Thread: Of Winter & Of Wonder [Tempt x insufferable]

Of Winter Of Wonder There was evil in mankind. A deep, unrelenting darkness that threatened even the brightest gleam of light. It was a curse perhaps an omen against the humans - an inherit flaw Zeus had overlooked upon their creation. He gave man the power of free will, the power of choice. And this... this was one of the most dangerous freedoms of all. From this freedom came grave vulnerability a weakness Ares, the God of War, used to court his evil intentions. He invited man into his darkness, poisoning their minds and souls with thoughts of hate, greed, and jealously. He corrupted the human race, using his divine entity as a weapon of mass destruction against love and justice. If there was anything I had learned from Man's World, it was that it was unstoppable. If filled with hatred, they are cruel. If filled with love, they are compassionate righteous. In Ancient Greek history, it was our purpose - our very creation intended to breathe life, love, and passion back into the emboldening hearts of men. But the women of my land, the Amazons... they were enslaved, raped, ridiculed. So Zeus, horrified by mankind, hid us away from the world. Hid us from man. Thriving in a tropical utopia, the gods gave us Themyscira, the Paradise Island home to all Amazons. The island, shielded from the eyes and existence of Man's World, has remained fruitful and wonderful for over three thousand years. But a world without man also meant a world without children. The hearts of the Amazons soon began to weaken as a void in their motherly nature grew bigger and bigger. The ruler of Themyscira, Queen Hippolyta of Amazonia, molded a baby out of clay in the sand. Six members of the Greek Pantheon then bonded the soul to the clay, giving it life. Each of the six also granted the baby a gift Demeter, great strength Athena, wisdom and courage Artemis, a hunter's heart and a communion with animals Aphrodite, beauty and a loving heart Hestia, sisterhood with fire Hermes, speed and the power of flight. From this moment forward, I Princess Diana of Themyscira was born. But my birth had a sole purpose one that would change the course of history as we knew it. I was the God-Killer - a child born of both mortal and God, created from the womb of sand to serve in Zeus' army against his brother, Ares, the God of War. I had been designed, every bit of me, to destroy his evil. But my efforts to restore the good man kind had been intended to embrace became my greatest challenge. The world of men was not just black and white there was a lot of grey, and it was the grey that prove so difficult to sculpt. Despite the odds of darkness pitting against me, I returned to Man's World only once more after the Great War and death of Captain Steve Trevor. Though this second war was far greater in its atrocity than even that before it. I met another fierce soldier, Captain Steve Rogers, who had been granted the power of strength like I had from a magically serum. He, too, sought to destroy evil a vile creature known to the human world as Red Skull . I had seen no evil like this before, one far greater in ferocity than Sir Patrick before him. Ares had truly evolved in form, taking to a face of blood-color. Red Skull was the essence of death of all that is bad in the world. Steve and I fought to destroy him, though in the end, the spirit of Ares vanished into the virtue of the Tesseract, never to be seen again. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Return to Amazonia Only those of pure heart those free of sin , shall pass these walls! My return to Paradise Island was one of victory. I had gained new strength and with that new magic. Still feeling the emptiness of my fellow sisters, I used my divine forces to cast a spell over the shield that protected us from evil, but also, allowed for good from outside to exist within Amazonia. It did not take long for boats to arrive, and when they did, they sailed to our shores with dead men and women. But among them were children, and they were alive . Displaced by the barbaric destruction of civil war, many were civilians fleeing their countries for solace, others perhaps lost at sea by compass error. Man's World had truly proved time and time again to be a desperate, troubled place. Though despite their circumstances, they had fallen to our island as an act of the Gods of fate. For years there had been only a few, but as the 21st century unfolded in the human realm, darkness came with it. Boats made of strange materials passed through our borders. Many were destroyed, half sunk others inflated but without anyone to sail them. The boats were filled with more children than man, a mark of anguish in the hollow eyes of women with scarves around their heads. Many children were dead in these rafts, but some still clutching for life. They came ill, diseased, and famished. But they had a will for life, and they were innocents - victims - of this wicked world. As we sailed in our own ships to their aid, I discovered too many lives