7553/In Themyscira

In Themyscira
Date of Scene:	26 August 2021
Location:	The Grove of Antiope
Synopsis:	On Themyscira, Titans talk of swords and size and lights leading the way.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Caitlin Fairchild, Kian, Terry O'Neil, Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Kaida Connolly

---

Donna Troy has posed:
    The sun is high in a blue and cloudless sky, and the Titans have been on Themyscira a full day now. After the battle there had been little time for sight-seeing, though the inside of the palace had hardly been a disappointment. There had been a feast in celebration of the victory, and while normally it would have been a fairly quiet affair due to the number of Amazons lost in the battle, the curiosity that had arisen by the presence of some very unusual guests had made it somewhat bigger. There had been plenty of food, and even more wine. And then there had been a lot of sleeping.

    The next day had not started early for many of the Titans, but by the time it had there was a great curiosity to see beyond the palace. Cassie, Diana, Caitlin and Troia had been tasked with keeping rest of the Titans herded and out of trouble, and inevitably it had been Troia who had volunteered to give the cultural tour, something Terry would never forgive her if he missed out on.

    The late morning had been spent seeing the library, the arena, a theater, and the temples of Athena and Artemis, each a living testimony to ancient Greek culture, but each noticably different to the expectations of those who had studied ancient Greece, the mark of the thousands of years of extra development. Lunch had been taken at an out-door cafe, with skewers of grilled lamb, flatbread and pastries, and the sheer liveliness of the cafe had been a sharp reminder that this was indeed very much a living society. After lunch, Troia had insisted on a siesta. A stop to rest, digest, and shelter from the strong sun of the early afternoon. She had lead the group on a short journey though winding streets to this quiet grove, where the shade of trees provides ample shelter.

    Though rather central and very beautiful, it's surprising just how few people are here at this perfect time for seeking rest and shade. Only a pair of Amazons sitting by the small lake together, and a lone woman reading beneath a tree. Troia leads her fellow Titans to the shade of another tree close to the statue of her aunt, and sits down on the grass, her back to the tree. "So, what do you guys think of my home?" she asks with a smile.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
A fortunate side-effect of Caitlin's bevy of talents is a super-enhanced metabolism. The redhead had spent however many endless days in Erebos, then plunged into the heart of a desperate battle, and then immediately after lent her skills in the surgical theater until she was nearly dropping from fatigue.

A large bottle of wine seemed like the best solution for profound exhaustion and jangling nerves, along with a solid few hours of sleep.

Upon rising she ate a huge meal, drank copious amounts of water and juice, and went for a cross-country run that took her to the far end of the island and back again in a comfortable hour or two of-- what is for her-- jogging.

Bathed, dressed, and made presentable with a clean tunic clothes, she joined Donna's tour with the others. It was still more Donna's stomping grounds than Caitlin's, and much as she loves the island it seems like there is always something else to see or some hidden detail that a loving craftsman's hands had tucked away for someone to stumble on later as a pleasant surprise.

For the moment she lets the others engage Donna with their questions and remarks, and continues refueling with copious amounts of fruit juice and honeyed flatbread, eating as tidily as efficiency demands.

Kian has posed:
    Really, since getting to Themyscira, Kian hasn't been seen without a wine- (or more likely, brandy-) skin slung over his shoulder.  In his defense, he's not a sloppy drunk.  Really, he was less coherent when Terry accidentally drugged him with coffee.
    That said, he's not what could be called stone cold sober, and hasn't been since the end of the battle.  The liquor seems to affect him the way hashish might hit a Terran.
    Trees are good.  Right now, the birdman is perched on the lower branch of one, with a smile like the cat who ate the ca -- bad metaphor.  He looks pretty relaxed.
    "It iss very beautiful, Tana... nnh... Donna.  I know I can not stay, but I would like to visit.  Even with the weapon practices, it iss somehow peaceful here."
    Sip.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry is in his human form. This is a necessity after spending too much time as the Cat, else he start getting loopy and reckless. That is something that /nobody/ needs right now. The Titans did not need to enact a scene where Mother comes and sternly lectures Troia for whatever impulsive thing her friend had done. Possibly accompanied by said friend being thrown into a cell.

It is fortunate, too, because although his hero uniform was torn, his humann body had been attired in a T-shirt and shorts and his messenger satchel (it is NOT a 'man purse' Garfield Logan shut your mouth) which contained many things. Including his phone, and therefore his camera.

And he has been using that camera a lot. In between quiet exclamations and eyes boggling, he's remembered to chronicle everything. For posterity. For details. For memory. For questions. The sight of the library, with texts lost to Man's world thousands of years ago, and other texts of which it had never even /heard/ of, caused him the height of excitement and frustration. Excitement for merely being in the presence of such manuscripts, and frustration at knowing himself incapable of reading a. single. one. of them. It was heaven and hell. But, mostly, heaven.

Resting by the shade of the tree, the redhead takes a moment to pause, looking as weary as if he had just ran a marathon, but it had been all emotional exertion, not physical.

