Author's Note: During "Fury," Hippolyta stated that documents from the outside world are forbidden on Themyscira on the grounds that they might have a corrupting influence. On the other hand, in "The Balance," the god Hermes bragged that a girl called Podenimus (apparently another name for Iris, goddess of the rainbow) had recently given him her cell number. This illustrates that at least some of the figures of Greek Myth have now embraced modern telecommunications—although in that same scene Hermes was hand-delivering a command from Zeus to Diana which was written on a scroll. (Maybe Zeus just doesn't trust that newfangled technology? Or maybe he feels a Lofty Decree from the King of Olympus deserves the old-fashioned formalities, whereas less important messages can be sent by modern means for all Zeus cares?)

Anyway, if some of the Greek gods are using cellphones at least some of the time, then I'm working on the theory that shortly after Diana's banishment from Themyscira was revoked, Hippolyta felt justified in accepting from Diana a device which could be used to place long-distance calls to her daughter at any time, probably routing those calls through the Watch Tower and thus to the League-issue comm link which Diana always carries. That's my rationale for how this next conversation is even possible!

Fourth Conversation: Diana and Hippolyta
(This conversation has been translated from the Ancient Greek for your convenience)

"Do you have time to talk?"

"Yes, Mother," Diana said absently, "all I'm doing is watching a man sleep."

It was only after she heard a gasp coming through the comm link in her ear that Diana began to realize how her simple statement of fact might have been . . . misinterpreted.

"He's a sick friend," she explained as she rose and moved out of the "main ward" to have some privacy, declining to mention that she and Batman could have been a lot more than "just good friends" by now if he hadn't kept saying "no!"

Even so, she braced herself for a concerned lecture about the animal instincts of the male half of the human race.

That lecture was not forthcoming. Mother simply asked politely, "Is he expected to recover?"

"Yes. If the poison were going to kill him, it probably would have done so within the first hour or so. Now his body just needs plenty of rest."

Mother evidently had something weighing on her mind at the moment; she didn't waste any more time on small talk. "Diana, do you remember what I said when I revoked your previous banishment from the island?"

"Of course!" After a few moments of silence, Diana realized her mother had wanted more than just a quick affirmative to a rhetorical question. "You said that if the gods didn't like it, they would just have to take it up with you." She paused to ponder the implications of those words, then asked anxiously, "Has that finally happened?"

"No, but it's time that I raised the issue with them anyway! "

"Why rock the boat?" Diana couldn't help thinking that if the gods preferred to ignore the whole thing, there was no need to force them to take official notice of her breaches of the rules.

"I'm not trying to rock it; I'm trying to keep it from being swamped," Mother said, catching the metaphor immediately. "When you're sailing through stormy weather, doing nothing is a good recipe for drowning!"

"What storm?" Diana would have sworn nothing ever changed in Themysciran culture . . . which wasn't too surprising when you considered that most of the population had thousands of years' worth of fossilized behavior patterns to keep them acting predictably.

"A storm I didn't even know was brewing," Mother said ruefully. "This place is so tranquil, most of the time, that I let myself be fooled into thinking that was a permanent condition. But once you started shaking things up, I should have known better."

"I did? I've only visited a few times in the last few years, and never to stir up trouble!"

"Diana," the Queen said carefully, "for thousands of years, no one on this island even had the chance to speak to a mortal man. If some Amazons occasionally regretted that fact, they at least had the consolation of knowing that all of their sisters were in the same boat. And after the first few centuries, the complete lack of available temptation had made it easier for everyone to develop the habit of just burying such thoughts and leaving them be."

Diana was beginning to see where this was going. "But then I ran away to Man's World?"

"More to the point, eight months later you came back, bringing four very likeable men with you!"

She was sorely tempted to quibble over whether a male Martian really qualified as a "man," and also whether Flash had really been all that likeable a specimen of manhood at that early stage in his maturity . . . but she knew her mother would think she was trying to dodge the main point. (Besides, even Flash at his worst was probably about a thousand times more courteous to women than the men whom her mother's generation still vividly remembered from ancient times. Heracles, for instance!)

So she settled for saying: "And my friendship with them caused . . . some degree of jealousy? I never realized!"

"Neither did I," Hippolyta confessed. "I banished you for bringing them to Themysciran soil, and I now suspect that countered the potential jealousy . . . for the time being. One Amazon had broken the ancient laws; she had been punished for it; a few men had briefly visited us during an emergency and then left, never to return—and for everyone else, life could go on, the same as before!

"Then you and your friend Shayera came back to Themyscira as the only way to enter Tartarus, and I chose to revoke the sentence of banishment I had previously felt obligated to impose. I think that was when the trouble really started, although I didn't know it until a few days ago. Then Philippus came to me, very embarrassed by the news she bore, but thinking I ought to know that several of my subjects are now whispering that it is grossly unfair for the Queen's daughter to steal armor from the temple, leave the island without permission, socialize with men, bring men back to the island, and end up being forgiven for all of the above . . . and appointed our 'Ambassador' to boot . . . when the laws which she broke are still meant to bind every other Amazon!"

There was really nothing to say to that, so Diana didn't even try.

