Iron To Iron
As iron sharpens iron,
So one woman sharpens another.
strike and counterstrike
As she faced Wonder Woman in the workout room, Shayera straightened her shoulders and inhaled deeply. It was a struggle to summon even a fragment of the spirit she'd once wielded as Hawkgirl, but she had nothing else with which to counteract the fierce fire of Amazonian rage within her one-time friend.
She owed Diana this fight.
She owed herself this fight.
Atonement was very much a human concept, the idea that forgiveness - redemption - should cost something, should be felt. In Thanagarian culture, there was no forgiveness; one failed and was lost, there was no return to grace.
Shayera had been brought up learning that when she failed her people, when she betrayed her friends and colleagues, there would be no second chances. When the Thanagarians came to Earth, when she betrayed the League, when she double-crossed her people, she knew that there was no going back.
And yet the League had given her a second chance.
Something in her wanted to believe that she could atone.
Something else, older and hardened to the knowledge that betrayal was costly and beyond forgiveness, scoffed at the thought.
She'd laid down the offer to Diana in the full knowledge that she had not paid the full price of her atonement - not yet. Everything had a price: the difficulty lay in finding where the account was charged.
At least in this, she could discharge her dues.
Wonder Woman issued the opening blow, Shayera dodged and swung her mace in retaliation, and the fight was on.
The first blows were tentative, testing. They'd fought each other before in other, happier times, but this was no laughing matter. Strike and counterstrike, with her mace to even out the imbalance between Diana's strength and her own, Shayera defended herself, but did not attack.
She had no will to attack.
She had no opportunity to attack.
Nobody was pulling any punches. Shayera suspected that Wonder Woman didn't want to pull her punches, and beneath Diana's onslaught Shayera couldn't afford to pull hers.
They took to the air, Shayera launched herself out of Diana's radius, and the Amazon followed her, light as a feather, graceful as an eagle - and just as predatory. She would not be cheated of her prey.
Kick and punch, block and ward, her mace blocked Diana's low kick with jarring force, and she executed a mid-air backflip to elude the high punch. A pointless move: the Amazon launched herself behind her fist, holding the aerial advantage - gravity was not her enemy as it was Shayera's.
Her wings ached from the aerobatics, but her pride would not let her back down, and her conscience required she at least hold Diana off, rather than grant the other woman an easy 'kill.' First Blood, not Last Blood, although if Diana had demanded Last Blood, Shayera was not entirely sure she would have denied it.
The mace swung heavy through the air, meeting Diana's fist, and the slim hand with the steel grip yanked at it, dragging Shayera out of her hover to topple through the air.
Around her, the world spun dizzily. Diana had sent her into spinning freefall through the air.
It was nearly impossible to regain balance when tumbling, but Shayera had learned a thing or two through the years. One wing snapped out, adding drag to her haywire plummet - a good seven or eight yards of open space with a barely-cushioned floor at the end of it. As her body plunged down in a slightly more managed fall, held by straining wing-muscles, she snapped out the other wing and turned it into a controlled swoop. Her toes came within a few inches of the floor, but she rose again.
Her muscles screamed as she soared back up into the air, and her instincts, bred in muscle, bone, and feather, screamed at her to turn, to roll mid-air. She twisted, saw something dark flash behind her, and stopped dead, risking the fall in evasion of Diana's fist.
Once again, they dived and spun and flew, and now a few of Shayera's attacks found their mark in Diana, and more than a few of Diana's attacks landed on Shayera.
Her blood was running, and running hot, coursing through her veins as it had when she struggled to save the woman and her daughter in the falling car. She'd forgotten the thrill of swooping and diving, of trying to avoid an enemy, of trying to outthink a friend. She'd forgotten the pulse of adrenaline, of blood pumping through her veins, of wind ruffling her feathers, cooling her hot blood with wind chill.
As she spread her pinions wide and free, Shayera remembered what it was like to spar with someone, to try out fancy moves and successfully elude her friend's blows - a challenge worthy of a Lieutenant of Thanagar.
She'd forgotten how well this life suited her, how fitting she'd found her friendship with Diana.
Reality came back in the form of a hit to her jaw, solid, unyielding and unexpected. She slammed against the wall of the workout room, bruising limbs. The ground rushed up to meet her and such was her turmoil she couldn't even land on her feet.
By contrast, Diana touched down lightly, a gentle settling to ground. Her pose was relaxed, and her breathing even, unwinded. Her hands curled lightly at her sides, no longer fisted, and her eyes were distant.
"First Blood," she said, clinically, and Shayera tasted the wet tang of blood on her lip. First Blood, battle ended.
Disappointment blew through her, like cold ash after a fire. She shifted, moving abruptly, the better to get off her wings, trapped beneath her body.
A hand entered her personal space; beyond it, Diana's expression was neutral. The angry goddess was appeased, and the fire no longer burned to sear. Wonder Woman would not actively support Shayera's return, but nor would she protest it. Her anger had been temporarily satisfied, even if there was not, nor ever would be, payment enough for her sense of honour.
In that gesture, Shayera saw that they were equal, but they were not friends. The action was rendered distantly, without emotion, and something in her - that spark she had struggled to nurture - found tinder and glowed red-hot.
Shayera's eyes narrowed as she accepted the hand up, using it to pull herself to her feet. And, as Diana pulled her up, she yanked the Amazon down.
Down into the swing of her mace.
Energised metal encountered flesh with a solid 'thwack' that reverberated through the room and Diana tumbled through the air, surprised by the unexpected attack.
Somewhere, there was a gasp from onlookers Shayera hadn't even known were there, but they were irrelevant. This was between her and Diana alone. Her whole being focused on the woman who climbed to her feet, a gleam of wariness in her blue eyes.
As she met that glance, warrior to warrior, Shayera felt the fire in her own soul surge into flame.
-
