#the frogs are a recurring thing much to Lyta's amusement

[bluejaywriter]

It is 2023

I am... cautious about making any overly-optimistic claims about the new year, so I’m just going to say I hope your 2023 is full of peace and reasons to be joyful.

Speaking of the reasons to be joyful, here is a snippet (about 800 words) of the Hippolyta/Karathen I wrote a few weeks ago. This fic/doc is just something I poke at every so often, and when I’m finally done with it, I’ll post it (eventually).

Anyway, hope you are all doing well and staying healthy! Please enjoy :P

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But she is beautiful.

Hippolyta never felt threatened by the creature, not even in those moments before she ever heard that silly, rumbling voice—moments meant to terrify her, to cow the Queen of the Amazons into submission before the mighty Atlantean King. The Karathen is their crowning achievement, the pinnacle of the Atlanteans’ might: perhaps they are a flighty people, delicate and scatter-brained and fickle, crushed again and again by the resilient and resourceful humans—but theirs is a history that spans back generations, a lineage made up of legends. They hold in their exquisite hands the power to conquer terrors, to call forward monsters at a whim.

For theirs is a perfect marriage of magic and elegance—Homo Magi and nymph, an extraordinary mixture of beauty and power. History will remember this, rather than the unimportant truth that they have been conquered by the fist of Zeus’ barbarians.

The humans are not evil, Hippolyta tells her sisters again and again—during long speeches in the Senate halls, during pleasant tours on horseback along the cliffs of their mighty city, during hushed conversations in bed, those long conversations that bleed into the morning hours after a tireless night. They are simply reckless, and they are easily swayed. They must be given guidance, taught in the ways of justice and compassion.

The Karathen has no concerns about such things.

She is concerned with the things that are important in her world: she worries over the safety of the tadpoles that are beginning to hatch in a murky corner of her pond, she complains about the crotchety old goatfish that chases and harasses the smaller goatfish, and she regards this new King of Atlantis with joyous affection, interpreting his interest and barrels of sausages as signs of love and care.

You do not know what love is, Hippolyta wants to tell her as they sit together in the Karathen’s cave. It is a horrible prison—dank and damp and completely without light. Perhaps the Karathen can see in the dark, inheriting eyes that evolved for generations to see clearly even in the deepest depths of the sea, but that does not mean that she should be left in the dark like this, left for weeks on end to sit in a puddle in a cave, waiting patiently for those fleeting moments when the King has a visitor he wishes to impress.

“They’ve not all hatched, though,” the Karathen is telling her, and the tentacle resting on Hippolyta’s knee curls up slightly, a sign of concern. “If they don’t hatch soon, they will be too small. The others will be bigger, and they’ll fight.”

“They will hatch,” Hippolyta murmurs, reaching down to stroke at the tentacle that is prodding at her hands, soft cups whispering over the rings on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists. The Karathen loves precious stones and metals, a gift she seems to have also received from her ancestors, those giant fire-breathing serpents who terrorized the mountain tribes, seeking out the wealth of their mines. “The season has been chilly this year. But the days will warm, and they will hatch.”

The Karathen seems reassured; at least, her eyes brighten at Hippolyta’s voice, and she moves her giant head to take a better look at her. There is a shy smile on her terrifying face, a sure sign that she is about to say something that is so disarmingly charming and innocent, Hippolyta would never believe for a moment that anyone could be so coldhearted as to capture this creature, much less imprison her, chain her, fear her.

“What season did you hatch? Was it warm?”

It’s an unexpected question, and the image it conjures cause an unpleasant seizing at Hippolyta’s immortal heart, because—

Hera, Queen of Olympus, wading forward into the water, a graceful arm outstretched, a dazzling smile on her face…

“It was warm,” Hippolyta says, forcing away the image of her estranged lover and patron. “We were called forward from the lake in the middle of summer, during the Festival of Aphrodite, so the water was comfortable. But the Amazons are not as affected by temperature as the humans.”

“Or fish. Or frogs.”

It is an unintentional rebuke, but Hippolyta finds herself smiling all the more at the Karathen’s stubborn voice, knowing that the creature has joined the ranks of her sisters, reprimanding her for her unswerving focus on the humans, reminding her that she must extend this concern to all of the tribes that share this Earth, not only those that she was created to guide.

“Or fish or frogs,” Hippolyta agrees, reaching out to stroke her hand over a scaly neck. “Or Kaijus.”