia, "an illusion. So much of what we see is already gone, and all we see are its trace in the sky. And much that is new, we won't see until long after it has established its presence- and suddenly, it appears to us, and we have the audacity to be shocked."

She examines her daughter and says, "Much indeed has changed in this land of immortals, my Troia. That there were ever children here where no children ever were before was a first change. We should have known..." she smiles a little and walks over to a sundial that is in the center of the garden. Diana and Troia had known youth when the other Amazons had known the serenity of immortality. Had she grown complacent while those two stars brightened? What further changes would come?

"I have seen your home, indeed. You must have very good engineers, to make it sturdy enough." She doesn't mention the fact that the construction of the tower makes it look like its biggest threat would be a strong headwind- "I regret that you were not there, and that the circumstances had not been those of war Then, perhaps, my daughters could have shown me what their lives are like. But alas, for missed opportunities."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna accompanies Hippolyta to the sundial, resting her hands on the edges of it and looking down at the long evening shadow cast by the gnomon. "I knew of Diana's plan. Those of us fighting the battle in Metropolis and in the skies above had planned things out. My task was in the skies above, to deal with the great ship that had brought the invaders to our world. Our noble friend Superman was to deal with the leaders of the enemy on the ground. Diana to deal with their soldiers, by bringing you and the army of the Amazons through that portal to Man's World. I knew, when we were dragged away, the four of us, that we had succeeded in the skies. It was the flight of that great ship that dragged us into the light-thief, in its wake. I did not know whether the plans on the ground had gone so well. For three months I was lost in that place and my greatest fear was that... was not that I could not return. I knew I would find my way back, one way or another. My fear was of what I would come home to."

    She looks up from the sundial, smiling. "When I returned, I looked it up. The... the /video/, the visual record of what took place. I saw you and the army crashing through the gate. Saw Cassandra, riding at the head of the battle on her kanga. Saw the enemy put to flight. Our greatest triumph for millennia, mother. And so little sign of the cost I had feared. I mourn for the sisters lost, but my heart is gladdened that it was so few."

    "But don't talk of missed opportunities. Those opportunities have not been missed. Our secrecy is no more, and the world has heard of Themyscira. Diana runs the embassy as a lesson to the world, but in the World of Men, an embassy is a more political thing. I have seen the papers sent by other countries to our embassy in the days since the revelation of who and what Themyscira really is. Of our might. Requests for treaties, requests for aid. Pleas that we solve their problems for them. Many are irrelevancies. Arguments we should not get involved in. Some are not. A door has opened that can never be closed, mother. And we should not mourn that as a loss, we should embrace that as an opportunity to be what we once were."

    Donna regards her mother with a smile that is part challenge, part sympathy, and recites words known by any Amazon:

"Protect the young, the weak and the innocent, and

"Defend those who cannot fight for themselves,

"Do this in my name, for they are under my protection."

    Troia quickly looks away, and takes her hands from the sundial, straightening. "Very good engineers, yes. There is so much we know here on Themyscira, mother. Three thousand years of unbroken peace with no need for each generation to relearn the basics every twenty years before they can advance knowledge into new areas. But we have eschewed the practical in favor of the abstract. We can make stronger metals than they can, but we are not as smart at using them. We have taken the art of /sphairopoiïa/ to great heights of elegance, but the elegance of our devices does not compete with the brute power of the digital computers of Man's World that allows the mathematics of erecting such structures to be determined. As I said mother, there are new Muses in the world, and we have ignored the Muse of engineering."

    "In the place I was, it was the engineering skills of Caitlin and another friend, Victor, that was really important. Had I been accompanied by three Amazons as skilled in the arts we celebrate here as any, I would never have made it home." Donna looks back, grinning a little. She's been building up to this. "Mother, we need Amazons who understand these things, and there's one we both know who is an engineer and has the heart of an Amazon. Caitlin Fairchild has trained with us, and knows our ways. She has the compassion of an Amazon, and the strength of an Amazon, and would enrichen our sisterhood. I ask you, give her permission to seek the approval of the goddesses, which I know for sure they will grant her. Let her seek the pantheion."

Hippolyta has posed:
The Queen smiles gently and stays silent for several moments., as if studying the details of the sundial. When she raises her eyes to meet her daughter's.

"While your sister Diana may have received the blessing of Athena's wisdom, my child," a hand reaches over to touch Troia's dark hair, brushing it gently aside, "I am ready to swear an oath that you received the craftiness of Hermes himself in boon."

He takes a breath of the night air and nods, considering her next words. "It has been an unusual time for our island. New daughters, new Amazons."

"I of course remember Caitlin Fairchild, and believe you know how favorably I view her. Have you discussed this with her before coming to me?" she asks, a dlight arching to her lips, in the manner that mothers everywhere have asked similar questions of their children for thousand of years.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia grins back at Hippolyta with a cat-that-got-the-cream expression. Yes, she knows she was being sneaky. She knows her mother knows. She's rather pleased at the way Hippolyta has addressed it. The craftiness of Hermes? She'll take it!

    "I have discussed it with her several times, mother. She is ready. She has some doubts - doubts that the goddesses will accept her, mainly. But she has always doubted herself. They will accept her, I know they will. How could they not? She is perfect. She is strong, and filled with compassion. The values of Themyscira are close to her heart. The guidance that the goddesses have given to us is a path she has longed to walk her entire life."

    "Diana was born to you, and I was adopted by you. Cassandra's acceptance by Olympus could hardly be in question. In Caitlin though, Man's World has made a true Amazon, and that should be acknowledged. She will be true to our ways, and she will make us stronger. And now that we have become known to the world, that we have re-entered the world that you left behind all those years ago, what better sign that this, to show that we are truly one world? Truly all children of Gaia?"

    Troia's grin softens into a smile and she reaches out to take Hippolyta's hands. "Say yes, mother. I know that the goddesses will. This is... this is /right/."

Hippolyta has posed:
Hippolyta nods slowly. The wilyness of Hermes himself, indeed. She doesn't doubt that her daughter truly came with the intention of telling her of her return firsthand. She also doesn't doubt that Troia clearly calculated that in her overjoyed state, the Queen would be much more agreeable to a reasonable request.

She takes Troia's hands and smiles, "I see that one day you will make a good, and very dangerous, diplomat, my daughter." She smiles, and exhales. "I cannot object to your reasoning, and your estimation of her is not far from mine. So be it!"

And then she lifts a hand, "And for that, that shall be enough of others tonight. Tonight, I shall dine with my returning daughter."