6282/Another World

Another World
Date of Scene:	20 May 2021
Location:	Enchanted Forest
Synopsis:	Kara and Donna get some training from Philippus on Themyscira. Then they go for a walk in the enchanted forest and discuss the nature of the divine.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Kara Danvers

---

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Enough!"

    Philippus' voice rings out across the clearing and above the sound of metal ringing against metal, and over the course of a few seconds the fighting stops. The eight Amazon guards who had been assailing Donna and Kara with an assortment of arrows, spears and swords draw back tiredly to rest and await a debriefing or further orders in near silence.

    For the last hour, Donna and Kara's job had been to use only a shield each to defend themselves, and each other, from a seemingly endless barrage of attacks coming from all angles at at considerable speed. It had been exhausting -- not simply physically, though even to an Amazon or Kryptonian constitution it was tiring work, but mentally. The necessity to be constantly aware of the movement of their assailants, and of each other, to be trying to think several steps ahead all the time, and to know that even a momentary lapse of concentration would mean failure, had taken a lot out of the pair.

    The times the pair had been hit during the excercise had injured only pride, but it had happened a lot. The eight are some of the Palace Guard's best women - eminently skilled and boasting superhuman speed, strength and agility. They might not be a match for the two Titans, but within the constraints of the excercise, there was little doubt that the two had not been the 'winners' agains the eight, though that had not been the purpose of that excercise.

    Donna's body language is similar to that of the guards. As soon as the end to the excercise is called, she lets her shield drop down, one edge resting on the ground, and leans on it to let the fatigue of over-used muscles subsides, and she waits. As new as all this is to Kara, Donna has been here before many times.

    "I think this is enough for today," Philippus announces. "Troia, you over-compensate for your partner's inexperience. She is fast, have more faith in her speed." Donna simply nods her head to Philippus in acknowledgement of the criticism. "Kara, you are the other way around. You have too much faith in your speed. You over-extend your shield attempting to meet each assault too early, because you can. Let your opponents do more of the work, and use that time to analyze the situation better."

    "I see elements of Troia's technique in your footwork. She has been working with you. Good. But you are over-eager, and so is Troia. If she gives you instruction, keep this in mind."

    Donna looks at Kara with a grin and gives a little shrug as Philippus turns to her guards and barks something in Themysciran a little too fast to catch, but she does pick up the words 'to the city'. Sure enough, the guards start packing their gear and preparing their horses.

    "Kara, I want you to train each day you are here," Philippus says. "This is far too short for you to become good, but it is necessary for someone with your strengths to gain as much discipline in combat as possible. I shall send one of my most experienced trainers, Venelia, to spend time with you each morning. It will not be enough, but it will help."

    Philippus nods her head to the two Titans, and moves to her horse without another word to start stowing her own gear.

Kara Danvers has posed:
    There was a constant pang of guilt every time Donna got hit because of Kara. It was a lot. A lot more than Donna getting hit because of Donna and Kara getting hit because of Kara. This wasn't a huge surprise. Even though Donna had been training Kara for a while now she still wasn't great with 'team tactics'.

    Kara doesn't slump when the hold is finally called. She leans back and spreads her arms, letting the sun warm her cross section better. Mentally beat, is what she is. "That was intense," she says softly for Donna's ears.

    When the feedback is given, Kara pays attention. She nods. It was a strange balancing act trying to meet the Amazons at their own level.. instead of over doing it, or _massively_ over doing it. Or being too slow. Instead, it's true, she was getting there before their opponents which made it, sometimes, easy work to circumvent her defence.

    There is a nod and a hand crosses her chest almost instinctively, giving a Kryptonian salute. Philippus had naturally flowed right in to the mould of one of her martial arts teachers from home.

    She smiles and gives the general a quick nod, "Thank you Philippus, I appreciate everything you're doing for me. The time you're allowing for me - and the other amazons too. It is a gift."

