Chapter 22

"You do not need to leave, you know?"

Lara jolted. She frantically rubbed at her eyes before turning to face the princess. Her voice quavered a little when she replied, "And you do not need to creep up on people."

"I apologise. I should not have startled you."

"No, it's fine. I'm just a bit… sensitive at the moment, is all."

Diana took the response as a cue to approach. She lowered herself onto the bench next to her friend.

"How do you feel?" the princess probed.

Lara sighed. "Like it's the end of school holidays."

"I am unfamiliar with the scenario, but I think I understand the sentiment."

It truly was the end. Lara's bags were packed; all her equipment, including her seafaring vessel, returned to her. The archaeologist was set to depart the following morning.

As the time drew near, Diana had seen a silence settle over the little brunette. She withdrew into herself, walled herself off behind a bright façade. Yet, the layer was translucent. Behind the smiles, something occasionally writhed, like a serpent straining in too small a space.

Diana attempted a distraction. "And how are you after the other night?"

"That night…" Lara flushed. Her fingers came up and skittered over her cheek. "I'm still amazed I didn't have a hangover. Although, I don't know that my jaw will ever recover."

"Your stamina is Amazonian even if the frame housing it is not."

The women laughed.

Almost immediately, Lara's smile dulled. Scales flashed, and receded. The honorary Amazon turned back to the view: her last Themysciran sunset, enjoyed from a vantage point on Mount Penthesilea, towering proud behind the island's chief settlement.

"I don't know there is anything as beautiful," Lara sighed.

"I am surprised you are here alone and not with Myrene?"

The archaeologist grimaced. "I wish I could just sneak away."

Diana was shocked. "You would leave here and break her heart?"

"I already am, and I feel horrid about it."

"As I already said, you do not have to leave."

"Diana, I've already had this argument. With Myrene. With myself. Over and over."

"I jested before but your heart and soul are truly that of an Amazon, Lara. You are one of us. Mother's ceremony formalised it. We are your family now; the mothers and sisters you should have had, and that makes this your home."

"I can't stay," Lara responded simply.

"Because you must continue to thwart Trinity?"

"What? No. Most of the time they just get in my way, or I'm fixing my mistakes. I have no interest in being a hero." The Englishwoman gulped down a fresh welling of emotion, and let her head dip. Cradled in her lap were her limp fingers. She began massaging her right hand with her left.

"This place is heaven," she murmured. "It's everything I could want. But heaven is not for me."

"What is then?"

Diana closed her fingers over Lara's, halting her companion's compulsive action and forcing her to turn to her friend.

"I don't know," the archaeologist replied. "I just know I can't… stop."

"Ever?"

"Maybe. When I started all this, I quickly came to the realisation that this will be my whole life. Searching until one day the answers get the jump on me, instead of the other way around." Lara frowned then, and pulled her hand away. "But I don't know why you're grilling me, Diana. I know full well what you intend to do."

Changing the subject. As skilled as she was in combat, Lara's defensive tactics during verbal sparring were predictable. Press her on her personal actions and choices, and her reaction was always to deflect.

Diana pulled her face. "My situation is different," she replied.

Lara snorted. "Just remember, Princess, if you embark down this path, your loved ones – anyone you care about – will find themselves hauled onto the same course. People will inevitably get hurt. You can't protect them, it doesn't matter how powerful you are. I know. I've tried, and you just can't be strong enough for everyone…"

"You saved an entire island."

Lara shook her head. "Fixing my mistakes, like I said. Or, thinking I was fixing my mistakes. If you hadn't been there – "

Lara froze; blinked.

Diana did not prompt her. The Amazon had spent enough time with the mortal to know when she was detangling a mental knot.

"Maybe…" Lara began. Her expression was incredulous. "Maybe you are the exception. The one finally strong enough for all of us."

Diana shrugged. "Perhaps. But how will I know if I stay here forever?"

"I don't want to see you tested like that. I know nobody on Themyscira would want you shouldering that burden, least of all your mother."

That prickled the princess. "They are my family, but my life is my own. Attempting to churn up guilt on my part will not stop me, nor is it fair."

Lara swallowed. "No. You are a wonder, Diana. Light, love, justice in the truest sense. That is you. I just worry how exposure to my world will corrode those qualities."

"You believe it will?"

"I wasn't always such a twitchy misanthrope. But life had other plans for a bright-eyed 21-year-old full of optimism and hungry for adventure."

Diana straightened. "Then I will have to be even stronger; as adept with shield out there as with sword."

It was Lara's turn to reach out and clasp her friend's hand. "I don't want to spend our last few hours together fighting, Diana. Please just understand how much I care about you."

Lara's words were not empty platitudes. Diana had felt the mortal's anguish intensify as the topic of conversation shifted from her departure to the young Amazon. She also knew how challenging it was for the Englishwoman to express her feelings.

So Diana attempted to soothe her companion in return.

"I know you have my best interests at heart, Lara, and I feel the same about our parting. I am certain I will have few friends in life as true as you."

