Fic: Feud (Wonder Woman)
Apr. 30th, 2008 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Feud
Fandom: Wonder Woman
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Diana, Donna Troy, Kory, Greek pantheon
Word Count: 2,123
Timeline: Takes place after Wonder Woman 217 and the Return of Donna Troy. Sequel to Calm.
Next: Trio.
Summary: Nobody knows how to hurt you better than family.
Artume was holding the blade pointed downward for the killing stroke. Kory was knocked senseless, utterly unable to defend herself. In her concussed confusion, a thought occurred to her. Something Donna had said earlier. Secret weapons. Kory had secret weapons. With the last of her strength, she grabbed hold of her vest and ripped it open. Her breasts burst free, supplely rippling to a stop. There, they rose and fell, at first shallowly, then in great pitches as the Tamaranian caught her breath.
Artume paused. She had long been regarded as a virgin-goddess due to an age-old mistranslation. Archaeologists, usually men, had assumed that just because Artemis didn’t have sex with men, she didn’t have sex. They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Artume, for her part, had spent many a moon on New Genesis, rallying support for a war against Darkseid. The New Gods were enlightened, good-humored, fierce warriors, and occasionally even sensual. But they were not; in any way, shape, or especially form; Tamaranian.
And while Artume was frozen, staring at a pair of breasts that were so divine they had no place on a mortal chest, Kory reached up and cut her hand on Artume’s sword.
“Second blood to Artume,” Athena declared. “The combat will continue on to a third round.”
Long years of friendship had taught Diana to detect the trace of concern in her patron’s voice. She helped Kory limp off the field of battle, sprawl onto her bench. Donna frantically mopped at her girlfriend’s wounds with warm silk towels.
“Lucky for you, you have great tits,” Donna said in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“If I’d known they could do that, I would have worn a more revealing costume.”
“Is that even possible?”
“There was this lingerie Dick bought me…”
Donna stroked Kory’s brow in that vaguely Amazon way where tenderness meant being willing to fight to the death in defense. “We call off the fight, right?”
Diana shook her head. “Then we’ll never know what’s influencing Artume. Donna, I have a plan, but there’s an element of risk for you—“
“Will Kory be safe?”
“Yes.”
Donna nodded grimly.
“How can I help?” Kory asked, valiantly trying to sit up despite Donna’s protests.
Diana gently put a hand to Kory’s head and called upon Morpheus’s gift to her. “You can dream a beautiful dream.”
Kory’s eyes closed. She let herself be laid down on the bench, where Diana wrapped her up snugly in a cloak.
“Oh, Dick, I can’t believe you would do that with Donna behind my back,” Kory said woozily. “You’d better show me exactly what you did before we decide on your punishment.”
Donna blushed. Then, with a quizzical expression, mouthed we?
Kory reached up and patted Diana on the cheek. “Of course you can help, Diana. Go fetch me the honey and my paddle.”
“…let’s forget that little foray into Kory’s subconscious ever happened,” Donna suggested.
“I’d really rather not.” Diana grinned before she flipped the switch to warrior. “Athena, this one has lost consciousness. I request that Donna Troy be allowed to continue in her place.”
Artume snarled in dismay. “The trifling coward! In Zeus’s day we’d transform her into a newt for disrespecting us so!”
“Would she get better?” Donna teased sweetly.
Artume wheeled on her. “If you wish to go to Tartarus in her place…”
Donna grabbed up Kory’s sword. “I’ll save you a seat.”
She conferred with Diana. They hugged and quickly parted. Donna stepped out into the arena. She didn’t have much going for her. Her Themysciran fighting style had been invented by Artume, what she’d learned of Kory’s ways were known to the goddess, and for sheer strength pitted against strength… no chance.
What she did have was Dick Grayson. He had trained her in the Titans, and Bruce had trained him, and Bruce had learned from masters around the world, so when Donna dropped her sword and splayed her arms, Artume had no idea what she was doing.
She was doing what Dick Grayson had taught her, of course: Improvising.
Artume rushed her with speed approaching that of Hermes himself, sword held forward like a lance. Donna turned the point aside with her metal bracelet, then grabbed Artume by the arm and judo-flipped her. All the momentum Artume had built up spun her around and threw her down on her back. In the instant of paralysis that followed, Donna pulled Diana’s lasso out of its hiding place and wound it around Artume’s neck.
A startling transformation went through Artume. She stiffened and spasmed like she was being electrocuted. Her features sharpened into horrifying bestialism, with a hawkishly curved nose and pointed jaw. Athena stood and Diana wasn’t sure whether it was to protest or observe more closely. The predator Artume coughed, at first throatily, then a hacking, blood-flecked cough.