Her mother continued: "Philippus did not care to name names, and I did not press the point. Especially since I can understand their point of view. It is unfair! It does look as if the princess gets to ignore the sacred rules which the rest of us have lived by for millennia!"

Diana had a sinking feeling about where this was going. "Mother . . . are you trying to say you may have to reimpose my banishment?"

"No!" her mother snapped, and Diana felt her stomach muscles unclench. Hippolyta explained: "Reversing myself once was risky, but it felt like the right thing to do. Reversing my reversal of my original verdict would not only be unjust, but would make me a laughingstock! Your sister Amazons have known me for thousands of years. They are perfectly aware that I can make mistakes. They also know that once I realize where I went wrong, I try to correct the problem. But if I start wavering back and forth on the same issue, obviously unable to make up my mind, how long do you think they will continue to tolerate such a weak fool as their Queen?"

Diana blinked at that question. Hippolyta's rule had always seemed one of the natural constants of the universe, like the sun's habit of rising in the east and setting in the west on a regular basis. As Diana had recently pointed out to Alfred, being the only daughter of an immortal Queen was not quite the same thing as being a mortal princess who expected to inherit a lofty title and heavy responsibilities in the not-so-distant future. The idea that any appreciable number of Amazons would strive to overthrow Hippolyta—or, perhaps worse, simply stop listening to her?—was entirely new. That was the sort of chaos Diana only expected to see in governments dominated by mortal men.

She took a deep breath. "I see your point, Mother, but that leaves me wondering why you called to tell me about this. Is there something I can do to help you deal with the . . . unrest?"

"I believe so. If you recall your history lessons, Diana, then you know that the laws about Amazons always staying on the island and never allowing any men to visit were not just things I invented one day when I was bored. I merely repeated the commands I had heard from Aphrodite's own lips."

"Yes. I remember why those laws are called sacred laws. That's why I didn't even try to argue when you banished me."

"As I look back, I wish I had handled that case differently. But I felt I had no authority to overturn Aphrodite's laws; I could only enforce them. When I changed my mind about making an exception for special circumstances, I half-expected Aphrodite herself to speak harshly to me within the next few days. So far, she has not. But the building resentment over these matters means I need to seek clear guidance from her and then announce the results to all the Amazons at once."

Diana considered. "So you're going to keep praying to her in the temple for as long as it takes to get a direct response?"

"After you return home, yes," Mother clarified. "I have not spoken face-to-face with Aphrodite for a very long time. I think we're about due. But when I bother her, I should like to have you at my side, ready to speak for yourself about the . . . unconventional . . . things you have done and the motives behind them, and also to share your understanding of how much Man's World has changed since the days when Aphrodite decreed her faithful Amazons must remain entirely apart from it!"

Diana glanced back at where Batman was still out cold. "I don't intend to leave my friend before he is conscious. It may well be a few days before I can return home to assist you."

"So long?" Her mother's disappointment was palpable. Which was disturbing—an immortal grows accustomed to thinking in the long term. Just how serious was the dissatisfaction regarding Diana's unique status as the only Amazon who spent most of her time away from Themyscira?

"I will use some of that time to think very carefully about exactly what I should report and suggest to the Goddess of Love," Diana said firmly. "Even if I were standing right next to you right now, I wouldn't be ready to face Aphrodite with a petition! You've sprung a lot on me, all at once, Mother. You must have been thinking about these matters for days, and I need some time to catch up!"

Author's Note: I want to clarify my ideas about Aphrodite's position in Hippolyta's chain of command. (If you don't care, skip this note!)

In the first Wonder Woman story ever published (in All-Star Comics #8 in 1941), the script indicated that the Amazons were devout worshippers of Aphrodite in particular, and that she was the one who had ordered them to hide on a secluded island, strictly isolated from men. This order had been rigidly obeyed for thousands of years!

Later stories from DC, written by various people and including occasional "reboots" to throw away decades of previous Wonder Woman continuity all at once, have sometimes contradicted the Golden Age material on such points as "do the Amazons worship Aphrodite more than they do any other Greek god or goddess?" (Among other things.) Likewise, what little we saw in DCAU episodes regarding the history of that version of the Amazons included some original twists. For instance: Before "Paradise Lost" was broadcast, I don't think any Wonder Woman story had ever suggested that Hippolyta and Hades were once a romantic couple!

Since it wasn't made clear one way or the other in the cartoons, I'm running with the idea that in the DCAU, as in the early Wonder Woman stories from the 1940s, the Amazons have always had a special relationship with Aphrodite as their main "patron goddess." So the ancient decree for the Amazons to stay hidden and isolated on Themyscira, with no man allowed to set foot on its soil, must have been handed down by Aphrodite way back when.

Therefore, I figure that if Hippolyta wants the old rules modified after all these years—and/or just hopes to settle the specific point of whether or not "the gods" will tolerate her recent decision to let Diana off the hook for having broken those rules in a good cause—then Hippolyta needs to take those questions up with Aphrodite, first and foremost, since that goddess was the one who made the relevant rules in the first place! (As you may have guessed, this all relates to what will be happening in the final chapter of this fanfic; the conversation set on Themyscira!)