"What do I think? What do I /think/?" he says in a tired voice with an edge of laughter to it, "I can't think. I'm..." he raises his arms to gesticulate with his hands, describes some vague shapes in the air, and then drops them back onto his lap. "Can I /live/ here? I want to learn every word, every part of the language. I want to read every scroll, every book, hear every story, every memory until I'm an old man and they cast me into the sea."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "The weapon practice is a significant part of why it's so peaceful Kian," Troia replies with a grin up a the perching bird. "A day ago we were invaded by an army. Today we are at peace. That peace is because we are strong enough to enforce it. Perhaps on a world like yours, where there are no such threats, you can have a paradise without weapon practice. On this world, you need to fight for paradise."

    It's cooler in the shade of the tree, but sunlight breaks through the mass of leaves and onto the Titans below, brindling them with warm light. Troia basks. She's replete thanks to the deliciously flame-grilled lamb skewers earlier, but steals a little fruit juice from Caitlin, perhaps more for the fun of it than from thirst. "This isn't the way I had intended to bring you guys here, and I owe my mother an apology for forcing her hand. But letting you come in was the right thing to do in the circumstances and she knows it. In her heart she knew that it was time, time to open Themyscira up more. She had already made that decision when she allowed Caitlin to become an Amazon, and when she agreed to the female Titans coming to visit."

    Troia returns the fruit juice to Caitlin, and lets her fingers curl into the soft grass, luxuriating at the feel of Themysciran soil. "This... this is breaking with a very long tradition, and that is hard to do. Maybe this was inevitable, that it would take an event like this to push her into taking that last step that she knew it was time to take. I think... now it has happened, she will be easier to persuade in future. So long as you guys don't actually break things or cause society to crumble while you are here, I think there will be the opportunity to come back."

    Terry gets a fond smile. "Maybe not to /live/ here. But at least to visit. Will you be taking lessons in Themysciran at the arts center now Terry? Now that you can see a very real use for it? You would be most welcome, you know. I intend that one day we shall allow a group of scholars in to start translating some of those books your collections in Man's world are missing. Perhaps one day you could be one of those scholars. I've been working on a translation of Homer's /Margites/ for years, but I never seem to find the time to finish it. And that's just one work amongst many."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's mouth is full of bread when Donna steals(!) her juice, so all she can do is scowl theatrically at her in protest. When the bottle's returned, though, she offers Donna a piece of the sweet flatbread as a peace offering. The honeyed bread is probably the most calorie-dense food on the island, after all.
     "Well--" Caitlin starts to speak and hesitates. A glance from Donna nudges her thoughts into motion. "I'm actually more concerned about the Theoi than your mother," Caitlin points out to Donna. "The Queen is in charge of the island and the Amazons but the rules of the goddesses are pretty sacrosanct. I'm just concerned about any blowback from this landing on her," she frets. "If the Goddesses decide that this was a bad idea, that some sacred trust has been breached, it could be really bad for all of us going forward."

She goes to take another bite of food, pauses, and looks around. "Someone's keeping an eye on R--Nightwing, right?" she asks with a wary concern. "He's either going to be a lot of help for our argument, or a serious liability. He's the first male most of the women on this island have seen in a thousand years."

Kian has posed:
    "I do not under-stan' the need to haf this place be only for women in the firs' place.  The only difference between males an' females iss that females may choose to bear a chil'," Kian says, quite matter-of-factly.  "I serve a Goddess, my /Tar/ iss a woman, my empress, she will prob'ly be succeed by her son because he has shown the mos' aptitude to be the nex' /Tar/.  No other reason.  Iss that not all that matters?"
    He shakes his head, and takes another swig, offering the skin down to Terry.  "Well, this worl' still does so many things I do not understan'."
    And then he grins very slightly wickedly at Cait.  "Are you sayin' that me an' Gar an' Terry are not visible?" he remarks, and giggles softly.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"What she is saying," Terry says, grasping on something relatively prosaic to keep himself from discombobulating over the knowledge that a copy of Homer's lost comic masterpiece existed on the island, "Is that you and I and Gar are invisible next to Nightwing's magnificent /tuchus/, Kian. It's the Mona Lisa of buttocks- your eyes are immediately drawn to it. And no matter where you are, it seems to follow you around the room."

There is absolutely no cultural context for Kian to be able to understand what Terry just said. "But as for why the ban existed... well..." he glances over at Donna. He is not about to mansplain the history of Themyscira while actual Amazons are around him and can provide the winged alien the proper context. He knows that this is something for Donna to explain, not him. He does venture, however, this: "I am sure that if the goddesses considered this a violation, we would have know by now. Athena turned Arachne into a spider on the spot for mocking the love affairs of the gods- I imagine that breaking an actual covenant would carry an even more dramatic and expedient show of displeasure..."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "I think she's saying you, Terry and Gar are unlikely to start hitting on the entire population of the island, Kian," Troia says, while throwing a handful of grass into Caitlin's hair, and winking at her at the same time. "But Rrrrnightwing is... well, let's just say there are probably a fair few women on the island who would take him up on any offers. He may have to turn down a few before we leave, if he doesn't want me telling Batgirl..."