    With the amazons heading back to the city, she turns to face Donna and gives her a smiling grimace once more, "I really am sorry." She said sorry every single time she screwed up. It was either adorable or annoying. "You're used to fighting with people who are better at watching your back... even on Krypton I'd do my own science experiences.. solo," she admits.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna gives a laugh, and lets her shield drop to wrap an arm around Kara's shoulders. "You owe me no more apologies than I owe to you," she points out. "Each time either of us were hit, it was a failure for both of us. But it is through failure that we learn to be better."

    She gives Kara's shoulders a squeeze then retrieves her shield and straps it over her back. "That was the point of the excercise. Philippus has trained me since I was six. She trained Diana before. She knows very well that there are special challenges to training someone who can rely on their powers to do what others require skill to do. So she finds ways to force us to recognize the limitations of our skills, and to work on them."

    The guards are mounting up, and Philippus calls back to the two Titans, asking "Are you accompanying us back to the city, Troia and Kara?"

    Donna glances to the dark mass of the forest behind them before replying. "I think we'll stay here a while Philippus, thank you."

    She moves to where her and Kara's horses crop the grass to check up on them, making sure they are well tied, but comfortable and have loose enough reins to lie down or stretch their legs a little. "I'm used to fighting with the Titans," Donna says to Kara. "Most are not combat experts. But they care about each other, and that's worth a lot. You make adjustments. Just as when I fight alongside my sisters, they have to make adjustments because I am not as good at watching their backs as the other Amazons. I'm very glad that you want to get better, Kara. But you never have to apologize that you were not raised an Amazon with years of combat training." She turns to give Kara a wide grin. "I would fail you more were I to attempt to aid one of your science experiments."

Kara Danvers has posed:
    Kara checks over the shield that had been battered again and again during the training. It's held up really well. Clearly an old thing that had seen plenty of days and love a a training shield. She pats it and says, "Thank you shieldy." Her smile brightens a touch. It's the physicality of it all that had helped get her mind off her other troubles and worries. She nods her head back to Donna and says, "You're... not wrong." There's a small chuckle as they discuss Kara's science prowess. "I .. really enjoyed it. But here on Earth, science has a long way to go to catch up to where we were at on Krypton. That's one of the reasons I need Kryptonite. Nothing like it existed on Krypton. I want to study it... but not let Power Girl or Kal-El know. They'd try and stop me."

    She shrugs a shoulder and then looks at the horses placidly eating grass. "Did you have something in mind out here Troia?" she asks of her friend. Her head lulls back a bit to stare up at the sky and she lifts up off the ground, spreading her arms out and bathing in the fulfilling rays.

    "You know I can't help but think that many of our stories about Rao must have been about a time when Rao was.. yellow. Because this yellow sun is the most beautiful thing I have ever felt in my whole life." She'd only been a way for a week and a bit. The journey has touched her profoundly in more than just galactic politics and family revelations.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Just a walk, Kara. And not too deep, the deeper parts of the forest... well, it's a strange place." Donna gives Kara a broad smile, and nods her head in the direction of what appears to be a fairly well-worn path deeper into the forest. "I know you are fearless, but this is perhaps the most magical place on the planet, and I know how magic makes you nervous."

    "Don't worry, we won't be going too deep into the forest where the sun barely shines," she says as she leads the way down the forest path. "It's certainly curious that Earth's sun seems to be so much more hospitable to Kryptonians than Krypton's own sun," she says. "Do you have any reason to believe it used to be yellow? Is there anything in your legends to suggest that? I wonder how much your people have forgotten."

    "I remember you telling me that you saw Rao in much more abstract terms than we see our gods, and that you did not assign to Rao a gender. I wonder if that was always true. Nightwing is named after one of your gods, you know. Your cousin told him a story back when he was a Robin. I don't know the Kryptonian name, but Nightwing was Kal's translation. /weprynzil/, maybe?"

    It's not a bad guess, but Kara will know Donna's thinking of /wedhinzil/, the brother and lover of /,ghimshom,/. Nightwing and Flamebird. Ancient legends.

