[three pictures: one of hands illuminated by red lights; a black and white photograph of two people holding hands; a curly haired young woman with her head tilted up towards the top left corner of the square picture, eyes closed; and the following words]
Ana peeked over her seat and, noticing that the bus driver wasn’t paying attention, she hopped over to sit at Estephania’s side, “Steph, how long have you been seeing them?”
“Since...since we became friends almost. This one,” she said, lifting her hand and cupping the pink that made its home around her, “this one’s the first one I saw. And then I saw yours, and this,” he pulled at her wrist and a string of pink that twined and turned silver where it wrapped around Ana’s arm, “this one’s the newest.”
The little string that connected their wrists disappeared as they settled their hands down against their laps, but their smiles grew.
Nothing that is peaceful stays peaceful for long and different factions started uprisings. Kronos was one of the first ones. His greed and fear that as the youngest of the family meant he’d get no glory, raised a cry for his brothers to help him overthrow their father Ouranous.
Unlike the stories say, Kronos went behind his mother’s back and trapped his cyclops and Hecatoncheires brothers, blaming the action on his father, and then led the attack - killing him and disposing of his body into the sea.
Gaia was distraught and her siblings wanted to punish the young Titan, but she begged them not to, for she couldn’t bear another loss. Against their better judgement, they heeded her words and let the attack slide.
After some time, Kronos wanted to further consolidate his power and began to lead attacks against his uncles and aunts and their pantheons.
And that was the final straw.
With Gaia’s support, Zeus and his brethren were armed against Kronos and he fell - and peace returned for a short while as the focus turned towards the creation, and taming, of humanity. This led to another fight when the Morningstar, Yahweh’s most beloved son, refused to let the humans have the earth. The Civil War amongst their numbers, and the Falling of the Morningstar and his followers caused a great hurt in Yahweh’s heart. He retreated to mourn, much like Gaia had, and returned to find that his eldest children had Felled more angels.
Worried at the recent strife that had fallen their family, the pantheons gathered and they decided that the best course was to divide their people and care for their little areas so that no one group felt compelled to conquer. And so each culture was created, at times separating parent and child, but trying to keep the peace for as long as possible.
It was after this division, when the gods believed that they could never be one people again, that their Prophets and Fates declared a prophecy for unity.
For centuries, the gods and goddesses tried their best to live peacefully, their humans getting out of hand and starting wars, influenced by darker forces and conquering other nations that led to the fading or withdrawing of certain gods until it was, once again, the right moment. Sometimes, great demigods were born and many believed that the prophesied time had come, but no. Though they fit great prophecies of their own, it wasn’t time to unite. None were the princess they were to expect.
Because of the influences and greatness that she had started creating, many across the worlds began to believe that Artemis would mother the prophesied child.
Diana shut her eyes tight for a minute or so, little flashes of bright lights fluttering behind her eyelids, her lips moving as she prayed that some deity would listen to her at that moment. Then she opened her eyes, facing the intruders and bit back a groan.
“This can’t be happening.”
Two girls, as beautiful and bright as the full moon behind them, stood in front of her large window in what looked like her room. One was blond, skeptical looking, with bright green eyes that resembled a cat’s and a smirk perched on her face. She had a couple inches on her companion and her limbs were long and elegant. The other was a redhead with a sweet smile on her lips, blue eyes watering emotionally, her shoulders were strong and her biceps molded and sprinkled with sun-kissed freckles. Both, however, had a strange, almost invisible streak of silver that sparkled in their eyes.
“Darling child, it’s been eons,” the redhead said in a soft voice as she walked towards Diana, her arms outstretched before her.
Diana reared back on her bed, eyes wide and frightened. The blonde-haired girl grabbed the other girl’s arm, holding her back.
“Lola, chill. You’re scaring her. I mean think about it, we just appeared out of nowhere!”
“You’re right, Sammy,” the first girl, Lola, said with a steadying breath. She brought her arms around herself and rubbed at the bare skin of her upper arms. “We should explain everything first.”
“You got that right,” Diana scoffed, speaking for the first time since they arrived, arms crossed against her chest and pouted up at them.
They smiled at each other, a comfortable smile that spoke of years of secrets and hidden messages, and then turned to look back at Diana.
“My name is Samantha, and this is my sister Lola,” the blonde told her.
“And we’re here to help you.” Lola finished.
Diana frowned, “Help me? With what?” Then she smiled, a silly curl of her lips as she bobbed her head, “Oh, I’m dreaming, aren’t I? Though I’ve never seen you guys there.”
