Chapter Text
After Antiope returns to the world of the living, things change.
Not in an obvious way, of course. She’s only been gone a handful of months, and the rhythm of Themyscira is the same as it ever was. She hunts, she spars, she oversees battle drills and fortification of the city walls, and she spends nights in the arms of her beloved wife. The harvest will begin anew soon, and Antiope purposely does not let herself dwell on the fact that Menalippe and Hippolyta had to spend a season without her when the three of them discuss the abnormally warm weather and if they should begin planting sooner than they normally do. It is good to be back, but there are changes now that Antiope finds a bit disconcerting even if they are not unwelcome.
The biggest of these is Hippolyta.
Since taking the mantle of queen so very long ago, Hippolyta has held herself distant from her sisters. It is a withdrawal born of necessity, which is of course understood by them all, but Antiope knows that sometimes it wears on her. Hippolyta never says as much, of course, and nor would Antiope expect her to, but the Amazons are all aware that a crown is a lonely burden. Since Antiope’s homecoming, however, this distance has softened considerably. Now, regardless of how many people may be surrounding them, Hippolyta stays close enough to Antiope that their elbows or shoulders are always brushing. She frequently graces the training fields with her presence, which Antiope knows began during her stint in Tartarus, but almost always her challenge is for Antiope, and instead of sparring with sword or spear, they wrestle. They have not wrestled since they were young, reborn into these new bodies that are more than mortal and less than god, but Antiope has missed it. She still sometimes longs for the days when Hippolyta’s smile came easily and her eyes were bright and her shoulders were not so heavy, but those days are gone and Antiope learned long ago not to dwell on their lives out in the world of men. Now, she is just thankful she remembers the past at all after forgetting it down in the depths of the Underworld.
Hippolyta has the advantage of height over Antiope (as do all the other Amazons), but Antiope refuses to let that stymie her. As martially gifted as Hippolyta is, she fares better with a blade or a bow than her bare hands, and Antiope wins more bouts than not. When Antiope accepts Hippolyta’s tapped surrender and releases her, rolling to her feet before extending a hand to help her sister up, Hippolyta’s smile is not as wide or as light as it used to be. But it is there, far more frequently than before, and for that alone Antiope is almost thankful that she journeyed into Tartarus.
(The fact that she gets to see her regal, poised sister covered in dirt and grass doesn’t hurt either.)
Antiope and Menalippe eat with Hippolyta almost every night.
“Why did you not tell me about this?” Menalippe asks the first night they dine together, pointing up at Hippolyta’s painted ceiling with a raised brow. Antiope looks up even though she already knows what her wife is referring to, and she shrugs, not bothering to hide her grin. She isn’t looking at Hippolyta but she can almost hear how loudly her sister is rolling her eyes.
“Never came up,” Antiope says, grabbing her goblet and taking a swig of spiced wine. “If you’d come to dinner with us more often you’d have seen it.” Menalippe sighs and shakes her head. Antiope’s grin widens. “Very lifelike, don’t you think?”
“Diana seemed to think so,” Hippolyta says pointedly, and Menalippe has to thump her wife on the back before she chokes on her wine. Antiope spends a good minute coughing before she regains her breath, and she does not look at Menalippe as she splutters to explain herself. Menalippe, although she could, does not say ‘I told you so’.
“I said he was comely, for a man,” Menalippe offers after a moment when Antiope has finished (or rather, finished failing) to tell Hippolyta that Diana did not actually believe that most babies come from clay. “Their children would be—”
“Menalippe, I love you with everything that I am, but if you finish that sentence I am never speaking to you again.” Antiope points threateningly at Menalippe, as if this is supposed to somehow make the warning more believable, and Menalippe sees Hippolyta smile just a little as she leans in for a kiss.
(Antiope gives it with far less reluctance than such a proclamation should produce.)
Hippolyta leaves the city now.
That never used to happen before.
Being queen is, of course, a heavy task. There are land disputes to settle, festivals to oversee, harvests to plan, patrol reports to hear, and supply inventories to track, just to name a few of Hippolyta’s many duties. She has help of course—Antiope, for example, handles patrol reports and only brings things to her sister if they’re particularly urgent—but even so, she has little time for herself. Antiope always used to pester her to take breaks, an activity in which Diana became her apprentice, much to Hippolyta’s disgruntlement. It wasn’t uncommon for the guards that patrol the palace to catch snippets of conversation between the three, Diana’s small voice begging for her mother to come and play as Antiope did what she did best besides any and all things involving weaponry: Annoy her sister. More often than not, they failed at their mission, but on rare occasions Hippolyta gave in and spent an hour or two wandering the streets with her daughter and sister. Diana would walk between them holding onto their hands, and invariably Antiope would end up bartering for something as a gift for her. As the daughter of a queen, and the only child on the island, Diana lacked for nothing, but that didn’t mean Antiope could shirk her duties as an aunt.
(“You spoil her so, Antiope,” Hippolyta sighs as she watches Diana skip ahead of them with her new seashell comb. Antiope laughs and raises her hands in mock surrender.
“Of course I do. She is my favorite niece.”
Hippolyta is too dignified to scoff, but it’s evident in her voice. “She is your only niece.”
“All the more reason, don’t you think?”)
These days, however, things are different. Hippolyta, in a feat that Antiope thought even less likely than her finally realizing how ass-over-kettle she was for Philippus, has begun to set aside time for the express purpose of spending with her sister. A few times every moon cycle, perhaps more, Hippolyta and Antiope will saddle up their horses and spend hours riding across the island, following well-worn footpaths through the woods and speaking of everything and nothing at all. It’s still not as often as Antiope would like, but a very important skill for a general is knowing how to pick one’s battles, and so she doesn’t complain.
Sometimes they follow game trails instead, pursuing deer or wild boar or the occasional marten if the Amazons are running low on skins for winter. Away from the confines of the city, it’s almost as it was when they were girls, hunting together on the steppes of their homeland. Memories of mortal life are dim for most of the Amazons, although they do remember how they died, but Antiope remembers being Hippolyta’s sister. Such a thing would be hard to forget.
“We could hunt a bigger target this time,” Antiope says one bright summer afternoon. The sun is high and hot, and sweat is gleaming on both of them as the horses amble along a well-packed trail. Hippolyta glances over at her, a question in her blue eyes. Antiope grins. “You know, like a very large.....deer.”
Hippolyta’s face colors, and she scowls. “We are not hunting bear, Antiope.”
“Bear? Who said anything about bear? I said deer.”
“Do you remember the last time you went hunting for a ‘big deer’?” Hippolyta rarely indulges in such a thing as sarcasm, but right now her words practically drip with it. “You and Menalippe had to spend four days in bed.”
“As though spending time in bed with my wife is ever anything to be dreaded.” Antiope waggles her eyebrows and is gratified when Hippolyta’s nose crinkles slightly. “Besides, you have to admit....it was a very impressive deer.”
Hippolyta heaves such a sigh that it seems the trees will bow before her as she shakes her head, but Antiope knows her sister well enough to catch the fond quirk at the corner of Hippolyta’s mouth. “Thousands of years and you are still incorrigible as ever, Antiope.”
Antiope leans over and presses a quick kiss to her sister’s temple, glad that Hippolyta has chosen to leave her crown at home. She wears it less often, these days. “I love you too, my beloved sister.”