    "Perhaps in the distant past, Rao was a yellow sun, and your god was a more... individual god. More of a person, like Apollo."

Kara Danvers has posed:
    There's a small nod and her feet touch the ground once more. She walks along with Donna. "Right.. magical place. Weird stuff," she twists her lips and tucks her hands behind her back, "It'll be fine."

    "Well, not so much that Rao was once yellow. But the feats of legendary Kryptonians. I'm _doing_ those things now. And more." She shakes her head, "If not for a yellow sun then how? it seems too much of a coincidence to me that my body and my cousins body respond this way to the light of Sol. There was a yellow sun at Oa too that felt warm as well."

    There's a look of excitement in her eyes at Donna starts to discuss Nightwing and Flamebird, "wedhinzil chao ,ghimshom, chao vohc" There's a nod and she smiles again. "Nightwing and Flamebird and Vohc," she glances over to Donna and explains, "Flamebird, the daughter of Rao. Nightwing the hunter of darkness. And Vohc the builder."

    "I'm happy to hear Clark learnt some Kryptonian lore... Also Cythonna the evil ice goddess, ..ahem Kara.. the goddess of beauty," she says and flicks her hair playfully, "and her sister Lorra, also the goddess of beauty. Mordo the god of strength, Telle the god of wisdom, Trolius the god of air, Yuda the goddess of the moons and marriage ..."

    Kara pauses for a moment, "And Aethyr, the goddess of the phantom zone." She presses her lips together and stares at the ground beneath their feet for a moment. "My mother is lost in the phantom zone," she says, "father said so on the holo message. An angry mob on Argo City banished her because they wanted someone to blame for the failing energy core.. they were angry and would not listen to reason."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna can't help but giggle a bit at Kara's hair flip and the revelation of her namesake. "You and Diana, being named after goddesses. I just got named after a city! So unfair!"

    The forest is warm, and as promised, not too dark. Sunlight dapples the pair as they continue along the old pathway through the trees, accompanied by the calling of birds in the branches above. "I often wondered why Diana got the name she did," Donna muses. "Diana's the name the Romans gave to Artemis. It's an odd choice, and mother is vague if you ask her. My name... Troia is the Greek name for the city called Troy. One of the last times the Amazons took part in the wars of men was the seige of Troy. It was against mother's wishes, and it cost her a sister. So I am named for the city my aunt died trying to defend. An homage to her sister, I guess."

    She blinks away her reverie and glances back at Kara before giving a slight shrug. "So you have gods and goddesses, but you believe the chief god was an abstract being without gender? That seems highly unlikely. I have a similar issue with Cait, whenever I've discussed her religion. She believes in a singular god. I find it hard to credit the idea of something unique in the universe. It seems to me that everything is of a category. If that category is of /people/, however potent and divine they may appear, it seems odd to me to believe that one amongst them is fundamentally different in nature to the rest. From the sounds of it you had a pantheion of gods very much like the Olympian."

Kara Danvers has posed:
    Kara listens quietly as Troia delves in to her guesses as to why Diana and she have such different names. "May be it is like on Krypton, you name your first after someone or something of historical significance.. and then the others after things that have personally touched your heart..."

    "Well.. okay.. sure there are people who think that our legends are really stories of a much older alien race. May be that's how things happened. But here we are on Earth and only a few outliers think that my cousin and I are gods... but a younger race, might make that mistake. Look at the stories about Thor for instance," she says with a slightly dreamy look.

    "It is a bit of a drama though. You see Nightwing was all shadow and could not walk with the other gods, Vohc was the creator whose job it was to create wonderous things and Flamebird's job was to destroy them so as to inspire Vohc to make better and better things," she grins.

    "I know I know, silly creation myth stories.. but it's an interesting one. See, Vohc was so tired of Flamebird destroying his stuff that he created something truly unique, a way for Nightwing to meet the other gods. He met Flamebird when she came to destroy it and they fell madly in love," she says with a gentle shoulder to shoulder nudge.