lost to the heavy ocean and the madness of man. Dirty and war-torn, I noticed a young toddler, sprawled face down on the side the raft, with just her mother's cold, frozen hand guarding her from falling overboard. My mouth parted open, the sight horrifying. As dozens of boats passed through the shield, Themyscira had come face-to-face with a real-life human crisis. My dark eyes found the child again, afraid to touch her lifeless body. Leaning over, I slowly and carefully peeled the dead woman's fingers from the child's life vest. Something called to me. The child, her silence called for me. Freeing the refugee infant from the side of the raft, I caught her stiff body. Turning her over in my strong arms, I cradled her, crying for her. My tears falling from my cheeks and sprinkling over her cyanotic skin. Her eyes flickered open, reveal a pair of mesmerizing green eyes . Too sickly to even cry, the beautiful girl just looked at me. I held her closer, pinning her to my chest as I wrapped her in a blanket. She was safe, now. Forever . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Several Years Later Amena ! Hippolyta would call, searching for the Arab-born human among her shores. The sun has fallen. Come now. Her olive eyes gleamed as her bright smile spread over her face. She waved excitedly to her adoptive grandmother, Queen of the Amazons. It was a stark contrast to the frail infant that was once on the brink of death at the shores of Themyscira. Now her, alongside dozens of other children, flocked these ancient streets and filled them with jovial laughter and a light of spirit unlike any other. Paradise Island was booming the lives of Amazons fulfilled with the blessing of these little girls and boys alike. Though despite this newfound joy, darkness was stirring within these very walls. General Ludendorff, Sir Patrick Morgan, even Johann Schmidt may have been lost to the Tesseract's glowing blue abyss, but deep in my soul, I felt Ares' corruption. Although I had returned to Themyscira, tragedies of the past followed me home. They stayed with me in my dreams haunting me torturing me at night. I had fallen deeply ill, a trait unfathomable to Amazonian women. Several sisters worked tirelessly to care for me, but my body wanted nothing but to sleep. In a room void of any light but that of a lambent fireplace, I dreamed endlessly of evil. I felt something grabbing me, choking me - I felt suffocated, panicked. It was an entity I could not seem to control. I was rendered useless within my own body - completely paralyzed from head to toe. Yet this darkness preyed on my soul plucked at it with its sharp fingers. Diana ... He hissed in my ears. My body began to sweat profusely, a thin layer of glistened over my skin. Di-an-NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ! Screaming myself awake, my body suddenly became hysterically invigorated. With eyes black as night , sprouting from the ashes of the underworld itself, I grabbed Ares by the head, hurling a gold-plated dagger straight into his un-shielded abdomen. Blood spat from his quivering lips, spraying my face with a freckled layer of red. My eyes went red, closing tightly only to open again. But when I opened them afrash, it wasn't the blackened eyes of Ares I was staring into, it was the eyes of Amena . No... no-no-no ... NO !!! My voice thundered throughout the city, a bloodcurdling scream emitting from my lips as I held her trembling body in my arms. My entire body collapsed to the ground, the dagger falling from my barren hands. With lips agape, my mouth locked into that of shock, my eyes flooded my face. The pain was too great to release any other sound. In agonizing silence, I watched as Amena bled out before me. My trembling hands became feeble as I held her, unable to process the event that had just unfolded. Amena's body stiffened as her tiny fingers held defiantly to a rare ancient relic she had dug up from the shores of the beach just moments before... eagerly awaiting to show me. Queen Hippolyta, a mother and grandmother, came barreling into my room. Falling to her knees as her eyes came to fall on the puddle of blood forming at my knees, she heaved in sound choking on her own voice as her heart broke in two. N-no! I began to shriek uncontrollably, calling to attention the way my heart felt like it had been ripped right out of my body. My soul had been tampered, and my daughter a victim of the darkness I allowed to consume me. D-Dia- My mother clamored at my side, Diana- But I could not hear her words through the sheer hair-raising volume of my cries. What have I done!? I wailed to her, desperately. WHAT HAVE I DONE!? Cradling Amena in my arms, I wept over her lifeless body. Her hands soon fell to her sides, the Amulet of Harmonia falling from her lithe fingers. The amulet, bronze in form, rolled from her hand to settle flat before the fire. The flames of the fire spat and sparked, the outline of Ares' demonic horns in flashing in the galvanized flames. Evil. Evil had finally found its way to Paradise.