    She nibbles at the honeyed flatbread, though she's not particularly hungry. It tastes good. "I don't think the goddesses are going to complain," she says. "It's not like they made a strict rule for us. There have been a very few male visitors before, just not for a very long time. We were sent here, to the island, to play a subtler role in man's world. But I think that was more about taking us out of man's world than taking man's world out of Themyscira." She nods her head to Terry, acknowledging his point about the rapidity of divinities in making their displeasure known. "I don't think mother would have made the decision so quickly if she thought differently. In fact I would not be at all surprised if she hadn't already raised the question with the five. After all, Diana and I have been trying to persuade her to let men visit the island for years."

    "It's tradition, Kian. And it's rooted in a time and place where there was a great deal of irrationality about the differences between men and women. In this part of the world, before the coming of the Amazons, women were legally considered to be property, not people. The Amazons came into existence to counter that imbalance. Perhaps Terry will explain to you about staring too long into the abyss one day."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
     Caitlin throws her hands up in the air and looks skywards in mute desperation at the obvious oversight. At least no one's calling her out for almost outing Nightwing's actual name.

Everyone else seems content to explain the situation to Kian in more detail and perhaps more clarity than Caitlin could have managed, and she takes a few moments to drink more juice and reflect on the nature of hangovers and perhaps scolding herself for drinking more wine than she should have the previous evening.

"I don't think Nightwing would fool around behind her back, but... I also know him well enough that I think it'd behoove his friends to keep him away from any temptation," Caitlin tells Donna firmly. "Like near-mythical wines and an entire island full of women with some, um, permissive views about relationships."

Caitlin folds her arms and tries to look assertive, but the pink tips of her ears undercut any sense of objectivity she could be mustering on the topic.

Kian has posed:
    "I am jus' goin' to call it another Earth thing I do not expec' to understan', an' not think about it any more," Kian says with a shrug, and drops down from his perch on the branch, landing with only slightly less grace than usual.  "I coul' not really make myself belief that they woul' turn us away, not since we were comin' to help.  An' I /really/ did not wan' to face the stairs again.  What I saw was... nnh."  He leans on Terry, and looks past Donna's shoulder like he expects to see something feathery there.
    "What I saw was very very weird."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Agreed, we don't want Rrrrnightwing-" he was doing it too and didn't know /why/, "We need to tell him to don't go chasing waterfalls, like the song says." His green eyes are completely still, which means that turn of phrase was completely and totally accidental, right?

It briefly dawns on him how short their stay is going to be, and how there is no time to even get a good sample of the /new/ works being created in Themyscira: new plays, new poems, new music. It seemed as if eternity stretched both ahead and behind the island, depositing an infinitude of past, present and future treasures inaccessible to him.

Something mentioned in passing earlier comes back to him, "I do want to study the language at the center. Definitely. But I don't think I've got it in me to become a /scholar./ You need years of trainig and reading and classes, like Cassie's mom, and I can't even afford to go to community college!" he chuckles, and then frowns at Kian when he mentions... the stairs.

"... me too. I thought I saw..." he pauses. No. Not going there right now. "What did you see, Kian?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Kian, what you saw on the stairs was a..." the word 'lie' dies on Troia's lips and she glances momentarily at Caitlin. "...Was complicated," she concludes. "Magic like that does not work in ways you might expect. It sees into your soul and finds ways that are very personal to make its impact. But there was something else at work on the stairs. Not just the magic. What you saw may have been influenced by that. We had... I think someone was helping us."

    She straightens up, shuffling her back closer to the trunk of the tree, and looks down thoughtfully at the remains of the piece of honeyed flatbread, before popping it into her mouth and chewing it. Troia has known Caitlin for a long time, and though she does love teasing people, she is also aware of the importance of paying attention to the tips of Caitlin's ears, and decides to spare her by changing the subject. "Courses at the arts center are free, Terry. And we have an island full of scholars who speak fluent Themysciran but who's English isn't the best. If you were to collaborate with one of those, well one person familiar in English idiom and one familiar in Themysciran idiom would make a decent translation team."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Did--" Caitlin looks at Donna, then back at Terry. "Did no one tell you about the scholarship programs?" she asks him. Caitlin nibbles her flatbread, appetite finally sated somewhat. "We've got arrangements to help get people through college. Well," she amends, looking sideways and upwards, "I should say we use the same service that the Justice League and Avengers do. It's um, it's how you get like, celebrities or heads of state to send their kids to school anonymously."
     "And it's not like linguistic scholasticism's that difficult," Caitlin says with a confused wrinkle of her nose. She shifts in place, folding her legs to one side and propping her weight up on her palm with her elbow locked out. "Once you know the phoenetic morphology and you get the vowel sounds sorted out, it's not that far removed from Ancient Greek, and that's like, everywhere in the Romance languages," she observes.

