Steve:

She smells like disinfectant. A little infant, wailing in my arms, seems to have no care in the world for the ears she is assaulting. I sit on a hospital bed, next to Diana, wearing a smile of fools, my lips stretched ear to ear. Diana leans on me, her eyes half-closed as she holds our little girl's hand.

"What about Andromeda?" I ask, "or Cassiopeia?"

Diana shakes her tired head. "No, it doesn't sound right."

We've been going through everything our brains can produce. We'd agreed, long before, that we weren't giving the world another Dolly or Daisy or Jane.

"Temperance," I say. As soon as it leaves my lip I know it's not going to be the one. The girl just wailed louder. "I can't believe the police haven't come," I mutter. I think we should go with something Greek, give her heritage, though Diana isn't keen on alienating her too much.

"Annora? or Marcellina?" I ask again, maybe Latin might yield better results.

She shakes her head. "I don't like how Annora sounds. It sounds half. And nothing meaning 'warlike'."

"Amity for peace?"

"Too much pressure."

"Or we could go Welsh." My mother was Welsh. "Morwenna, Rhonwen, Ceridwen ."

"Those are nice." She sighs. They're nice, but they don't fit. We can both see it. Well, Ceridwen might, but it wasn't the nicest to roll of the tongue.

I list off quite a few more names, like Morrighan, Alice, Isadora, and Lavander. None of them are adequate.

"Thalassa," I mutter under my breath, trying Greek again. Angering the gods is something I don't feel like doing.

"I like it," an alien voice said. We both looked up. A woman, bearing a striking resemblance to Diana, dressed in white robes, was sitting near the window. "Some say that's my mother's name."

"Aphrodite!" Diana exclaims. I assume it's the woman and not something she wants to call the child.

"'Tis I!" She says melodramatically. Diana pulls the girl from my arms, keeping her close to her breast.

"I'm not here to meddle." The Goddess says. "Least, not anymore." She walks over o the bed. "You know you have me to thank for all this lovely stuff. Let's see." She says, taking a look at our child. Diana relaxes the slightest bit, but I know she's ready to strike. "Don't call the kid Thalassa though, I fear that would be cruel in a modern world, and the future modern world."

I glare at her. "How did you get in here?"

"Steve, don't," Diana says. I promptly shut my mouth.

"I'm a Goddess, I can do whatever I want unless Zeus declares otherwise. And even then he doesn't always have complete control." She pauses. "I'm biased towards Persephone but I'm also overly protective of it. To bad Tolkien hasn't written his fantasy yet. Then you'd have a slew of names she's thank you for."

"You're here to give us name advice?" Diana asks.

"Not really. Just wanted to bless her. You're currently my favourite immortal couple. Olympus is so boring these days. All the old, over and over again. But I've decided to stay and see what you name her in person." She lays her hands on the baby's head and it glowed slightly, making the wails stop. Aphrodite slips back into the shadows, giving us a semblance of privacy.

"What do you think Diana?" I ask, as my suggestions have proven inadequate.

After a moment's thought, she comes up with three names: Phaedra, Cosima, and Corisande.

Cosima seems like the simple choice, many fo the British upper class use it, but it's not overly common. But Corisande has a haunting, romantic feel: something I think Aphrodite would approve of.

Later a nurse comes in asking for a name. We give her Corisande Morgause Trevor.

Diana:

In the early two-thousands, we've made it back to England. Corisande looks around, her blue eyes wide with amazement. When we'd left, she'd had the appearance of three-year-old, though much more intellectual.

"London has changed so much Mother!" She exclaims, her ten-year-old face lighting up.

Every two or three years we have to leave town and go somewhere anew, lest the neighbours notice how we don't age as fast. It's been nearly a century, but it seems as though only ten years have passed.

We roam around the streets, the layout Steve and I'd memorized no longer proving helpful, looking for a place to eat.

Steve and I walk on either side of Corisande, each of us holding one of her hands in a grip most children would have found too tight. But not ours. She's strong, I made sure of it. She's our only child, not for a lack of trying, so neither of us is letting anything happen to her.

Somewhere we find a nice little pub with music flowing out the windows. It seems nice enough. Stepping inside, we can tell it's a duelling piano bar for there are two large pianos on a stage in the middle of the place.

A waitress comes and gives a seat next to the window, away from the bar part of the establishment. She places some crayons in frond of Corisande, having no way of knowing how mentally past them she is. Instantaneously she flips over the piece of paper containing maps and puzzles to black bottom and begins sketching a scene from The Lord of the Rings.

"A little prodigy?" The waitress asks. We nod, though it isn't true. She's spent over thirty years working on her sketching ability. It's not her natural forte. One of my power-suppressing bracelets sits around her wrist. Part mortal, she isn't as inclined to it as I am, but things do tend to break if she's not careful and the bracelet helps.

A man, calling himself Ivan Rosefsky, gets up and asks for a challenge. It seems he has been coming here for a long time and is boasting about being a professional pianist. A woman, Catalina Eloise Gardner, someone I'm sure I've seen on the telly before, accepts his challenge.

They duel the whole night, playing exotic, complicated pieces I've never heard before. Corisande follows along, whispering to us the names of pieces and how well the performers are playing them.

Some supernatural force seemed to have made us put her into acting and music. The acting was slightly obvious, as she needs to pretend to be the age she looks, but the music was more of a long shot. She prefers string interments above all but knows how to play all the classical ones.

The waitress comes back and we order.

Later that night, after a long meal and Carisande bring quite a few long-time professionals to their knees, she walks up to the player from before, Ivan and Catalina, who were now sharing a table. She bows then hands Ivan her collection of roses and forcefully making him give them to Catalina. She tells them she thinks they will be amazing parents and any child would be lucky and happy with them. And to stay away from certain streets of London in eleven years from now near New years, lest they meet an unfortunate end.

"What was that?" I ask when she comes back.

"I have an odd feeling about them, live we've met before in some other life." She replies before hugging me. I pull her close and keep her near for many seconds. "I love you, mom." She says unprompted." And you too dad." She leans over me to reach him."

"Also," she adds, sitting back down. "The Goddess of Love blessed my birth, I can see when a romance will go somewhere." She smirks and raises her glass.

Spring 2018:

My phone vibrates, indication a notification. I look down. Goodreads has updated the blog of an author I'm following. Carri Morgan's blog. They do it automatically, as she is not on there herself.

"Seriously?" I say to Corisande as I read the title. "You're trashing The Greatest Showman? I thought you liked it."

"I liked the soundtrack but it's historically inaccurate. So much so it could down history as historically inaccurate." She says from the kitchen where she sits by her laptop. "And that's one of the films I was asked to review as part of my release week review flash flood."

She's taken to blogging. About anything. She's done quite a few university courses online over the years, as she can't attend a normal school, and two years ago, she discovered she could blog anonymously and share her heightened knowledge with the world.

More recently, she wrote a book about Greek Mythology, Wonder Woman, and the world entitled The Origins of Heros. There have been many such books published over the last few years, but her's is the most accurate, as she knows the Justice League perfectly. Of course, she can't prove it without giving away classified information, but that hasn't stopped her from sounding like the most legitimate author out there. She's self-published, as working with a publishing house would be problematic, but has been able to sell preorders quite nicely and has a large online following to help.

Steve comes through the door.

"Daddy!" She exclaims happily, the ten-year-old side of her coming out. She runs to the door, which stills seems so far away as I'm still used to the small houses in England. We have now moved to Vancouver, but the neighbours are already getting suspicious though we've only resided here a year.

Corisande brings the bags in. We decided to eat supper from Amir today, as no had the desire to cook. Corisande's book comes out tomorrow and she is too nervous, Steve works full time even though we have a fortune, and Wonder Woman got hit by a train.

Corisande sits on the couch opposite me and pokes at her food. "I can't wait until I look fourteen." She says. "Then I'll look old enough to look too young to be pretending to get into nightclubs even though I'm an old nanny. Honestly, now I can't find a single person with grandparents older than me. Hopefully one day the world will be more adjusted to those stuck in time. I'm exploring the scientific side of it in the blogs when I'm not reviewing books and films, but the world is still so small-minded. It's infuriating."

I frown. "There's not much we can do about that." Steve brings me my meal and has a look at my bruised leg, then sits beside our daughter.

"Don't worry, one day you'll miss having to be stuck with us." He teases. "And it's a normal part of childhood."

"I have seven PhDs. That not normal, especially for someone who looks like they're ten. A one-hundred-year-old, no problem, but a ten-year-old is crazy."

"There's not much we can do," I repeat. "I know you're restless, but you have an amazing opportunity to watch the ages change. So many people would kill for that chance."

"I know but they change so slowly. Oh! Next time we move can we go to the territories? I bet they need some saving too and dad can get an easier job there because they need teachers and that sort of stuff. You guys are great teachers. Your whole student population has seven PhDs each."

I chuckle. "Maybe, we'll think about it." I jump on one leg over to where they are sitting and we stare out the window at the harbour. Corisande rests her head on my shoulder.

"I promise I don't hate my life." She says. "You guys are awesome. Don't you dare leave me here alone." I kiss her head, then I kiss Steve. We've built a home, the three of us. And we will always fight for it. She does not need to worry. My father made sure we will both be here for her. I can't stop her from worrying, but I can make sure her worries never come true.

THE END