Chapter Text
2.
It had been so long since Diana was last here.
She closed her eyes, basking for a moment in the dulcet serenading her, drawing her farther into this mysterious building. Belonging to a wealthy ruler, the pleasure-dome served as a place of leisure and jollification, resulting in peace and union throughout a jungle previously torn by warring tribes.
Stepping within the structure, Diana was struck by the beauty within. Devoid of violence and sadness, filled with laughing faces and easy going conversations. A threat of pain made Diana pause, placing a hand over her heart; it was the same feeling she got when she visited Steve Trevor’s gravesite.
Or when she crossed the Lost City they had discovered a mere two days after their trip to the pleasure-dome. The memory was still so fresh, but Diana resisted reliving it.
She had to face the fact that Barbara was in Urzkartaga’s hold now; she had failed to protect her. Diana felt a sadness that conflicted with her surroundings, and she stopped to pluck a plump grape from a gleaming silver tray. She crushed it between her teeth, enjoying the way the sweet juice flowed over her tongue, and remembered the way Barbara’s hands had felt on her skin.
Barbara, with her peachy skin and frizzy blonde curls and bright, intelligent blue eyes, peering out behind those golden-rimmed glasses. Diana missed her lack of brevity, the way everything she felt and thought was reflected on that expressive face.
Urzkartaga had robbed her of all of that was his despicable curse. Diana took a handful of grapes and enjoyed the feeling of destroying them between her teeth.
“Pretty Princess?”
That voice—a cold hiss usually, but now soft and taken aback with surprise—Diana whirled around in response, eyes widening as she found her standing there. She nearly fell backwards against the table as Barbara stared at her with those strange eyes.
She had changed so much. Her skin was a mix of inhuman orange and yellow, comprising the visual of a cheetah even without the dark spots that dotted her skin. Even with the undeniable facial markings of a cheetah, Barbara’s facial structure was elegant and pretty. It was difficult to see that she was a violent hunter beneath Urzkartaga’s spell, until the moment she opened her mouth and revealed those long fangs, or unleashed her retractable claws, which were closer to talons.
Even her eyes—once baby blue—had faded into a muted, stony gray, as distant and despotic as storm clouds.
Usually, Barbara wore scanty clothes, with jewelry symbolic of her ties to Urzkartaga. But now, she stood bare, and Diana could certainly see that—much to her relief—some things had not changed.
Barbara put a hand on her hip. “Are you just going to gawk?” She asked.
The attitude had only appeared after the curse. Diana took a moment to recover. “I just…you were the last person I expected to see.” The hope in her voice wounded even her. Barbara looked at the ground, a bit of her old self showing through as she seemed to linger on Diana’s words.
But, just like that, Barbara pivoted away from that connection. “I suppose you think I don’t deserve to be here? As Urzkartaga’s possession, I technically shouldn’t be indulging myself in…petty pleasures.” As she spoke, Barbara strode toward Diana, seemingly aware of the effect her presence had. She leaned on the table, picking up one of the grapes Diana had left behind and popping it into her mouth. She cringed and ran her tongue over her sharp teeth. “Yeah, fruit doesn’t really do it for me anymore. I used to love grapes. Urzkartaga really is a bitch.”
Diana almost laughed, but couldn’t quite get herself to enjoy the joke. “Barbara Ann, you’re here.” It was all she could think to say. She wouldn’t take her eyes off of Barbara even if the world started ending behind her.
Barbara’s gaze shifted away from her, suddenly becoming sly. “Are you just going to state the obvious again and again? I would have thought we’d be past simple fact by now.”
Diana ignored the reproach. She smiled instead. “Urzkartaga is allowing you here?”
Barbara stood up straight, meeting Diana’s gaze with ferocity as she looked up into her eyes. “What’s he going to do to stop me? As far as brides go, I was quite sullied before he and I had our ‘union’. So what does it matter if I play around now?” Barbara tilted her head. “Besides, aren’t you the one who always says that Urzkartaga doesn’t punish me for my indiscretions, but because of his innate cruelty?”
“I suppose I am,” Diana admitted.
Barbara stepped forward, leaning into Diana’s faze. Her gray eyes crackled with electricity, seeming suddenly amber from his close vantage point. “Then, in that case, I’m going to enjoy my extramarital activities. And wouldn’t this be the place to do so—“
Before she could finish the thought, Diana gave into the urge she’d been fighting and crashed into Barbara, pulling her into her embrace and pressing their lips together. Barbara kissed back with a ferocity that nearly knocked Diana off-balance, and suddenly she was tugging Diana’s long curls, pushing her backwards, taking an assertive role Diana had never previously associated with Barbara.
“You’ve changed,” Diana smirked, unruffled even as Barbara pinned her to the table. Food and drinks spilled easily, but no one stopped to chastise them or even shoot them glares.
“You don’t even have the decency to seem surprised,” Barbara countered, staring at Diana as if she despised wanting her. “Part of my curse is a taste for blood. I would be careful if I were you, amazon.”
As Barbara spoke, she stroked through Diana’s curls. Diana felt her heart beat pick up, the excitement mingled with an edge of fear; she had felt many times the ferocity and power Cheetah possessed in battle, and she knew Barbara was, in many ways, her formidable rival.
Diana kissed Barbara then, a hand on each of her cheeks, the kiss gentle but probing. She nicked her tongue on one of Barbara’s ultra-sharp fangs, and pulled away quickly before too much of the blood could feel Barbara’s mouth. Barbara’s pupils went blown-out, like a cat confronted with catnip, and she stared at Diana with a hunger that transcended attraction.
“I warned you about my curse,” Barbara said. Diana felt her arms tense, as if she were ready to cross them before her in defense of herself.
