The Diamond Woman

Legends of the Diamond Woman spread fast through the Legion. Speculatores and scouts would catch glimpse of something shiny in the distance, then discover to their surprise it was a single woman, on foot. When pressed on details, they would stumble and mutter, until finally forced to announce that the light came not from her armor or her weapon but from the woman herself. For their honesty they were whipped, but with each new sighting the legend grew.

For her part, Butterfly directly interacted very little with the Legion. Occasionally it would be her responsibility to make a patrol disappear, but only rarely was a single contubernia of terrible importance to Caesar. In Kingman he'd killed far more of his own men, and only did the Daughters and the dead know that. The Daughters only just. It happened before there even was a Hecate, but the Daughters had discovered enough oblique references to Kingman scattered across Legion records that they were able to roughly piece together what happened.

Officially among the Legion there was no Diamond Woman. All orders were to ignore any sighting to the contrary, as it was evidence of moral turpitude or brain fever. Those few decanus who knew she was out there sensibly suggested that as long as they didn't bother her, she wouldn't bother them, which was mostly true. As far as any legionary knew, the Diamond Woman was a benign presence, a rare delight like rain or extra rations. Certainly she was beautiful.

The myths that took shape around her early in her career were mostly positive. Spotting the Diamond Woman was seen as a sign of good luck, of impending fortune, and an end to strife. It was a reasonable assumption. Beautiful, glittering women tend to be viewed positively. As the years went on, the Legion changed and so did the myths. The Diamond Woman began to take on darker roles, as a grim omen or portent of misfortune. A contubernia would catch a glimpse of her, then a day or two later be attacked by a deathclaw, or cazadores. A forward post might see her and then discover the route back to Flagstaff disappeared. Occasionally a speculatore would report seeing the Diamond Woman, then head back out into the wastes, only to get lost and wander for days until they died of thirst, their mysteriously unmolested corpse to be found mummified later. There were some who claimed she was an avatar of death and disease, that spotting her was a sure sign of coming illness, or water and food turning rotten and foul.

Of course, there were still plenty who asserted visions of the sparkling maiden foretold riches and success, specifically in regards to material wealth, and considered any belief to the contrary to verge on blasphemy. Plenty of Legionaries longed to catch a glimpse of the mythical Diamond Woman, the beauty who walked the wastes. Any man who saw her was lavished with attention and respect by their cohort. Stories of the Diamond Woman were more precious than currency, one man in a group as large as five-hundred who could conjure images of the Diamond Woman (from firsthand experience or not) would be a figure of some celebrity, their story sought again and again, against the orders of Legion command. Even still, though, her legend became more menacing as time went on. Bad things did seem to happen whenever she was around.

Then again, bad things happened in the wasteland all the time anyway. It was impossible to say whether or not she had anything to do with them, and opinions of her varied from person to person. For a time, Caesar himself was interested in her, and believed in his megalomaniac way that she was meant for him, that she would soon be his queen. He told no-one, but instructed his Frumentarii to seek out and find the mythical creature, and bring her to him. When his finest clandestine operators were unable to find Butterfly, he grudgingly gave up his fantasy, and instead ordered her execution, another petulant and entitled demand that would go unfulfilled.

It was a missed opportunity that Caesar was too proud to make his marital intentions known. If word of them had reached Butterfly- the Diamond Woman- she might have taken him up on his offer. She was in an odd place among the Daughters of Hecate. Direct engagement with the enemy was not the primary strategy of the goddess's organization, yet it was what Butterfly was best at. Subterfuge and stealth were integral to Hecate's mission, but Butterfly was visible for miles around, and there was no disguise that could convincingly mask her as anyone other than a living legend. For most of her early career as a Maenad she was farmed out as a mercenary for hire to other wasteland organizations, collecting paychecks that went straight to the temple's coffers. As time went on, though, (and as the Legion perpetrated massacre after massacre) the use of violence and force fell out of vogue in Ouroboros. Physical altercations came to be seen as masculine, a gauche and crass means of problem solving and endemic to the Legion; beneath the enlightened and advanced Daughters. Eventually, Hecate decided renting out her finest wasn't profitable or productive enough to continue, but she never quite found a good use for Butterfly besides.