“It’s a dream alright,” laughed Samantha, the sound echoing through the room. “It’s the only way we can get in touch with you nowadays.”
Lola smacked her sister’s arm, “Technically it’s not a dream, Sam. I’m afraid this is really happening and we’ve got some very important things to tell you.”
“Well, considering it’s the middle of the night and I have school tomorrow, I think you should start talking,” Diana said.
“You are not from around here, I don’t mean where you were born. And you’re not 12 years old.”
Diana glanced between them and let out another huffy laugh, “Right. I think I’d know if I were older than that.”
Samantha tipped her head back and laugh. Even Lola at her side gave a little chuckle until Diana’s cheeks turned red and they lowered their heads as if chastised by her expression. “You’d think that right? No, Diana, your soul is approximately 4,012 years old and you are a demi-goddess.”
“Demi-goddess?”
This time Lola picked up the conversation with a small nod of her head, “Your mother, as ours, is the goddess Artemis.”
“The…goddess of the moon?” asked Diana.
Lola nodded with more enthusiasm, a wide smile blooming on her face, “That’s right. You see, you were sent to Earth because you were cursed and that impeded your living on Olympus alongside us.”
“C’mon, now you’re making things up,” said Diana, shaking her head in a violent gesture.
“But Diana, look at yourself,” Lola produced a mirror out of nowhere. “Look at your eyes, what is it that you see.”
Diana reached out with hesitant hands and took the mirror from the redhead. She peeked into the reflective surface. She took note of her wide eyes, the color that had once been described to her as a chestnut almost red, she thought. Then there was the part that she had always been amazed by, the thing no one had been able to explain to her what it was, the thing that only David had noticed and pointed out. A streak of silver that intercepted the brown, the silver marker that was reflected in the eyes of Samantha and Lola.
“We are the three youngest daughters of Artemis’ fifty and we are triplets.” Samantha explained when Diana raised her questioning gaze at them.
“Technically, we’re quints,” amended Lola and this time it was Samantha that gave her a little push.
Diana was stunned, her mouth opening and closing, trying to form words that just wouldn’t come out. She stopped and took a deep breath, tucking the little mirror against her side.
“But how? I mean—” Diana asked, her brow furrowed, confused, “—after so many—who knows how long, why would you come contact me now?”
“Well…the time to fight your curse has come.”
“Curse?”
Samantha glared at her sister, before turning and speaking to Diana. “You see, Eris cursed you when we were born…but Aphrodite helped you. She declared that if you could get at least thirty-one of the most stubborn demi-god couples together you’d be able to get your love too.”
Diana’s head turned to Samantha, tilted in confusion as her mouth opened and closed before eking out the words, “My…my love?”
Lola smiled, “It’s not something that we can talk about right now. It’s something that must be revealed when the time is right.”
“Right now, the important thing is your curse and getting the first few steps to breaking it.”
Diana looked from one of the girls to the other, then after a while, she nodded.
“Okay, I’ll believe you—for now. But tell me, now what?” asked the girl. “What’s next, where do I go? What do I do?”
“Now you sleep, sister,” Lola said, voice soft but unwavering. She reached over and pulled the sheets over Diana’s reclining body leaving a gentle kiss on her cheek.
“We’ll contact you tomorrow to talk to you about how to work this out,” added Samantha kissing her forehead. “But now you sleep.”’
Diana woke up the next morning confused, but with the ghost of their lips still pressed against her skin. She studied herself in the mirror as she readied for school. It felt like a brand: one on her cheek, one on her forehead, but there was nothing there to prove that the visit had happened, just the silver in her eye that seemed to brighten as she stared at herself.
“Ana, ya vamos.” Her abuela said as she knocked on the bathroom door.
With a last look at her eyes, she slipped on her glasses and opened the door. Her little brother looked at her through bleary eyes and studied her through the sleep. She caught a glimpse of another light that flitting around his head. This one was bright green, a green she’d never seen, and then it disappeared and Ceasar went into the bathroom, leaving Diana behind and confused.
Her abuela was already waiting for her at the door with that face that was both a mixture of boredom and irritation that only she knew how to wear so Diana grabbed her backpack and the book on the table and made her way over to her.
“Ya, I’m ready.”
The two of them walked out of the house and into the darkness of the early morning. The conversation with Lola and Samantha still played in her mind as she ran her fingers over the edges of her worn book. Then her fingers felt an interruption, a piece of paper stuck inside the book and she frowned. Diana opened the book to the page that the paper was marking and she looked at the illustration of the characters that an arrow on the paper pointed down at with five words written in a crisp cursive:
