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She's an angel with her knuckles blown to blue-and-purple, hair curling into a wreath of fire around that mulish face. Her jaw is too stubborn to be anything close to pretty, but Diana finds that more beautiful than anything, the smile like a mountain's whetted peak, gritting teeth sliding like the very rock beneath them, presupposition to her volcanic anger. Shayera, a force of nature to rival Gaia's sweetest tantrums--rough and lovely, bright and abrasive.
"We fight together well," Diana concedes as they drag themselves out of Tartaros and into the gaping maw of darkness that funnels through the earth, the broad and bitter stretch of the underworld. Shayera grunts, no closer to conceding than they are to the raft they'll float back to earth upon--a hundred jagged and cruel miles yawn between.
But it's closer than she once was. Diana wouldn't relish the journey nearly as much if Shayera was all grace, all flow and acquiescence.
"You may not be completely useless," Shayera says a couple miles later, voice low and gently unraveled by the fight, the win, and now the slow-unwinding aftermath.
Diana smiles.
Falling back a couple paces, she allows Shayera to lead them through the asphodel fields. Pale, chalky flowers part dutifully for her heavy gait. Her wings hang stiffly; she must be more tired than she lets on.
And yet, she walks, glances back at Diana, lets the asphodel lick dull lines of clotted pollen across her thighs as she brushes past. She could be long gone, cutting through the distance as a paintbrush cuts bloody hue across a canvas, but instead she lingers, three-and-a-half steps ahead, letting the underworld fill her blood with its stale and lonely air, letting the distance curl luxuriously in her calves as they stretch into each step.
Shayera tosses another glance over her shoulder--this time Diana catches it, holds on as it swells with something heavy and fragile.
"Shayera," she starts, planning to comment on the slow-moving chill in the air, or the shy touches of the asphodel, or the river she hears frothing a few miles away, but the small talk curdles on her tongue beneath Shayera's tired glare.
"Whatever you're going to say, Diana," she snaps, "don't."
One curious flower nudges Diana's fingertips, she stoops slightly to cradle its dry, silky petals, its sluggish warmth lapping against her palm in calming waves.
"I love your name," Diana confesses on a whim, the flower's residue slipped between her fingers. Shayera, like honey on each tooth, thick in her throat, like singing, like a lonely hymn. "In all my years, I've never known one more beautiful."
Shayera stills, long enough for Diana to cross the distance. As if suspended by the slowly weaving asphodel, they stand, turned towards each other with silence simmering in the dimness between them.
"I love the way you say my name," she whispers at last, green opal eyes brightening as if she's surprised she said it, surprised it's true.
"Shayera," Diana repeats, feeling each sound, a golden bell rung into her mouth. Their pace slows. They have many miles to go, but the world can wait, their job is done. They have time to meander through the asphodel.
Shayera's wing brushes her hip, and warmth fills Diana, flooding each nerve. She clasps Shayera's hand in hers before the crush of warmth can dissipate, pleased with the way Shayera's fingers fold graciously into hers.
Diana has old eyes and a steady gaze. She understands who they are and why they slip into battle like a pair of well-worn shoes, working in tandem, violence a dance that they share too easily. She knows the balancing point of their parallel tempers, the way they forge a perfect rage and flow into each other's weak spots. She knows that this is the reason they can only fight together, never slide into harmony outside of battle--Shayera, too, recognizes the places where their souls fade into mirrors, and she wants to destroy them. Where Diana bears duty and regret, compassion and pride fester in Shayera, their anger and mercy tethered by polar forces.
But here, in the aching emptiness of the underworld, nothing penetrates, not even the immovable magnetism that drives them so far apart. Here, darkness bleeds rich and forever, in each direction. They left themselves in Tartaros, the leaden weight of their invincibility, the diamond-forged chain of their responsibilities.
For as long as it takes them to pierce the loam of the world, to step back into the unending sunlight, they exist in-between, nothing more than their souls.
It's the honesty brought about by their isolation, Diana realizes, that sinks into them as gently as molten ambrosia, that slots their fingers together so fluidly.
It's Shayera's bare skin. The sharpness of her sweat, teased out by the swelling blazes of Tartaros, now cooling in the tepid air of the asphodel fields. Diana breathes her in, lifts their hands and presses her lips to the back of Shayera's wrist. Shayera's hand twitches like a rabbit's heart, but she does not pull away.
"Diana," she exhales. Diana kisses the knuckle of her thumb.
Shayera is beautiful, and infinitely hard to love. Diana could make the fall, but only after sawing off the threads that pull her imperceptibly, the dedication and ferocity, the love and pain and kindness that have formed her so painstakingly. But after cutting them away, what would she become? Nothing but a husk. Nothing Shayera could love back.
But in this moment, the threads are slack, and Shayera's eyes gleam with a tenderness that cuts like glass. Her surliness is peeled back, and Diana has no audience to dissect her.
The asphodel whisper in windless motion. Diana touches velvety hair, the crest of a strong shoulder, the shining smudge of a newborn bruise.
"You're sore." Her mouth betrays what she hardly dares think. "I could draw you a bath, back at the Watchtower."
Shayera smiles, lips twisting with a bitterness that is tempered by the glitter of wistfulness in her eyes. She moves to bat Diana's hand away, but grazes her wrist instead, fingers softly trailing across the pulse point. "Don't ruin this."
She, too, understands. The impossibility of the two of them, the paradox of their strength that ends only in obstructed affection. Diana swallows down her lies but a strange sweetness wells up still, dampening her lips with a lovelorn smile.
"Alright," she murmurs, after she's drunk in the green-and-gold of Shayera's gaze to the point of dizziness, to the edge of her control. Blinking a moment too long, she breaks Shayera's tender grip on her wrist, skin burning. "Alright."
Their legs stir into motion again, silvery leaves crushed beneath their heels. Their fingers begin to unwind, until only the knuckles brush. The noose of reality tickles Diana's throat, looming cruel and inevitable. Their steps quicken.