A gagging cough caved in her waist; on its heels was a sharp krakk like bones breaking. She doubled over, coughing out thick gobs of blood, then rolled onto all fours. She coughed more, in obscenely long retches, before something was dislodged. It bulged up her throat and out her lips. It was the size of a baseball mitt, something like a cross between a Armadillidiidae and a trilobite. Even the most jaded in attendance gagged as its long tail followed its million-legged body out.
The phlegm-crusted thing flopped about on its back, long antennae lashing about, then scuttled onto its feet just before Diana crushed it underfoot. She raised her foot, revealing long tendrils of goo stretching from her sandal to the twitching remains.
Artume spat the last of her grue through bloody teeth. Donna ripped a patch off her chiton to wipe at Artume’s mouth, cleaning away the gruesome fluids. It was Diana who carefully unwound the lasso of truth from her patron, wincing when she saw the burns that its spell has left.
Diana moved like lightning. She grabbed a goblet and dipped it in one of the blue-white rivers that lined the Parthenon. Returned in the blink of an eye and brought the cool liquid to Artume’s lips. Her throat worked greedily as she gulped it down, and some of the luster returned to her dull skin.
“My lady Artume, who did this to you?” Diana asked when Artume’s thirst was quenched.
Artume’s voice rattled out of her throat a pale, fragile thing. “Ares. He spat in my ear and told it to make a nest of my anger.”
The peace that reigned in Athena’s court disappeared like a candle-flame in hard wind. Ares grew to fifty feet in height, swathed in armor. Athena and her followers grew equally terrible. Diana, for her part, scooped up the discarded swords and advanced on Ares as if he weren’t infinitely more powerful than her. She passed a blade to Donna, knowing the warrior would follow.
“Explain yourself, brother,” Athena said with the bellow of rockets in flight.
“With ease,” Ares replied, spreading his arms out. “Zeus told me to.”
Zeus started so hard he dislodged the bowl of grapes from his lap. He had been quite enjoying the show.
Lightning crackled between his skyscraping form and Athena’s host.
Donna grabbed Diana’s arm. “Wondy, I think that’s our cue to vamoose.”
Diana looked from Donna to Kory to Artume. “Assist your lover. I will take the huntress.”
“She’s not my—“ Donna began to sputter, but she was already left in Diana’s dust.
“Mother, I do not wish to go to school,” Kory said as Donna cradled her in her arms.
My lover, Donna thought. It seemed a very fitting thought.
“Why do these things always seem to happen when you’re around?” Artume asked the princess as Diana helped her limp away.
“Just lucky, I suppose.”
***
Outside, Artume recovered enough to thank the women, but stressed that this was a matter for the gods to handle amongst themselves. She apologized profusely to Kory and gifted her with a parcel from her belt, which she told her not to open until she was alone. Then, Artume went back in to join the fray.
Hermes (who was, as he professed, a lover and not a fighter) stayed with them to heal Kory with a touch of his caduceus.
“My rod has many beneficial qualities,” Hermes smirked.
“How long did it take you to think that up?” Diana asked.
“Hey, it’s boring in Tartarus.” He opened his messenger bag to present them with fresh robes – “woven by Athena herself.”
Diana demurely promised that they would send him a picture of how they looked later… after they’d changed clothes in private. Then she spotted the strand of purple hair disappearing around a non-Euclidean corner.
Hermes frowned. “Well, it’s getting late, you’d better get home, call it a night, mosey on back to the homestead.”
“Wait here,” Diana said, pushing past him.
“Di…”
“Wait here with the girls,” Diana said firmly, and walked out onto the stairs. They floated into space, bracketed by the explosions of color painting everything red and blue and green. The gods’ family squabble. Diana walked, her hand unconsciously tensing next to the lasso at her hip. It so wanted to feel the reassuring friction of the rope-loop in its palm.
Circe was at the bottom step, which was wide and tall enough for a giant. She was reclining in a Vogue pose, all except for one arm which bonelessly laid across the marble floor. Something was clasped tightly in the hand.
“Hello Circe,” Diana said, hopping down next to her.
Circe gave her a supermodel’s plastic grin. “Hello Diana.”
A rush of bad memories swam through Diana’s head, but she fought them down and kept her voice neutral. “What are you doing here?”
“Same as you. Honoring Gaea and all Her wonderful accomplishments. A world of pain and misery and despair, where a mother can be separated from her daughter.”
