Amazonian Awakening

Surprise!

"With you it's different.

I can see the rest of my life before my eyes and that scares me a little. Men don't tame my wild heart but somehow I crossed your path and have never been the same since."

-- Nikki Rowe

Diana stood shocked by her mother's admission...

In the palace kitchens, Myri and Kara sat down to have a small snack. "Kara, you have barely said anything since you arrived, what is wrong, my daughter?" Kara sat, staring at the cut pear, cheese and honey on her plate, pushing it around with her fingers. She was quiet and when she looked up at her mother, the look of concern and worry that filled her eyes caused Myri to gasp. She reached across the table and took her daughter's hands, "what is it, Little One?"

"He's alive, mama," Kara whispered, suddenly sounding much younger than her twenty-one years. "My cousin Kal-El is alive, but--but he doesn't want to learn anything about our world."

"This bothers you?" Myri asked, knowing the answer, but waiting for her daughter to put it into words.

"It does," Kara admitted, her forehead crinkling in thought, "but it shouldn't." She paused and pushed her pear into the honey, watching as the gold puddle slowly wrapped itself around the fruit. "It's his decision, his choice. He never knew Krypton, but he--he is going to be a father and she will never understand where he came from or why she is different."

"Kara, he came to Earth as an infant, correct?" She continued, without allowing an answer, "so he was raised as a human. He grew up with their customs, religions, and social norms. We accepted you as you are, you were also older, with beliefs of your own. Is he a good man?"

Kara nodded, smiling at her lesson, "he is, he is also very stubborn and a horrible fighter."

"Says a captain of the Queen's elite. That's not a very fair comparison, is it Kara?" Myri smiled, softening the rebuke.

"No mother," Kara hung her head, smiling, but taking the lesson in stride. "There were other warriors as well."

"All men?" Myri asked.

"Yes mother, all men, and I think one of them may be younger than me, I'm not sure," Kara answered, "his name is Barry and he was as fast as Hermes, perhaps even faster; I'm not sure I could beat him in a race. Then there's Victor; Hephaestus would think a golem escaped from his forge. Diana and Bruce said he is a cyborg, some sort of adaptive science, he even has weapons that form from his armor."

"Bruce?" Myri questioned.

"He dresses like one of Hades' demons, mother, and he fights like..." Kara paused to think, "if I didn't have my gifts, I'm not sure I could beat him in a fair fight."

"You fight to win, Kara, not to be fair," her mother spoke, parroting her lessons from Naomi.

"I know, mother, but he is smart too, almost as good a tactician as Alexandra," Kara explained.