Persephone's Champion
Philadelphia is covered in a quite blanket of white. Lian is in back making snow forts as the cool ice falls on her stepmother's wind-blown face.
The statues are done. It took her long enough.
She rubs eyes that have hung open and heavy for weeks upon weeks and feels them itch and ache with fatigue she hasn't been able to sate. She is the Champion of the Death Goddess. She knows better than to think death is the end - but it is an end. It's an end to familiar touches...the smell of Jason's cigarette...It's the end of mortal pleasures like this snow that her brother would have loved so much. It means no more holidays. No more new memories or pictures. No more growing older.
For a second she can almost let herself hallucinate the sound of her beloved scraping together a snow fort just behind her. She only closes her eyes these days. She stopped looking about three weeks ago.
But if they come back... Gods! What a seductive whisper to one who's come back! It nags in the night and seduces her every thought. What if they're waiting for you to storm the fort and take them back, like Dick and Roy did for you? Then the guilt comes and the doubt. She almost got people killed as a leader! The job is on her shoulders now if the team is going to live on. She made Dick promise not to break them apart again should something happen to her. Who would she be not to keep that word herself?
It's not that she can't let herself think about it. It's that she can't think at all these days.
Stretching out her arms as if in surrender or prayer, Donna falls back into the soft snowbank behind her. She takes one of her late husbands arrowheads and begins to cut. An offering of hair is a traditional sign of respect and mourning to the Amazons. When it grows back, it's supposed to let you know you're still alive. I'll get back to you on if it works, she thinks to the three statues looming above her like silent gods.
The statues are done. It took her long enough.
She rubs eyes that have hung open and heavy for weeks upon weeks and feels them itch and ache with fatigue she hasn't been able to sate. She is the Champion of the Death Goddess. She knows better than to think death is the end - but it is an end. It's an end to familiar touches...the smell of Jason's cigarette...It's the end of mortal pleasures like this snow that her brother would have loved so much. It means no more holidays. No more new memories or pictures. No more growing older.
For a second she can almost let herself hallucinate the sound of her beloved scraping together a snow fort just behind her. She only closes her eyes these days. She stopped looking about three weeks ago.
But if they come back... Gods! What a seductive whisper to one who's come back! It nags in the night and seduces her every thought. What if they're waiting for you to storm the fort and take them back, like Dick and Roy did for you? Then the guilt comes and the doubt. She almost got people killed as a leader! The job is on her shoulders now if the team is going to live on. She made Dick promise not to break them apart again should something happen to her. Who would she be not to keep that word herself?
It's not that she can't let herself think about it. It's that she can't think at all these days.
Stretching out her arms as if in surrender or prayer, Donna falls back into the soft snowbank behind her. She takes one of her late husbands arrowheads and begins to cut. An offering of hair is a traditional sign of respect and mourning to the Amazons. When it grows back, it's supposed to let you know you're still alive. I'll get back to you on if it works, she thinks to the three statues looming above her like silent gods.