Most of the time she ran errands. Carrying messages back and forth, supplying dead drops, scouting. A lot of her work entailed harming or helping local tribes, spraying pesticides and dumping fertilizers or poisoning wells and spreading disease. Sometimes she'd rustle brahmin, steal them from one tribe and deliver them to another under the guise of Hecate's divine judgment. She coordinated closely with Harpies to create displays of the goddess's "unsurpassed power" to intimidate and enthrall tribals. Butterfly referred to it as being the hand in a puppet show. From her mouth it was a derisive comparison, a glib quip about her wasted potential. To the Harpies she worked with she was seen as Hecate's Hand, that which gave and took in accordance with the Goddess's will. Butterfly's assessment of her job was far more accurate. As opposed to taking her orders directly from the goddess, she more often took her orders directly from Harpies, who knew their tribes and their territories.

There was one saving grace in her miserable under-employment in Hecate's hierarchy. For every shitty errand-running, grunt work, menial, demeaning, laborious job that Butterfly slogged through in her long career there was The Promise. That was how she thought of it, Hecate's Promise to all her followers, the promise that as soon as the time was ripe, the Daughters would descend upon the Southwest with a great and terrible vengeance, purging the Legion clean from the face of the Earth, the great reckoning that was coming. Eventually. The day was coming where Butterfly's talents would be in high demand, the part of Hecate's plan that the Maenad fit perfectly within. The time when subterfuge and sabotage would give way to all-out war, the end-all, be-all war for the southwest wasteland. Butterfly gaily imagined herself on the front lines.

As Hecate's influence waned, Butterfly was given less and less to do. The demand for stealth and subterfuge grew in tandem with Caesar's empire. Staging puppet shows for tribal communities was less and less important with less and less independent tribal communities. Once Project Remus completely usurped Caesar's surveillance apparatus, the need for scouts and observers declined dramatically. Her final assignment was poisoning the Crazy Horns with dysentery. There were no new assignments after that. Like the Harpies she'd previously worked with, Butterfly found herself with nothing to do.

Nothing to do but drink. Ushered into what she was assured was a 'temporary retirement' Butterfly was exhorted by the Sibyls to partake in the culture of Ouroboros, to enjoy herself with almost all the fruits of Hecate's blessing. She could eat as she pleased, and she could drink as she wanted, but on divine orders she was not to smoke. That was the case with more than a few of the faithful. Some were given strict diets; some weren't allowed to drink. The practice wasn't seen as odd. It wasn't any different from controlling who could have sex with who, which was a core tenet of the faith.

So Butterfly drank and danced (and mated. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy who joined the ranks of Hecate's Golden Children, and a less-healthy baby girl who was never seen again). She became part of the Daughter's Temperance Union and taught other Daughters how to box in a weekly class. There was never enough to do to keep her completely distracted, to quiet the niggling sense that she should be doing more, that she was meant for more. But, as always, The Promise kept her from rebelling. Even as she aged, and her joints stiffened (a side-effect of her untested augmentation. Her diamond skin grew less and less flexible as time went on) and she grew tired easier and practiced less, still the visions of violent victory on the front lines of a righteous future war kept her placated. So she drank and danced and fucked and fooled around and bid her time and tried not to think about growing older, all until one fateful boxing lesson.

"Avaela!" Butterfly was surprised to see her. She was older, and a little wider around the middle, and her hair was starting to grey, but she was still the same woman who years ago converted the Big Bucks of the Bones to Hecate worship. She was just as surprised to see Butterfly, all grown up and skin sparkling like the crystals she'd once lived among. They embraced.

"How are the Bucks doing?" Butterfly asked. The question came early, there hadn't been enough conversation to brace Avaela for it, and her face said more about the state of Butterfly's old tribe than any words ever could. To Avaela's sad surprise, Butterfly was naïve enough to be upset.

