Iron To Iron
As iron sharpens iron,
So one woman sharpens another.
the quick and the dead
Shayera fought the urge to turn around and go back to the transporter room, meekly and quietly, without a fight. But she had nowhere to turn, not with Superman by her side and John at her back.
She couldn't go backwards, and she didn't want to step forwards.
Checkmate.
So she held her position, preparing to dig in for the long haul.
And she looked at Diana.
Batman wasn't relevant here; for all that he was the more forbidding presence of the two, it wasn't his rage that fuelled the confrontation about to take place.
Had Diana always been so formidable, or was it just the presence of the man at her shoulder that made her seem so? No, Shayera decided, looking at the icy cast of the oval face with all the detachment she could muster; the Amazon had changed in the time since Shayera's departure. Not much, but enough that the sight of her now, beautiful features set in stiff fury, was terrifying.
Once, months ago, years ago, Shayera would have bared her teeth and leapt into the fray, willing to take on the Amazon - and the Dark Knight, too, if need be. Now, she didn't even want to see the look in Diana's eyes, representative of so much that Shayera had lost.
John had been lover, betrayed; Superman, Flash, J'onn, Batman - they'd been team-mates, betrayed; but Diana-
Diana had been friend, betrayed. In the parlance of the Amazons, she had been sister. In the manner of Diana's upbringing, men could be friends but her fellow female warriors were family. And when family was lost to you - who else did you have to turn to?
Shayera understood Diana's refusal to take her back. She wished she didn't.
All her bridges were burned, barely the husk of them left: fiancé, lover, team-mate, friends, people.
She hoped - by all that was worthy and sacred to her, she hoped - that she would never have to face another of her people again. Her betrayal was unforgivable and Thanagarians were not, by nature, forgiving.
Themiscyrans, from all Shayera had witnessed of Diana and her people, were not forgiving by nature either.
With the cold calculation that had been her ally in five years of lies, Shayera knew that Batman's objection to her return had been professional: once betrayed, twice wary. Then, too, despite all evidence to the contrary, Bruce Wayne was human and brought up in a society that believed in innocence before guilt, that hoped for forgiveness before outcasting. Even in his own pursuit of justice, Batman never killed - and therein lay his inclinations.
Diana was neither human, nor brought up in the kind of compassion so distinct to 'Man's World' - a second chance, a hope of redemption. The Amazons were exacting of themselves and each other, and to fail was to fall - as Diana's own outcasting from Themiscyra had shown. It was a simpler, more brutal mindset, and one that had served them so well in thousands of years, unchanging.
Yes, upbringing could be fought, and walls built to insulate against the tenets of childhood; but even the strongest of walls must leak against the pressure, if only a little.
The faced each other, the proud and the cowed.
Shayera felt the weight of Grundy's death, like a physical pressure on her sternum, like weights hung on her wings; she was ashes, dust and bones; like Grundy, dead, and seeking peace.
And, like Grundy, they had woken her from her rest.
Would Diana consent to send her back to the grave?
Your thoughts are morbid, Shayera, J'onn said, clearly into her mind, and she looked up as the telepath moved smoothly into the midst of the confrontation. You were not dead, merely resting. The Sleeping Beauty waiting for the moment to awaken.
A bitter humour rose within her breast, a tightening ache in her stomach as she regarded him. My 'prince' is gone, J'onn. That was true enough. Whether Hro or John, her prince had moved on from her. I would rather sleep again.
Would you? J'onn questioned, and she felt anger tense her body, briefly, the faintest spark of life before it was lost to the enveloping ash of her guilt.
"I believe we should adjourn to the meeting room," J'onn said out loud, and he moved through the crowds, parting people as he went.
Shayera followed him - where else did she have to go?
And the League fell in behind her; her jailers, her friends.
There was nowhere else to turn.
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