    "Vohc thought that he would be free of Flamebird destroying his things now and made something glorious. Flamebird.. being Flamebird.. destroyed it. So angry was Vohc that he trapped Nightwing in a tower of sunstone and pushed him in to the Aethyr.. phantom zone, where he would remain trapped forever. Vohc renounced the gods and became the first heretic. He's used as a metaphor for science gone too far.."

    "And then there's the origins of the House of El," she says with a wry smirk, "The House of Light. El used to mean Light.. another word for Rao. So called because its founders supposedly had hair as red as Rao and must therefore have been divinely touched. Before the guilds were created, all born with red hair were automatically members of the House of El and were part of the military caste."

    She nods her head up and down a few times, "I know, nuts right? ... so how are we meant to really know fact from fiction when things are so long ago. Unless we built a time machine.. odds are we'd accidentally become our own gods." There's a small snicker.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Hair as red as Rao?" Donna asks with an arched eyebrow. "That doesn't really fit with your theory that Rao used to be a yellow sun," she points out. "Though..." she breaks into a grin. "Maybe that's what a blonde Kryptonian /would/ want to think."

    "Perhaps this is just the bias of my own experiences, Kara. But I see no reason not to assume the gods of your people were not real. It is not an article of faith that leads me to believe the gods of my people are real -- it is simply a fact. My mother has spent a considerable time in their presence. One of them fathered Diana and Cassie. I have spoken to one of them personally. The gods of Olympus are real. Why should the gods of Krypton be any less real?"

    "Nor do I think it is sufficient to just dismiss it as stories of some older race. There's something... something different about the gods. I don't know how to explain it, but they aren't just some kind of aliens. It's like the difference between technology and magic. There's something /other/ about them."

    The pathway meanders through the trees and opens out, quite suddenly, on a clearing in the forest. A tiny stream feeds a pool in the middle of the clearing, and as the two Titans break through the line of the trees, a pair of deer watering at the pool raise there heads and run, startled, into the forest. "Here we are," Donna announces.

    Standing by the pool is a rectangular platform of stone, clearly artificial, and clearly ancient. At one end of it a wall rises up, broken to a maximum height of three feet, indicating that at some point in the past this was a building of rough stone, but very little of it survives. Donna takes a seat on the edge of the raised platform and gives Kara a smile. "This is a place I used to come and play as a child. Nobody knows who built it, but it was here before the Amazons came to Themyscira."

Kara Danvers has posed:
    "Mm yes I can see where you might be confused there...," she says and taps a finger to her lips. "The word red has always meant the color of the sun, of Rao. So.. if Rao was once a yellow sun." She motions decoratively to her hair and winks. "Hush, it's a GOOD theory and I like it and there's no one to call it blasphemy any more," she says with and a gentle smirk. Though, there is sudden pain behind her eyes. May be she was enjoying herself just a little too much.

    Kara's eyes adjust to the change in light again and she watches with fascination at the beautiful deer as they rush away. She follows them with her eyes and then when she cannot see them, shuts her eyes and follows them with her ears. They were startled, it seems, as they didn't run for too long.

    Kara walks around the rectangle and admires the stone work. She asks, "Do you know what it was for? ..and if not, what did young Troia imagine it was for?" A hand dips down in to the pool and she cups it to bring some water to her lips to sip. Kara is so used to wearing her Supergirl uniform around other titans she pauses for a moment wondering where her cape is.

    She catches her reflection in the wavey water of the pond and kneels down. She didn't even know she was going to cry until the first tea drops and hits the water, sending out a ripple. "Ah," she says and wipes at her eyes. A vision of a grand plaza in Argo City, alive, the purple hues of the horizon and the a long rectangular pool of cyan water glistening. The sounds of people talking around her and each hand in a parents. Juxtapositioned to the sudden image of the dark dead Argo City.. the bodies littering the streets. More tears flow down her cheeks.