Kian has posed:
    "You were there, /tenar'h/," he says, resting his head on Terry's shoulder.  "An' so were you, Tana... nnh.  That was your name *there*, not here.  An' you were Akiar, like me, bot' of you.  I am sorry, Cait, but I did not see you.  I was on the homeworl', an' I saw Raka /tenar'h/, an' they tol' me I had been in a coma for a year an' a half.  I did not drop through a hole in space, I had jus' been knocked out when the ship went into tachyon drive an' had been at the Imperial University hospital ever since."
    He concentrates, and shares with Terry his memory of Teri k'Syr, Terry birdman-sized with black-and-white woodpecker's wings.
    "Gar an' Rae, too.  Both winged, like me.  Excep'... Rae was smilin', an' hangin' on Gar like they were /tenar'yw/."  He shakes his head.
    "An' it was very temptin' to give in to, until I remember that I haf learn English.  I coul' not have made up that insane a language while in a coma."
    he sighs.  "I was mos' worry that if we had to go back, I woul' be shown my paren's an' my sister an' brother an' I do not know if I could haf come back from that, even knowin' it was jus' a vision."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry's eyes widen a little. "Really now? The courses are free..." he taps his chin and hmms. "Well. I mean. As the least powerful Titan, I could totally take a summer sabbatical and hop over here to collaborate and translate without my absence affecting the team too much..." then he peers out of the dream bubble, "But it takes years to become proficient in a language, so that's something for far off in the futu-"

And then he stares at Caitlin. "We have a /what?/" No, nobody has told him. Terry seems to have that amazing ability that, while being capable of stumbling into stories and interviews some people would kill for, he somehow always manages to miss out on crucial Titan information. He boggles.

It's not that far removed from Ancient Greek. He had heard that classical Greek syntax is uncomplicated, and the apparent multiplicity of verb forms and tenses are not that hard to grasp if you learn to identify the roots instead of learning by rote. Still, it loomed somewhat over him, intimidating. "I could-"

And that's when Kian shares his experience. Terry is about to say something to comfort Kian when the mental image of the hallucination hits him.

And he sees himself with wings. Which is weird.
And then there's Donna, which is expected, she was in his dream too-
And then there is Gar and Rae.

Gar
and
Rae


Terry stares into nothingness for a few seconds, and realizes that something very important needs to be said right here, right now, before all of them run the risk of /becoming/ nothingness.

"NOBODY had better tell Raven about /this/."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia gives Caitlin a quick nudge. "Don't forget the Luwian substrate," she points out. Took me six months to persuade you that your Teach-Yourself-Attic book was leading you down some incorrect paths. But yeah, it's not that hard. And Luwian is an indo-European language too. You should try Maltese some time. It's basically Arabic, but the majority of the vocabulary is Romance, with a significant chunk of random English words too."

     "Inconsistencies," Troia says to Kian with a smile. "Elements of what you were seeing that jarred, helped to take you out of the illusion. You saw Raka, so if the magic went to plan you might have seen the rest of your family too. But instead you saw some of the people you knew from Earth. Gar, Terry, Rae and I, we are part of this world, not that world. And Rae with Gar?" She throws her head back and laughs. "I mean that's a pretty good indication to you that it wasn't reality, right? If our Rae was hanging on to Gar, it would be by the throat."

    Her lips spread into a broad, playful smile. "I'm /totally/ telling Rae about this. It'll be hilarious."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"I don't know which mental image is weirder, Rae with Gar, or Rae /smiling/," Caitlin reflects, and shares an amused grin with Donna. "But--" she looks back at Kian and an alarmed-appearing Terry, and puts on a more soothing expression. "But don't think about it too hard, okay? It may have seemed very real, but I mean, I guess the stairs don't go in too hard for -plausible-." She's unable to wholly keep the smile off her face. "Maybe that's part of what sells it, going for a scenario that is just strange enough that we don't dismiss it as a dream or a hallucination."

Kian has posed:
    "The weirdness, that iss exac'ly what made me think it might be real," Kian says.  "I could not haf imagine Raven smilin' or Raven actin' like Gar's /tenar/, or *both*, it was so crazy it might haf been real because I coul' not haf consider that as even *possible*.  Too crazy to haf been made up."
    He considers a moment.  "If Rae has a sense of humor, it iss unknown to me.  Please to not let her at me if you tell her an' she iss not amuse by my hallucinatin'."
    He brightens, and favors Terry's cheek with a kiss.  "But you, you look stunnin' with those wings I saw.  Maybe you can magic yourse'f a pair some time an' go flyin' with me an' Gar."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry laughs and kisses back, "Oh no, I'm afraid my magic can't do /that/. I can create constructs and zap them to fly me, but no wings as such. Although I /guess/ I could learn chaos magic from someone..." his green eyes glow with mischief, "Like, say, Loki. Doesn't that sound like a simply marvelous idea?" he says, glancing over at Donna, trying to keep a straight face.

Then he tilts his head at a thought. "Speaking of magic... didn't you say there was an echanted forest around here somewhere? Oh! Oh! Could we explore it?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Not without an escort, Terry." Troia's not rising to the Loki bait. "I mean... you're going to get an escort going anywhere outside the palace, but particularly not the enchanted forest. It's a very dangerous place. You heard about the manticore hunt, right? That was in the Enchanted Forest, but only really the outskirts. The deep forest is a far more dangerous place. And a place that's very easy to get lost. Think about the size of the Aegean sea Terry, that'll give you some idea about how big an island that can be hidden in it might be. You can cross the island in a day, but I once travelled five days in the forest heading in a straight line, and that was probably only a fraction of it."