“That’s…” Diana thought of how Lyta giggled. Of how her own mother had always been so protective of her, so sorrowful to see her leave Themyscira’s timeless paradise. “That’s not fair. If you would just change, just stop this insanity… just let it go… I would give Lyta back to you in a heartbeat.”
“Change? Be like you? Fight for a world full of peace and love and puppy-dog tummies and high heel shoes that are always on sale?” Circe stood, her fist going white-knuckled around whatever it was she held. “Your hopeless, meaningless, stupid crusade? Was it really worth taking my daughter away?”
Diana didn’t get angry. Even when her mission was insulted, she didn’t get angry. She got calmer. It was a gift. “Would you rather she be like you?”
Circe hissed, like a snake, and Diana felt the angry magic coming off her like heat from a furnace.
Diana grabbed her lasso, forcing herself to tell the truth. “You begged me to kill you, that’s how much you hate your life. Is that what you want for Lyta?”
Circe ignored the question, taking a step closer to Diana. “Begged? Like your mother begged? Burned, bleeding, dying.”
“Shut up.”
“Who are you to talk to me about motherhood? You’ll never be a mother. You’ll never even be a woman. You’re just some sexless clay robot, doing what it’s programmed to do.”
“I have a soul. Which is more than I can say for you.”
Circe relaxed her grip on whatever it was in her right hand. “I want you to have something. A present for you on Gaea Day.” She threw it at Diana. It hit not even hard enough to sting, bouncing off Diana’s collarbone.
It was a small wooden model of an infant, longingly rendered in life-life detail.
“It’s a whittle-baby. One of your merry band of Amazons carved it while you weren’t even a sparkle in Hippolyta’s molding hand. I want you to remember that when it gets bad. And it’s going to get very bad.”
As Circe stormed off, Diana bent down to pick the whittle-baby up. She looked up from it to Circe, disappearing into the chaos from which Olympus was born.
“You were my friend,” Diana called after her.
There were some things they didn’t talk about, no matter how angry they were.
“I know,” Circe said as she faded. “That’s why I can’t let it go.”
***
“So, what was her problem?” Kory asked when Diana got back. They were waiting by the jet, with Hermes predictably having disappeared.
“Long story,” Donna said preemptively. Diana was in no mood to talk.
As another family squabble raged in the heavens, the women left Mount Olympus.
“It’s not a party until something gets broken,” Kory reasoned as an avalanche cascaded down the side of the endless mountain.
Trio.
Fandom: Wonder Woman
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Diana, Donna Troy, Kory, Greek pantheon
Word Count: 2,123
Timeline: Takes place after Wonder Woman 217 and the Return of Donna Troy. Sequel to Calm.
Next: Trio.
Summary: Nobody knows how to hurt you better than family.
Artume was holding the blade pointed downward for the killing stroke. Kory was knocked senseless, utterly unable to defend herself. In her concussed confusion, a thought occurred to her. Something Donna had said earlier. Secret weapons. Kory had secret weapons. With the last of her strength, she grabbed hold of her vest and ripped it open. Her breasts burst free, supplely rippling to a stop. There, they rose and fell, at first shallowly, then in great pitches as the Tamaranian caught her breath.
Artume paused. She had long been regarded as a virgin-goddess due to an age-old mistranslation. Archaeologists, usually men, had assumed that just because Artemis didn’t have sex with men, she didn’t have sex. They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Artume, for her part, had spent many a moon on New Genesis, rallying support for a war against Darkseid. The New Gods were enlightened, good-humored, fierce warriors, and occasionally even sensual. But they were not; in any way, shape, or especially form; Tamaranian.
And while Artume was frozen, staring at a pair of breasts that were so divine they had no place on a mortal chest, Kory reached up and cut her hand on Artume’s sword.
“Second blood to Artume,” Athena declared. “The combat will continue on to a third round.”
Long years of friendship had taught Diana to detect the trace of concern in her patron’s voice. She helped Kory limp off the field of battle, sprawl onto her bench. Donna frantically mopped at her girlfriend’s wounds with warm silk towels.
“Lucky for you, you have great tits,” Donna said in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“If I’d known they could do that, I would have worn a more revealing costume.”
“Is that even possible?”
“There was this lingerie Dick bought me…”
Donna stroked Kory’s brow in that vaguely Amazon way where tenderness meant being willing to fight to the death in defense. “We call off the fight, right?”
Diana shook her head. “Then we’ll never know what’s influencing Artume. Donna, I have a plan, but there’s an element of risk for you—“
“Will Kory be safe?”
“Yes.”
Donna nodded grimly.
“How can I help?” Kory asked, valiantly trying to sit up despite Donna’s protests.
Diana gently put a hand to Kory’s head and called upon Morpheus’s gift to her. “You can dream a beautiful dream.”
Kory’s eyes closed. She let herself be laid down on the bench, where Diana wrapped her up snugly in a cloak.
“Oh, Dick, I can’t believe you would do that with Donna behind my back,” Kory said woozily. “You’d better show me exactly what you did before we decide on your punishment.”
Donna blushed. Then, with a quizzical expression, mouthed we?
Kory reached up and patted Diana on the cheek. “Of course you can help, Diana. Go fetch me the honey and my paddle.”
“…let’s forget that little foray into Kory’s subconscious ever happened,” Donna suggested.
“I’d really rather not.” Diana grinned before she flipped the switch to warrior. “Athena, this one has lost consciousness. I request that Donna Troy be allowed to continue in her place.”
Artume snarled in dismay. “The trifling coward! In Zeus’s day we’d transform her into a newt for disrespecting us so!”
“Would she get better?” Donna teased sweetly.
Artume wheeled on her. “If you wish to go to Tartarus in her place…”
Donna grabbed up Kory’s sword. “I’ll save you a seat.”
She conferred with Diana. They hugged and quickly parted. Donna stepped out into the arena. She didn’t have much going for her. Her Themysciran fighting style had been invented by Artume, what she’d learned of Kory’s ways were known to the goddess, and for sheer strength pitted against strength… no chance.
What she did have was Dick Grayson. He had trained her in the Titans, and Bruce had trained him, and Bruce had learned from masters around the world, so when Donna dropped her sword and splayed her arms, Artume had no idea what she was doing.
She was doing what Dick Grayson had taught her, of course: Improvising.
Artume rushed her with speed approaching that of Hermes himself, sword held forward like a lance. Donna turned the point aside with her metal bracelet, then grabbed Artume by the arm and judo-flipped her. All the momentum Artume had built up spun her around and threw her down on her back. In the instant of paralysis that followed, Donna pulled Diana’s lasso out of its hiding place and wound it around Artume’s neck.
A startling transformation went through Artume. She stiffened and spasmed like she was being electrocuted. Her features sharpened into horrifying bestialism, with a hawkishly curved nose and pointed jaw. Athena stood and Diana wasn’t sure whether it was to protest or observe more closely. The predator Artume coughed, at first throatily, then a hacking, blood-flecked cough.
A gagging cough caved in her waist; on its heels was a sharp krakk like bones breaking. She doubled over, coughing out thick gobs of blood, then rolled onto all fours. She coughed more, in obscenely long retches, before something was dislodged. It bulged up her throat and out her lips. It was the size of a baseball mitt, something like a cross between a Armadillidiidae and a trilobite. Even the most jaded in attendance gagged as its long tail followed its million-legged body out.
The phlegm-crusted thing flopped about on its back, long antennae lashing about, then scuttled onto its feet just before Diana crushed it underfoot. She raised her foot, revealing long tendrils of goo stretching from her sandal to the twitching remains.
Artume spat the last of her grue through bloody teeth. Donna ripped a patch off her chiton to wipe at Artume’s mouth, cleaning away the gruesome fluids. It was Diana who carefully unwound the lasso of truth from her patron, wincing when she saw the burns that its spell has left.
Diana moved like lightning. She grabbed a goblet and dipped it in one of the blue-white rivers that lined the Parthenon. Returned in the blink of an eye and brought the cool liquid to Artume’s lips. Her throat worked greedily as she gulped it down, and some of the luster returned to her dull skin.
“My lady Artume, who did this to you?” Diana asked when Artume’s thirst was quenched.
Artume’s voice rattled out of her throat a pale, fragile thing. “Ares. He spat in my ear and told it to make a nest of my anger.”
The peace that reigned in Athena’s court disappeared like a candle-flame in hard wind. Ares grew to fifty feet in height, swathed in armor. Athena and her followers grew equally terrible. Diana, for her part, scooped up the discarded swords and advanced on Ares as if he weren’t infinitely more powerful than her. She passed a blade to Donna, knowing the warrior would follow.
“Explain yourself, brother,” Athena said with the bellow of rockets in flight.
“With ease,” Ares replied, spreading his arms out. “Zeus told me to.”
Zeus started so hard he dislodged the bowl of grapes from his lap. He had been quite enjoying the show.
Lightning crackled between his skyscraping form and Athena’s host.
Donna grabbed Diana’s arm. “Wondy, I think that’s our cue to vamoose.”
Diana looked from Donna to Kory to Artume. “Assist your lover. I will take the huntress.”