    With a sniffle she asks, "What was the game that you would play?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna watches Kara at the pool, and thinks of going to her side, but in the end decides to stay where she is and give Kara a little space. She's silent a short while, and when she speaks up again her voice is hushed. "It's hard to know what anything is, in this forest. There's no context. There are builtings her in the forest, but they don't seem to relate to each other, almost as if they have been brought here from around the world. Perhaps this is the base of a look-out tower or a ritual excarnation tower built ten thousand years ago during the first flourishings of civilization in this part of the world. Perhaps it is a remnant of the days before the fall of Atlantis, when those people lived on the land and spread across the globe. Perhaps it is something built by the gods, or perhaps it was never more than a ruin, and the magic of this forest deemed that it should stand here."

    "When I was a child, it was a great game board, and I was a piece on the board. Or it was a fortress, and the blades of grass in the clearing were warriors come to beseige it, and I would stand guard ready to defeat them all. Or it was a tavern and I was the tavern keeper, serving drinks and food to all the eager customers who I imagined joining me here. Or it was mount Olympus itself, and I climbed it to visit the gods. When the grass was very long the grass could be the sea and the platform an island I had to swim to, because there was a fierce giant on the island terrorizing the people who lived there and I had to swim to the island to defeat him."

    She looks down at the old, weather-worn stone beneath her, and gives it a little pat. "It was anything I needed it to be, I suppose. It was a sanctuary, and it was an adventure, and it was a friend. It was somewhere I could come and let my imagination roam, where the world could be what I wanted it to be, instead of what my sisters told me it was. I... was quite a lonely child."

    She's silent a few moments, just watching Kara at the pool, and when she speaks up again her voice is still quiet but less dreamy and introspective, her words spoken with more precision and determination. "Kara. You remember you telling me your belief that humans and Kryptonians might be related? I have something curious to tell you. Aethyr. Your goddess of the Phantom Zone. This is... we believe that the earliest of the gods -- there were several who were more abstract than the Olympian gods. Before even the Titans... the Titan gods, not us, I mean. The children of /khaos/, the primordial void. Two of those represented the concept of spaces. One was the... it's hard to translate. One was the darkness-beneath-the-darkness, one was the sky-above-the-air. It's hard to put this into words, but the concept was like... there was a space below the deepest depths of the Earth, and this space was personalized by the primordial god /Erebos/. And there was a space above the sky... separate, a kind of divine air. The name of that god was /Aither/. It's hard to believe there isn't a connection. That my people and your people were not aware of /the same thing/."

    "For the gods of my people, it was the realm of /Erebos/ that became the place where monsters would be banished, not the realm of /Aither/ that your people seem to view in the same way. We call the realm of the darkness-beneath-the-darkness /Tartarus/. On this island there is an ancient gateway beneath the ground that leads to a stairway carved deep into the earth, and that is one of the doors to Tartarus. My people live in a paradise, but that is a reward for a duty we are sworn to, that we guard the door to Tartarus, to ensure nothing escapes and threatens the world. Every Amazon takes turns to guard the gate. I have stood guard there three times in my life. Once I entered the gate and stood on the threshold of Tartarus itself, to fight against... it doesn't matter now. It was not a pleasant experience. But it was my duty, and I did not shy away from it."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "We have many different kinds of duty. There is a duty in friendship as well, and I will never shy away from that. Kara, some day we will find the gateway to /Aither/, and I swear to you now that if you want me, I will stand besides you on that day and cross the threshold into the Phantom Zone, to help you find your mother."

Kara Danvers has posed:
    Kara sits back and crosses her legs. She wipes at her eyes as she listens to Donna's tales of her childhood and her imagination. She smiles a touch and nods her head. "It's nice to know kids on both worlds were similar," she says softly.

    Though that they had a god of a similar name to Aethyr surprises her and she looks back to Donna. "That is a strange coincidence isn't it...," she says and waits a moment. "Troia. Thank you, you are a wonderous friend.. I know how to get to the phantom zone. Well, I know how to know how to get there. But the problem is, once we get there.. finding my mother is a near impossible task."