    She folds her hands behind her head, using them as a cushion as she leans against the hard wood of the tree-trunk, and looks at Kian with an amused smile. "Rae has a great sense of humor, but she takes more pleasure from her jokes if most people don't realize she's joking. But... I don't know. It's possible that the inconsistencies you saw were your subconscious mind rebelling against the hallucinations. Rae appearing in a way you could not believe was real might have been a way to clue your conscious mind to the fact that what you were seeing wasn't real. But as I said, I think we had some help."

    "Hekate... the woman we met at the Iron gate? She has some helpers, the Lampades. The lamp-bearers. One task they have been known to perform is to help those seeking a way out of Tartarus, if their mistress chooses to help them. That help can take many forms. There are descriptions of those who were guided out of Tartarus by a light floating ahead of them and leading them to the correct path, or those who found themselves mired in a fog or an impenetrable night until one of the Lampades showed up carrying a torch that can burn through any darkness."

    "I'm not sure exactly what happened on the stairs. But for me... there was a woman carrying a torch walking beside me the whole way. It's possible she was a hallucination sent by the stairs, but I do not think so. I believe it was one of Hekate's Lampades, aiding us."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Oh come on, just a small detour?!" The sounds of footfalls and Nadia's voice can be heard approaching the grove.

"I am escorting you to your friends, you can convince the princess of whatever 'detours' you want to make." Another very no nonsense voice can be heard responding to Nadia before they finally come into view.

There is Nadia dressed down pretty simply in a red and black plaid pleated skirt and a black T-shirt with a beautiful cerulean image of a 'Jewel Wasp' on it.

"Hi, everyone!" Nadia waves when she comes into view. After the climb up the stairs, the waterworks leaking from her face eventually stopped. Since then she has seemed somehow a bit more at peace with herself, perhaps more comfortable in her own skin.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
"Oh wow that was a lot of wine, a lot of cheese, and a lot of... uh..." If she could blush but she shakes her head as she giggles to herself and idly stumbles around near Aella and then rushes off, "Hey!" She goes to the other Titans laughing.

"Hi! Did you sleep well? I sorta did." She then zipz back over to Nadia and whispers a bit too loudly, "We can sneak off later probably." She winks and smiles before spinning a full 540 degrees before stumbling over to lean on Terry's foot.

Kian has posed:
    The birdman waves a wing at Nadia.  "I am jus' goin' to try to not think about it," Kian says decisively, and -- purple cow or dancing /duhon/, take your pick -- Terry is treated to exactly what Kian saw in his vision.  It leaks through the physical/mental contact.
    Good luck with that.
    "Lamp-bearer," he repeats abstractedly.  "My vision of you, Donna, shined a light in my eyes.  It help bring me back to reality.  Maybe that iss who it really was."
    He leans on Terry, and grins down at Kaida.  "I would like to see a proper fores'.  Your cities are all stone an' glass an' metal.  Like you haf to sit on nature, you can not co-exis' wit' it."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The mental image clearly derails Terry. Gar and Rae. Rae smiling. It's like Miss Piggy shunning the spotlight, like Jessica Fletcher looking at a body and going 'meh, this is a job for the police.' Like Jerry Seinfeld being actually funny by himself. It's just something you never see.

He blinks a couple of times and frowns, emerging from the vision enough to hear what Donna is saying.

"Wait... The /Lampades/? You're telling me that the..." he pauses and looks at Kian, then at Donna. "You were in my 'dream' too, Donna. It was when we met for the first time. But different. It was foggy. And you had the camera..."

Nadia and Kaida get an absent smile and a wave as they settle in, as his mind processes the implications of things. "If that is true, then it means Hekate chose to help us, not merely point us in the direction of the stairs. Why would she ever do that?" he frowns some more. "She clearly could snap Ixion and his army back with a snap. So... did she have a reason for wanting us /here/ on Themyscira?" the redhead looks up. "A goddess spoke to us. I still can't believe it."

Glancing down at Kaida, he nods enthusiastically, "I slept well," A quick glance to Kian and Donna says Don't You Dare, and then he adds, "... but I want to see the Enchanted Forest. I'm magical and I have yet to go to an enchanted forest. Broceliande is no longer enchanted... it's been too decimated. Hardly any races of magic are left." Either that, or Paimpont forest in Brittany is not actually the remnants of Broceliande and its actual location has been lost to time, or to magic. He visited not too long after he got his powers, it was one of the first places he went.

"So... how are the Amazons reacting to us being here?" Terry asks Donna, "It can't be exactly easy making an exception to thousands of years..."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia tilts her head curiously at Kian, then nods her head. "Be careful my alien friend. I think you are beginning to understand the rather metaphorical manner in which magic is prone to act upon the world. One day soon you may find that things you thought made no sense just make a different kind of sense than that you are used to, and you could end up thinking that Earth isn't all that weird after all. "

    "If someone in your dream shone a light in your eyes to help you perceive reality again, then it makes it all the more likely it was a Lampad. That she would take my form in your vision is not surprising. I would be the most familiar and understandable mind there for her. My thoughts and perceptions would be the lens she would use to understand the rest of you, and find ways to help guide you through your own dark journey. Any lights shone in your eyes, Terry?"

    Troia's reply is interrupted by the arrival of Nadia and Kaida, who she greets with a beaming smile. "It's okay Aella," she calls out to the palace escort. "I'll keep an eye on them. Come join us if you'd like a break, but if you want to return to the palace you can leave them with me."