The Amazon raised the women's clutched hands to her lips and kissed Lara's scarred knuckles.

"I apologise if I am intruding." Hippolyta announced to the pair's left.

It was progress on Lara's part that she did not leap to the other side of the bench and stammer an apology. She sighed instead, "No, we were just talking. About the future."

Diana turned to her mother. She was the one to jolt. The queen of the Amazons stood alone, without her usual retinue.

"Hola, Mother."

"Greetings, Daughter," Hippolyta dipped her head. "I too wish to speak to our gu– sister." She strained a small smile. "Alone, if it pleases you."

As if the princess had a choice? She got to her feet. "Good luck," she winked at Lara, setting the mortal's eyes wide. Her mother scowled at her.

While she started to trot away, Diana heard Lara ask the queen, "Is it wise to have come unarmed?"

Hippolyta replied, "As skilled as you are in battle, Lara Croft, I think I can still take you."

Her daughter did not need line of sight to know those words were accompanied by a rare smirk.

Diana followed the path back to the city of her people. At least, she did until the track zig-zagged behind a dollop of brush. She may have been dismissed but it was as Lara had once said: No secret has ever been uncovered by waiting for the answers to come to you.

Diana just knew her mother and friend were talking about her. She resolved to circle around and eavesdrop on the conversation. Her reasoning was that along with good and evil there was always a third side – justice, sitting as a sliver between the two opposites like the edge of a coin. Starved of truths about her nature, it was just for Diana to listen if it provided any enlightenment. She scampered back up the slope.

Queen of the Amazons and English noblewoman sat side by side. They mimicked each other's posture, sitting upright with hands clasping knees in rigid social discomfort.

Hippolyta was grimacing. Diana caught the tail-end of the queen's words as she lowered herself behind a boulder.

"–ter's love life. I have made peace with that lack of control."

"We were just talking, you know," Lara said.

"She values your opinion greatly. She will miss you, as will many others."

Lara fluttered her eyelids. "And you?"

A pause. Eventually, Hippolyta murmured, "I was wrong about you, Lara. I – I apologise."

Diana gulped. Please, Lara, no glibness. The queen of the Amazons apologising was as much an out-of-character strain as Lara accepting she was not to blame for some new catastrophe.

Fortunately, the mortal held her typically sharp tongue.

Hippolyta continued, "I should have accepted the wisdom of the Grey Eyed Goddess. I simply – "

"Could not believe anything from Man's World wasn't here to destroy you?" Lara nodded, "Even without the events of the Amazons' history, your distrust is warranted."

And just like that, the women found common ground. They exhaled their relief.

Flushing the tension from her muscles, Diana's mother leaned back and sighed. "My Sphere is as much a curse as a blessing. Sometimes we can know too much."

Lara chuckled, "Tell me about it."

Hippolyta cocked her head. "You would disclose what you have learnt about us to others in your world, still?"

The archaeologist winced. "I seek answers primarily for myself. That will never change. More often than not, when I've tried to share what I've found, I've been labelled a madwoman. But with age, supposedly comes wisdom, and one thing I've found with startling consistency is that sometimes, sometimes, it's better for truths not to be revealed."

Diana's mother pressed, "That applies to the truths you have learned about the Amazons?"

"I know you can look after yourselves. But I wouldn't want to endanger your people any more than I already have. That said," Lara cleared her throat. "I won't be the last person from Man's World to end up on your island."

Hippolyta replied grimly, "You have brought much change to Themyscira."

"I think I was more a foreshadowing. Bigger things are coming. I'm certain you feel it too." Lara paused for a heartbeat. "Unless… they're here already?"

The queen stiffened. "What is here is under control."

She would not elaborate further, but her companion raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps not everything," Lara commented.

"If you are talking about Diana, am not blind to my daughter's wants," Hippolyta scowled. "I have expended a lot of energy to keep them at bay. You did not help."

"I didn't put anything in her head that wasn't already there," Lara frowned. "It may be time to reassess your strategy. After what happened, she is more curious than ever. And impatient."

"I am very aware of that."

Lara leaned in. "What is she? Really?"

This was it. The long-disguised and dismissed truth. Diana tried to calm the pulse hammering in her chest and temples in case she missed any of her mother's words.

Hippolyta was busy scrutinising Lara's face. Even from a distance, Diana could see the answer taut in her throat, right there.

The queen of the Amazons turned away. "A gift from Olympus," she eventually said. "The power for goodness and love, beyond what we deserve. Diana is better than all of us."

The princess slumped back against cold stone.

Still no honesty. Was she never to really know?

Worried that in her bitter disappointment she might make a sound that gave her away, Diana decided to depart.

She peeked once more from her hiding place. Her mother's attention was still engaged elsewhere, but Lara's brown eyes were waiting for the young Amazon.

Of course she knew.

"Sorry," the Englishwoman mouthed.