"…But," the Maenad stammered, "How?"

Avaela grimaced, "Well, the Death-Dealer came around promising the world, as he's wont to do. Then, when the Bucks showed him their softness, he turned on them," she sighed, "as he's wont to do."

Butterfly was dumbstruck. Avaela tried to comfort her, but involuntarily recoiled at the coarseness of her diamond-weave skin. Other Daughters in the class, all of whom had also lost their tribes, gathered around to comfort their instructor.

She knew that the Legion had swallowed most of the tribes of the southwest, but for some reason it had never occurred to her that Caesar might also have claimed the Big Bucks for his own. Beneath her bulletproof exterior there was still a little girl, whose whole world was her family and her neighbors and the Bones. Suddenly, that world was gone, stripped away in the space of two sentences and a bad-faith deal made by an infamous Centurion.

Class for that evening was canceled. Butterfly needed to be led back to the temple so she could sit and rest. Avaela held her hand and tried to tell her everything would be alright, uncomfortably unsure whether she was lying or not. She hadn't yet had a chance to tell Butterfly everything. She prayed she never would. Sadly, even if Hecate weren't dead, there was nothing the goddess would've been able to do to keep Butterfly from asking her next question, as obvious and unavoidable as death itself.

"What about my father?" the Diamond Woman asked. For that difficult question, at least, Avaela had time to prepare.

"He was a good man," the Harpy said gently. She stroked Butterfly's hand. "Too good for the Legion."

Butterfly said nothing for a long time.

When the world came back into focus, Butterfly had more questions and growing anger, a sense of righteous outrage. Her first question was direct specifically at Avaela.

"Where were you?"

"I left a little before they made their deal with the Centurion," Avaela explained, "I warned them. They didn't listen..."

"And Hecate knew what was happening?"

"Of course. Hecate knows everything," Avaela patted the back of Butterfly's hand.

"Then why didn't she do anything?"

Avaela quickly pulled her hand away from Butterfly's. For a few moments she was too stunned to even speak. Not with one hundred years preparation could she have prepared for that question. No Daughter had ever been so blasphemous before. Had she known of Butterfly's reputation among the Harpies she'd have been even more taken aback.

"What?" she finally blurted.

"I said, why didn't she do anything? If you knew, and she knew, that the Big Bucks were about to be conquered, then why did neither of you do anything?" Butterfly was livid. It wasn't just her tribe, she realized. It was every tribe. At least eighty that had been absorbed, and at least sixty or seventy more that had been wiped out completely. Even with a buzz on, Butterfly could see them all, stretched across the badlands, men and women and children all cut down by the Bull while Hecate did nothing. In all the time she'd been looking towards the future, Butterfly hadn't taken a clear look at the present. In the temple's corridors she realized that they'd been at war this entire time. And they were losing.

"That- that is not the way-" Avaela struggled to justify something that had never been questioned before. Hecate's commands were divine, absolute and perfect. At least, that is what Avaela believed ever since she'd joined the Daughters. Her induction into the cult was not so different from Butterfly's. Among her tribe she'd been marginalized. Among the Daughters she was important. Like every other woman who joined the Daughters. Unlike the women who remained with their tribes.

"What of the mothers of the Big Bucks? Are they now mothers of the Legion?" Butterfly continued, not listening to Avaela. "How could you leave them behind? How could any of us leave them behind?"

"How could I?" Butterfly stared into the middle distance.

"Hecate's will is not to be questioned," Avaela said stiffly and removed herself. Butterfly didn't notice her leave.

Butterfly sat in silence for hours afterwards. She formulated a plan. Like Butterfly herself, it was simple and direct. Among the Legion there were many different legends of the Diamond Woman. Some saw her an omen of ill fortune. Of coming disaster. Of death. That evening, the evening she learned of her father's death at the hands of the Legion, she resolved to prove them true.