    Aella nods her head sharply, and throws a cross-armed salute to Troia, and then to Kaida and Nadia. "I'll return to the palace then, princess," she replies. "Do not keep them out too late, your mother has arranged for entertainments at the palace this evening."

    Troia watches Kaida's antics with a grin, then settles her attention on Nadia. "Come sit with us," she calls out. "Taking a little break. We've been all over town already!" She offers Kaida a piece of her honeyed flatbread. Well, Caitlin's honeyed flatbread to be more accurate. "Don't sneak off. At least sneaking out of the tower. Things are... it's just important that everyone makes a good impression, okay? Things are a touch tense at the moment."

    Troia glances at Caitlin for a moment, grinning. In the days when the Titans were new, the idea of /Donna/ being the one urging caution and responsibility would have seemed unlikely.

    "It's a foolish excercise to try to second guess the gods, let alone one as subtle as Hekate," Donna says, reluctant to share her own suspicions. "But I'm sure we can manage a trip to the forest. I'll have a talk to the forest rangers, see if they know where we can find a few..." she turns a smirk on Terry before emphasising the next word. ".../mythical/ creatures to take a look at.,"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia makes her way over to sit with the others and share some of the honeyed flatbread.

Despite the talk of the stairs and what was seen on the stairs, Nadia doesn't readily volunteer any of her own possible experiences with the Lampad. In fact, since emerging from the stairs crying, she hasn't really been forthcoming at all about what she saw, a rarity for the talkative Waspette.

The prospect of an enchanted forest on the other hand, that makes Nadia's eyes light up. After all she missed the last hunt, distracted by the wonders of the science island. "Oooh! I wonder what kinds of creatures there are? Other than manticores, like are there magic bees or giant fluffy ...whatever a Totoro is?"

Kaida Connolly has posed:
A grin up at Terry and Kaida casually takes some of the honeyed bread. She chews on it while listening and then swallows. She stands up, raising her hand up and pointing at Donna.

"Technically, I am a magical and potentially mythical creature so me going to a place of mythical creatures is just a normal day." She nods her head before she chomps down on more food and adds, "I am merely going to see my people!"

Kian has posed:
    Kian takes a brief, but thoughtful sip from his wine... er, brandyskin.  "I do not know, Donna.  I do not think Eart' will ever stop bein' weird, but at least it iss a weird I can get use to."  He gives Terry a little grin.
    "An' I do not expec' to understan' magic either.  Maybe it iss a science that uses differen' rules than the ones I know, but I haf enough to do to understan' my own powers before I try to figure out someone else's."
    He passes the skin to Terry.  "If nothin' else, Eart' is a weird I think I can live wit'."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"You /do/ live with it," Terry smirks and takes the skin in order to have a sip. A sip, mind you, because he is a complete lightweight and the last thing anyone needs is a Pubic Reations catastrophe with Terry getting drunk.

"I am with Kaida and Nadia! I do so want to see the forest. Do you think we'd see a monokeros? Wait... that one was reported by Ctesias, wasn't it? He was the one who swore there was a race of people with only one leg and feet so big they were used as umbrellas... so, unreliable narrator." He pauses for a second and something that was just said comes to the fore in his brain. "Wait, did you say a Totoro? Who tod you about them?" Add yet another movie he needs to expose Nadia to. The count is what... twenty? Thirty?

He watches Aella walk away briskly and he frowns, going quiet for a second. He had always wanted to visit Themyscira, but he had never considered it a real possibility, so he had not even given thought about what the reception might be like. Donna mentioned that things were tense. How tense /were/ they? They had escort everywhere they went outside of the palace. At first, his perception of things was too omnubilated by his wonder and disbelief to think too closely about it, but now he is free to speculate as he always does: Are they there because they fear they would be attacked? Are they /that/ unwelcome here? Might they make things worse by being here? Maybe that was Eris' ultimate plan in the long term of things, to get them on Themysicran soil to sow discontent and division? His eyes grow wider at that- oh my god, he thinks, we're the golden apples?

His fingers idly rub the skin while he contemplates things, and then absentmindedly brings it up to his lips. Okay, /two/ sips.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "I haven't seen any of your people in the Enchanted Forest before Kaida," Troia says with a quick laugh. "And I wouldn't expect to see a Totoro spirit there either. I think you have to go to an Enchanted Forest in Japan to find one of those. You never know though - you can see many strange things in the forest, and there are some who speculate that all enchanted forests in the world are connected to it."

    " We might see a monokeros," she tells Terry. "They're not that rare. Manticore, bonasus, griffon... they're fairly common. But you can run into just about anything in there. When I took the girls there last time, we almost ran into a katobleps, but fortunately we only heard and smelled it. You wouldn't want to see one, that tends to be fatal."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Kaida is definitely magical!" Nadia readily agrees with a small grin. "She even sneezes glitter." She might be making that part up.

When Terry asks where she heard about Totoro's she thinks for a moment trying to remember. "I think Val dragged me to a mall and there was this store with cute fuzzy things and she saw it was a Totoro and they live in magic forests." She gives a light shrug, clearly not having seen the movie.