Diana trudged up the mountain, kicking out her sandals against any loose pebbles in her way. She was not despondent by nature but recent blow after blow to her desires had battered her down inside herself, like a peg under a hammer.

Yet, there was nothing she could do. It would be an adventure to leave the island with Lara but she knew her friend would never allow it. Also, the princess could acknowledge that for all her impatience, the time for departure did not feel right. Something held her to Themyscira's bosom. For the moment at least.

Craving a cheerful distraction, Diana returned to the task she had earlier chosen to fill that afternoon. With the gift of flight, its completion had become a great deal easier.

She decided against a showy landing in the glade, preferring to descend among the trees and approach as she usually did. They were shy and skittish after all. To "sweeten the deal," as Lara would say, Diana made sure to enter the clearing with her offering visible.

"Hola," the princess said as she stepped into the open space. She had her satchel in one hand and an example of its contents held aloft in the other.

The winged steeds raised their heads at the disturbance but quickly settled again on recognising their visitor. Of the herd, some grazed, others dozed. A pair of gangly foals cantered and flapped around each other. They were all comfortable with Diana's presence, especially since she came without the trailed scent of an outsider.

The matriarch approached, head held high.

Hippolyta in equestrian form.

Dismissing the amusing comparison from her mind, Diana bowed to the herd leader as she would to her mother.

"I have yet to show my gratitude, for what you did for my people – despite the great risk to yourselves."

The matriarch flicked her ear. It is as you say.

"Thank you. Without your help, I do not know we would have succeeded in defeating the invaders."

It was as much for my flock as you and yours, Princess.

"I brought this in appreciation." Diana presented the apple in her palm.

The matriarch's eyes flashed with excitement before she composed herself again.

It is unnecessary but welcome.

Diana busied herself sharing her bag of fruit among the glade's inhabitants. After piling the excess, she dusted off her hands, scratched the foals under their chin and departed the same way she had entered.

To arrive home before full dark, she would need to fly some of the way. Not wanting to be seen by the other Amazons, though, she lingered in the remote spot. Anything that reminded her sisters of her fundamental, inexplicable difference was to be avoided.

As dusk deepened, birds and other beasts bedded down for the night. The silence amplified.

After appreciating the simple quiet of Nature, Diana navigated to a nearby spring. One quick drink before starting back to the settlement.

She was drying her hands on her tunic when leaves rustled behind her.

Diana spun around.

Standing side by side in the gloom were the Fates: Atropos bent and lined with age, Lachesis in her ripe womanly prime, and adolescent Clotho, barely entered by blood into womanhood. The trio were very rarely seen, but as their appearance usually accompanied life-altering change, their absence was not exactly regretted.

Diana's greeting was half-strangled by her surprise at the encounter.

"Good evening, Princess," Clotho said cheerfully.

"It has admittedly been a long while," Lachesis added.

"Yes," Atropos chuckled.

There had been no sign of the goddesses for the entirety of Lara's time on the island. It prompted Diana to ask, "Where have you been?"

"Busy at our loom," Clotho replied. She shrugged, "There was no need for our presence, and besides, we knew how events would resolve."

"So why appear now?"

"Oh, we were just having an evening stroll," Atropos grinned with a mouth of worn, yellowed teeth.

"Purely coincidence," Lachesis added.

That was highly unlikely. Diana's scepticism must have reflected in her features because the Fates shared a look amongst themselves.

Lachesis cleared her throat. "Following such eventful times for Themyscira, we thought you may have a question for us?"

Diana sucked in a breath. Answers, finally.

"Just not about you, child." Atropos flung water on her excitement. "We cannot answer questions about your past, present or future."

"Rules." Clotho rolled her eyes.

"Then why taunt me with dangled knowledge, like everyone else?" Diana snapped.

The trio looked on, impassive.

Ashamed of her outburst, the princess apologised. "I am sorry, Wise Ones. I – I just…" No matter what, she could not waste such a rare opportunity for enlightenment. "What of Lara Croft?"

"What of her?" Atropos frowned.

"What is her destiny?"

Atropos's expression did not change. "Hers will be a bittersweet life, always. Great highs tempered with great lows. Losses."

Lachesis added, "Despite the divine patronage she has earned, she will never escape her mortality."

Clotho was the least gloomy of the three. "Yet it is exactly her mortality, her vulnerability, which makes her and her feats so remarkable."

"Will I see Lara again?"

The goddesses conferred.

It was Lachesis who responded with the enigmatic, "Worlds collide. What will be must be."

Atropos broke rank and waddled towards the princess. She reached up and squeezed Diana's shoulder.

"We follow the Thread too, child," the old woman said. "It is not our place to provide you with the answers you yearn for. Yet, we assure you they will come, and then perhaps followed by an immediate wish for ignorance. Exercise patience, prepare yourself as you have been and do not act rashly."

Atropos shuffled back to her companions. Together, they vanished into the gloom, leaving Diana to digest yet another unsatisfying chunk of advice.