“She’s not my—“ Donna began to sputter, but she was already left in Diana’s dust.
“Mother, I do not wish to go to school,” Kory said as Donna cradled her in her arms.
My lover, Donna thought. It seemed a very fitting thought.
“Why do these things always seem to happen when you’re around?” Artume asked the princess as Diana helped her limp away.
“Just lucky, I suppose.”
***
Outside, Artume recovered enough to thank the women, but stressed that this was a matter for the gods to handle amongst themselves. She apologized profusely to Kory and gifted her with a parcel from her belt, which she told her not to open until she was alone. Then, Artume went back in to join the fray.
Hermes (who was, as he professed, a lover and not a fighter) stayed with them to heal Kory with a touch of his caduceus.
“My rod has many beneficial qualities,” Hermes smirked.
“How long did it take you to think that up?” Diana asked.
“Hey, it’s boring in Tartarus.” He opened his messenger bag to present them with fresh robes – “woven by Athena herself.”
Diana demurely promised that they would send him a picture of how they looked later… after they’d changed clothes in private. Then she spotted the strand of purple hair disappearing around a non-Euclidean corner.
Hermes frowned. “Well, it’s getting late, you’d better get home, call it a night, mosey on back to the homestead.”
“Wait here,” Diana said, pushing past him.
“Di…”
“Wait here with the girls,” Diana said firmly, and walked out onto the stairs. They floated into space, bracketed by the explosions of color painting everything red and blue and green. The gods’ family squabble. Diana walked, her hand unconsciously tensing next to the lasso at her hip. It so wanted to feel the reassuring friction of the rope-loop in its palm.
Circe was at the bottom step, which was wide and tall enough for a giant. She was reclining in a Vogue pose, all except for one arm which bonelessly laid across the marble floor. Something was clasped tightly in the hand.
“Hello Circe,” Diana said, hopping down next to her.
Circe gave her a supermodel’s plastic grin. “Hello Diana.”
A rush of bad memories swam through Diana’s head, but she fought them down and kept her voice neutral. “What are you doing here?”
“Same as you. Honoring Gaea and all Her wonderful accomplishments. A world of pain and misery and despair, where a mother can be separated from her daughter.”
“That’s…” Diana thought of how Lyta giggled. Of how her own mother had always been so protective of her, so sorrowful to see her leave Themyscira’s timeless paradise. “That’s not fair. If you would just change, just stop this insanity… just let it go… I would give Lyta back to you in a heartbeat.”
“Change? Be like you? Fight for a world full of peace and love and puppy-dog tummies and high heel shoes that are always on sale?” Circe stood, her fist going white-knuckled around whatever it was she held. “Your hopeless, meaningless, stupid crusade? Was it really worth taking my daughter away?”
Diana didn’t get angry. Even when her mission was insulted, she didn’t get angry. She got calmer. It was a gift. “Would you rather she be like you?”
Circe hissed, like a snake, and Diana felt the angry magic coming off her like heat from a furnace.
Diana grabbed her lasso, forcing herself to tell the truth. “You begged me to kill you, that’s how much you hate your life. Is that what you want for Lyta?”
Circe ignored the question, taking a step closer to Diana. “Begged? Like your mother begged? Burned, bleeding, dying.”
“Shut up.”
“Who are you to talk to me about motherhood? You’ll never be a mother. You’ll never even be a woman. You’re just some sexless clay robot, doing what it’s programmed to do.”
“I have a soul. Which is more than I can say for you.”
Circe relaxed her grip on whatever it was in her right hand. “I want you to have something. A present for you on Gaea Day.” She threw it at Diana. It hit not even hard enough to sting, bouncing off Diana’s collarbone.
It was a small wooden model of an infant, longingly rendered in life-life detail.
“It’s a whittle-baby. One of your merry band of Amazons carved it while you weren’t even a sparkle in Hippolyta’s molding hand. I want you to remember that when it gets bad. And it’s going to get very bad.”
As Circe stormed off, Diana bent down to pick the whittle-baby up. She looked up from it to Circe, disappearing into the chaos from which Olympus was born.
“You were my friend,” Diana called after her.
There were some things they didn’t talk about, no matter how angry they were.
“I know,” Circe said as she faded. “That’s why I can’t let it go.”
***
“So, what was her problem?” Kory asked when Diana got back. They were waiting by the jet, with Hermes predictably having disappeared.
“Long story,” Donna said preemptively. Diana was in no mood to talk.
As another family squabble raged in the heavens, the women left Mount Olympus.
“It’s not a party until something gets broken,” Kory reasoned as an avalanche cascaded down the side of the endless mountain.
Trio.