"Cat of bleeps? Why is seeing a cat fatal?" This is only going to increase her curiosity about the forest.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
"See, Terry agrees and that must mean it's a great idea!" Kaida nods sagely and is clearly trying to convince people that Terry is an expert in good ideas. Ya know, reliable source. She shifts in her spot and nods her head as she puts her hands on her hips. She points at Nadia and then nods to Donna.

"You can't prove I don't sneeze glitter. Never seen me sneeze I bet." She grins and then points at Donna, "And the fact that you've never seen anything like me there is proof that people like me /are/ there. I'm very good at not being seen." She sagely nods once more and idly rubs her nose before she blinks. Her eyes turn to Terry and she eyes him before walking closer and calling up.

"Hey, Terry. Why ya look like you're constipated all of a sudden?"

Kian has posed:
    "If you sneeze glitter," Kian says with a smirk, "do not be surprise if Terry starts takin' you everywhere wit' him.  He an' glitter have a history."  He grins, and ruffles Terry's hair.
    "An' who knows, maybe there iss someone like me in the fores'?  This world needs more people wit' wings.  There just are not enough."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I mean, Donna has /coughed/ glitter before. And her tongue was coated with it. As was Aquaman's beard," Terry says absent-mindedly, clearly not taking into account the mental image that might conjure for some.

"Nadia, Kaida /is/ magical, but we have a very important issue to address- namely the fact that she lost her sword. The Amazons are masters of the forge. Don't you think Kaida deserves a weapon worthy of a savior of Themyscira?"

Behod the Terry evasion tactic, whereby he seeks to distract Kaida from her question by dangling the prospect of a mythical shiny new sword before her. He glances guiltily at Donna for a second, to see if she had caught on.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Katableps, not cat-o-bleps," Troia explains, shaking her head with wry amusment. "It means downward-looking. "They are kind of like large oxen with huge horns that are so heavy that it is a great effort for them to raise their heads, so they go through most of their lives looking down at their feet. Some believe them to be a kind of paradoxical magical joke. They have huge horns to protect their heads from all the things they bump into because they are not looking where they are going, but they do not look where they are going because of the weight of those horns."

    Let Nadia's scientific reasoning deal with /that/ evolutionary model for a while.

    "It's not fatal if you see them necessarily. Otherwise nobody would know what they look like. But if you are close enough to see one, then they are probably close enough to smell you on the wind. They may make the effort of looking up, and then you're dead. No living thing can survive being seen by one, though I assume that excludes their own species, or they would probably have died out by now."

    Terry gets a nod of agreement, before Troia looks back to Kaida. "Of course. Pallas has already volunteered her services, alongside one of our smiths who specializes in delicate machine parts. They are already discussing how best to make a sword that small. Kaida, this afternoon I will take you to Pallas' forge. She would like to see some of your moves and get an idea how you fight, so she can best make something that suits you."

    If Troia has noticed anything in Terry's demeanor that raises questions, she doesn't seem to be about to discuss it before he's ready to, and turns to Nadia instead. "There's something I'd like you to do before we go to the Enchanted forest, too. Or... anything strenuous. I'd like you to get a physical check-up from Epione and Cait, okay? After what you did in the battle -- I think it's a good idea. And I don't want Janet killing me."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
When Kaida mentions Terry looking constipated Nadia looks at him curiously. "But the Themysciran diet shouldn't make you constipated. Is it a magic cat thing?" She wonders.

It is perhaps fortuitous for the quick thinking cat that he brings up the idea of a new sword. "He's right! Kaida, the forges are so cool! You're going to like Pallas I think, she's great. She showed me so many things last time! I got to go inside one of their bracers and see the effects of the forging process!" Easily distractible as ever.

"Huh, that's really interesting." The gears do indeed start turning in Nadia's head at Donna's description of the creature. "I wonder what sort of abstraction it is meant to embody..."

The last thing Donna says though catches her momentarily off guard. "What? I mean I guess my legs did get kind of cut up, those centaurs had really sharp swords. I feel fine though!" She protests.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
A frown comes to Kaida's lips at the mention of her sword and she reaches over to pull out the hilt and what is left of the sword. She looks at it with a deepening frown and then looks to Donna before looking then to Terry and then back at the sword. SHe hears what Nadia has to say but ends up just sitting down and looking at her sword.

"Do you think they can perhaps use part of this somehow?" She asks and looks up at Donna carefully, holding up what is left of the tiny blade for her. She looks at it carefully and twisting it slightly in her tiny paw like hand before pulling it back to herself.

"This sword was made for me by a good friend. He knew I was helping him and his friends. Knew I was doing something for them and..." She almost hugs it a little, "He really put the effort into this. It was meant to help protect me while I protected them." She then swallows, "And...he can't make another."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"They should be able to. You'll find no better smiths than the Amazons. Although the Asgardians claim the dwarves are the absolute masters of their craft. It would be interesting to arrange a cultural exchange with them, since the Embassy is o-" he pauses. Then he colors slightly, and says "I mean, the Amazons might consider it an interesting exchange."