    One of the technologies that was developed was a quantum encoding system to map out the Aethyr. We could put a prisoner in to the phantom zone with the knowledge that they could be retrieved. This technology was lost when Krypton was destroyed. When they sent my mother to the phantom zone.. there was no record of where she went. So, unless we can talk to the goddess Aethyr herself, there may be no way I'll ever find my mother."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Speaking to gods is not something to be taken lightly Kara. And speaking to a primordial god... I am not sure that's even possible." Donna hops up off the platform and walks over to where Kara sits, seating herself next to her friend. "It may take an intermediary. A more /human/ sort of god might be able to communicate with them and relay the information gained, for example. But there is still the need to communicate with a god. And there is a likelihood a price would be asked for such an intercession."

    She leans in slightly, just letting her shoulder touch Kara's very lightly. "Kara, it can't be a coincidence. It's just... it's too much. It's the same name, and it's basically the same thing too. The gods of Olympus may be specific to the Earth, but the primordial gods are a part of reality itself. They are universal. There's no question, Kara. Your /Aethyr/ and my /Aither/ have to be the same entity."

    She tilts her head sideways to look at Kara's face, and gives her an encouraging smile. "Kara, you do realize that where you are right now, on Themyscira -- you couldn't be anywhere better if you want to learn how to communicate with gods. Do you remember when I and the others got stuck in the black hole, and Cassie told you guys that we were still alive? She consulted the oracle here on Themyscira. She asked the gods for news, and they gave it to her. I can take you to see Menalippe, the high priestess, and you can explain your problem to her. I can't promise she can find the information you need, but it's worth a try."

Kara Danvers has posed:
    Kara raises her eyebrows as Donna gets really in to the idea of talking to a primordial god. She pats a hand on Donna's knee and says, "Troia... if the gods were people and Rao is who watched over me, over Krypton, over all Kryptonians... then our benefactor is gone. Rao was destroyed... but Rao taught us..."

    She pauses a moment and flops back on to the ground to stare up at the sky. "You know there were some really specific things in the prayer to Rao which I never quite understood. I figured it'd make more sense as I got older. Rao binds us to those we love. He gives us strength when we have none. And in the darkest places, he guides us," she sits back up almost as quickly.

    "I'm _meant_ to go in to the Phantom Zone. Rao protects us so we may protect others -- and we shall rise, a fire in his hearth, burning and free," she says the last little bit of that prayer and rises up in to the air, then spreads her hands and then motions to herself. "I might be reading in to things too much right now, but these words are speaking to me in _really_ specific ways right now Troia."

    "When this trip is over, come with me to the Fortress of Solitude. I wish to introduce you to my father and we must discuss with him the construction of a new phantom zone projector."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Perhaps, perhaps not," Donna says. "Gods... gods are different. You are thinking scientifically -- Rao the sun is destroyed, so ,rao, the god must also be destroyed. If there is a physical one-ness, this would be true. If the one-ness is magical, it may not be true. I suspect that gods never truly die, they just become changed in some way that we cannot really understand. Death as a transformation of a mortal is final, death as a transformation of a god, I think less final."

    "Think of the words of that prayer, Kara. 'In the darkest places, he guides us.' What could be a darker place than a world, a people, which no longer has a sun? 'We shall rise, a fire in his hearth, burning and free.' Perhaps you look to your sun and see that fire is snuffed out, and think that means the end of /rao/, but isn't that prayer telling you that the true fire of ,rao, is /you/? Those children of Krypton who will rise, burning and free?

    Donna gets to her feet and smiles wide at Kara. "You mentioned your father left a digital imprint. I would be honored to meet him, Kara Zor-El. I will talk to Menalippe and see if she can offer us any guidance in how to find someone lost in /Aither/ and we can talk with Raven, who may be more capable of breaking through the walls between worlds than any other being alive. It is the reason she exists. We will consult with your father, and if there is any way of finding your mother and bringing her back, we will find it."