Atalanta passed through the doorway of the temple and looked around. She took a deep breath and drew her short sword hefting it nervously as she looked around. The walls were slick black stone, a handful of braziers burned in the corners illuminating the space and she saw at the far end a low altar made of the same stone as the walls. Her heart pounded as she approached the altar, she wasn't much for praying but she didn't think this was an altar for praying. She saw a mirror imbedded in the wall behind the altar, she hadn't noticed it before since the reflection it showed her was of the room and its lack of distinct features. She noticed more mirrors standing unsupported on and around the altar as as she approached them they all showed her reflections of herself, but not as she knew herself to be.
In one she was a girl of twelve dressed in training leathers a wooden sword in her uncertain hands, another showed her in a soft grecian gown she knew she'd never worn her face unlined and her hands soft, still another mirror showed her with a babe at her breast and another pulling at her skirts. Image after image of lives she'd never live, pasts that had never been and futures that could never be and they all looked out at her with demand in their eyes… her eyes and one by one they began to step out of the mirrors to surround her.
"You stole my life." The twelve year old her spoke angrily.
"You stole my life." the mother her spoke hefting the toddler up onto her hip.
"You stole my life." They spoke as one in voices that she knew as surely as she knew her sword. "You stole my life. You stole my life, you stole my life."
She backed up and that turned out to be a mistake. They surged forward and she struck out at them and felt the sting of the blade cut into her own skin. "We want it back! Give us our lives back! Give it back!"
She panicked and swung wildly trying to keep the small crowd of herself at bay and blow after blow struck her own flesh. She staggered panting and the crowd closed in demanding she give back their lives, give back the pasts, the futures that her actions had changed irrevocably. She screamed and the crowd screamed with her and her head rang with it, rang with the hundred of choices she could have made differently, the dozens of possible paths she could have taken and the myriad ways her life could have gone. 'No… that's not right… it's not right. I have a good life, a purposeful life.' Her pain hazed mind managed to get that clear thought through and she saw a handful of the possible hers vanish.
She got to her feet and wondered numbly when she'd fallen, she unsteadily sheathed her sword and winced as she pulled herself upright. "I stole nothing. It is my life and I have lived it well. I have friends," Another her vanished. "I have Family," The mother her and the babies vanished. "I have glory," More vanished. "I have purpose and honor and pride." More and more vanished until only the version of her as a bent bitter crone remained.
"But you do not have your Sisters." The Crone her spat and Atalanta felt her heart squeeze painfully.
She'd been exiled after Hercules helped her solve the murder of the royal Amazon Family, she had solved the murder but in accepting help from a Man she was excommunicated from her sisterhood, a loss she still felt keenly. She quailed under the angry gaze of the Crone and the Crone spat accusations at her. "We will die alone, we will die shriven and cast adrift in a world of men, the Rites will go unspoken and we will never rejoin our honored sisters. Eternity cast adrift!"
For some reason she thought of Artemis, the strange woman with her dark eyes and tattooed skin who fought like an Amazon and spoke like a philosopher. She thought of Tracey who was suffering some hurt of the mind and the bond the two held. She thought of her bond with Hercules, Autolycus, Amphiaraus and Iolaus, men who had stood by her, who had given her purpose and treated her as an equal, not as a woman. She missed the Amazons, missed the familiarity of women who were like her but she knew in her heart even if she was welcomed back she'd never be able to go back, she had changed too much, seen and done more than any other Amazon. "I will die surrounded by Family, by Friends, by my Brothers in Arms who have guided and guarded me all these years. I may have to ride the Ferryman's Boat alone but I will never be truly alone so long as they hold me in their thoughts. Be gone Crone, your poisoned words will find no fertile soil in me." She spat the last words and turned her back on the Crone who vanished, she was swaying on her feet as the Temple vanished and Hercules was suddenly beside her.
She couldn't for the life of her remember why she was battered and bruised though. She remembered entering the temple but all she could remember of it was a bunch of mirrors and everything got clouded and confused in her mind from there.
The others followed except Artemis who was sitting by Tracey, Artemis watched her with understanding eyes and Tracey offered her food and water which she accepted gratefully. She took comfort in the men around her, and the two new women as the fire warmed her, she eventually drifted to sleep to the sound of Iolaus telling some story that had everyone laughing.