He glances to the side, where some Amazons had been spending time under the shade of trees in the grove. Had they overheard? Would they think he had nerve, suggesting what Amazons might do? It doesn't escape him that Nadia was able to visit the forge. He is naturally inquisitive, but he doesn't want to ask if they also had an escort the last time they were there. Mostly because he imagines that wasn't the case. His eyes glance at the Amazons in the grove yet again. Did he imagine a side-glance full of... what? Curiosity? Anger? Disdain? The sun played tricks and the shadows made things uncertain, and he didn't know whether it was there, or in his own mind. Without a physical reason, he finds himself giving a slight little shudder. This was paradise, one he had always wanted to see for himself, but he never thought about whether it wanted to see him at all. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

He takes a third sip.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia gives Kaida a thoughtful nod. "You can't - can't /mend/ a blade, Kaida. You have to reforge them. If you wanted, perhaps we could have the broken section melted down and used in the alloying." She takes a mental note to explain to Pallas the importance of not stating her opinions about the quality of steel in Kaida's broken sword. Pallas' opinion of the metallurgy of 'man's world' is not high.

    "But another thought occurs to me. That sword was forged to protect you, Kaida. If the blade is reforged... then it's not really the same blade, even if part of the metal is used in it. Suppose we had you a shield made, with the sword cast into the the front of it? It would make a striking shield... and it would still be protecting you. I am sure the smiths of Themyscira would be happy to take on the extra task for you, Kaida."

    "You -- All of you..." her eyes roam towards Terry for a moment. "You willingly risked your lives to help the people of Themyscira. That will not be forgotten. The queen herself observed that what you did was to preserve our society and our ways, and that is the most important duty of the Amazons ourselves. You all fulfilled the calling of the Amazons, you did what the goddesses created my people to do. And you did it not from thousands of years of living those traditions, not because it was your duty. You did it because it was in your hearts, without being told, to live up to the same ideals we seek to live up to."

    "That will not be forgotten," she repeats.

    Troia looks down smiling. When she looks up again, it's towards Nadia. She rests a hand gently on Nadia's arm. "Nadia... you became big. That's the first time I've seen you do it. And you became /very/ big. I know... I've read some of your father's papers, some of your stuff. I know in theory there shouldn't be any cellular damage from the process. But it would be good to check. You're still growing, there may be unexpected side effects. Just to... reassure everyone, okay? I value your strength, and your smarts, and your bravery when we fight side-by-side Nadia. But I value your health and your happiness even more."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia nods her head slowly, "I mean, I've always theoretically been able to. But in the Red Room, well it was a Soviet bunker, space wasn't exactly plentiful, so for a long time being smaller, taking up less space always just made more sense. But I met someone on the stairs. Someone I think was real, and they said they looked forward to seeing me grow and I guess it just really got me thinking about a lot of things I hadn't before."

She pauses, because breathing is necessary. "Anyway, you're right. I should get checked out. Pym Particles aren't the only things in my system after all and I do want to put everyone at ease." The initial reflexive protest having long since melted away.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
There's a soft look at the blade by Kaida. She shifts slightly, almost uncomfortably before she nods and smiles a little, "I would like that." She looks carefully at Donna, "Sorry. Just the person who made it is gone." She nods agian and carefully puts what left of the sword away before looking up at Nadia with a smile before she just settles in to a spot and nods.

"I would really appreciate anything we can do to keep the sword with me and doing the job it was meant to."

Kian has posed:
    Kian leans on Terry, curling a wing around his shoulders... and reclaims the brandyskin, as he senses Terry's disquiet.  {//Tenar'h/, we're probably as weird to them as most of this world is to me.  I wouldn't worry about getting strange looks from the residents here.  Even if we're strange to them, they also know what we did and why we're here./}
    Sip.
    He gives Terry's shoulder a squeeze.  {/If you ever don't like the look someone gives you, come to me and I'll give you a look you *will* like./}
    Sip.
    He offers the brandyskin back, and turns a sort of half smile to Donna.  "What else were we goin' to do?  You are my frien's an'--" He glances at Terry. "--an' my family.  Where an' when you need me, I will be there."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry notices Donna's eyes, but he doesn't say anything, as Nadia and Kaida pipe up. The young man spends a few seconds watching Nadia as she replies. He regarded Kaida for a second, so enormous in her smallness that she ran into combat as if she were a tower berzerker, and right beside them the Russian girl who used to be small and had become a giant.

Where was he? Shrinking behind the camera. Shrinking behind the others. Why did it make him so uncomfortable when Donna said all of that? He was there with them. He did the thing that they did too.

~But you didn't do /as/ much as others did. Did you ride into battle astride a three-headed hell dog? Did you curbstomp people? Blast them into smithereens?~

Where /did/ that voice come from? It tended t come up at the worst of times. And it certainly didn't sound like the Cheshire cat. Goodness knows he had had it within him since before /that/ happened. He looks up at Donna again, and he surprises himself when the next words come up in his mind...

Isn't it your time to grow, too?

He blinks, and suddenly there is Kian, with his mind touch, and his physical touch, and the redhead smiles suddenly, his expression a little clearer. He takes the offered skin and takes a sip, broadcasting an affectionate thank-you to Kian indicating that the message had been fully received.

"Right you are, Kian," he says, and raises the brandyskin a little in way of toast.

"To family."

And sixth sip. He might need help to walk back.

Or maybe not.