Instead, Barbara dropped her hold on her and strode quickly off through the party. She trod right over two men entangled on the floor, making out. They didn’t even bother to protest her rudeness, just continued with their ministrations.
Diana took a moment to compose herself, running a hand through her wild hair and pressing her fingertips to her chest. Beneath her skin, she could feel her heart racing still, with fear, fight or flight adrenaline, and…
…excitement.
Diana looked up, but Barbara was nowhere in-sight. She knew immediately that she had to find her again, right now, and hold her in her arms. Even if she crashed hard—even if the resulting grief at losing her thrust her into despondency that rivaled what she went through after losing Steve—she had to have her.
She was compelled toward Barbara, again and again, like a magnet.
And, gods, the memories of her Barbara’s first time here, the paramount of romance and the giddy warmth of her arms.
Everything about it had been so kind, a light and soft breeze, pacifying her. Fingers soft on skin like pink flowers scatted in a rill.
Barbara was waiting on the same blue love seat, stretched out comfortably. She was thin but sumptuous, her already idiosyncratic Cheetah appearance enhanced by the drifty sunny spots, diluted green by the jungle leaves and vines. They cast spots of greenery on her skin.
“Kept me waiting, didn’t you, princess?” She spat the word.
Diana knew that Barbara took her previous secrets as a rebuke. How could she explain that she had intended to eventually tell her about her double life as Wonder Woman? She never meant for Barbara to become cursed, she had always planned on them having more time…
She had planned to have more time with Steve as well, and that hadn’t worked out either. She had wasted enough time, with him and Barbara both.
“I won’t have you wait on me forever, Barbara,” Diana said, her eyes blazing with sincerity. “I will save you from that scum of a god. I’ll pry Urzkartaga’s hold on you from his dead fingers—“
“Whoa,” Barbara cut her off, sitting up. She wore a languid, seductive smile. “Save me your usual speech, pretty princess. I can think of better uses for that mouth.”
Diana came to her then, unable to wait any longer. Barbara wanted to appear vicious, but Diana saw that she was careful with her mouth—never wanting to draw blood and tempt herself, her curse, to take a bite—and that her claws were fully retracted so as to protect Diana.
Still, she wasn’t nearly as gentle; her touch was ravenous to the point of fervid aggression, even frenzied at time. Her hands and her gaze never left Diana’s, and Diana similarly couldn’t bear to loosen her hold on Barbara even by a margin. She wanted to stay locked in this embrace—in this moment—for the rest of her immortal life.
She realized only afterwards that Barbara continued to touch her, like a lifeline. She remembered Barbara’s previous anxiety, her unspoken words indicated by what she said, her expressions, her actions—don’t leave me—and wondered if Barbara felt that way now.
Barbara was staring up at the glass above her, her expression distant and unreadable. Diana pressed her lips to Barbara’s cheeks, and Barbara looked to her.
“My Ann,” she said in a short whisper, ignoring the fact that Barbara wasn’t hers, but Urzkartaga’s. “Even now, so beautiful. Soul and body.” She placed a hand on Barbara’s chest and felt the way her heartbeat raced, as fast as a river disappearing into a chasm.
“You turn phrases like a poet,” Barbara said, her snide remark an attempt at reestablishing the distance between them. Diana ignored that attempt, holding Barbara to her instead, kissing her gently on her cheek. Showing her what she so desperately needed to see; that there was still an abundance of love for her in Diana’s heart.
Barbara sank into her suddenly, resting her head on Diana’s chest and wrapping her arms around her waist. The hug was so soft, so gentle, that for a heart-wrenching second all Diana could visualize was blue eyes, a bright smile, all the things that had been ripped away from her by that monster Urzkartaga.
“Thank you, Diana,” Barbara said. And Diana would have preferred more—sonnets and sonnets of words, romance, confessions of love—but she knew that as long as Urzkartaga was in the back of Barbara’s mind, she could never have it.
Instead, she placed a hand on Barbara’s head, feeling her sleek blonde hair. She no longer had curls; her frizzy, lively hair had been flattened by the curse.
“This reminds me of a poem,” Diana said, seemingly irrelevantly. Barbara pushed on her so that she went from sitting to lying back, the two of them lying entangled together. She stared at Diana expectantly.
“Don’t leave me waiting again, princess. What’s the poem?” Barbara demanded. Diana closed her eyes; she smiled.
“It is about beauty. Beauty, love, peace, pleasure…cruelty and violence. The way these things roll together, interwoven, like two streams meeting and becoming a waterfall.” As Diana spoke, she interlocked her fingers with Barbara’s. Barbara stared up at her expectantly.
“It sounds beautiful. What’s it called?”
Diana let out a laugh. “You’ll hardly believe me.”
“Tell me,” Barbara insisted, poking Diana in a teasing way, and finally, Diana relented.
She recited for Barbara the poem that weighed heavy on her mind; the poem that reflected the two of them in its own way. When she had finished, she looked to Barbara, who rested her head on Barbara’s chest.
After a delay, she sighed. “I don’t get poetry. You know I preferred plain-spoken books,” Barbara said.
Diana toyed with her hair. “I know,” She admitted.
“You’ve always been taken with needless extravagance. Figures, you little princess,” Barbara mumbled into Diana’s chest, sitting up suddenly.
Diana sensed that she was leaving. She stomped down the urge to ask Barbara to stay; that would be unfair, as they both knew she needed to leave. Before Diana could make a loving gesture, however, Barbara leaned in, putting their foreheads together. She had her eyes closed, so Diana followed suit.
“You’re beautiful, too, Diana. And sometimes I hate you—I hate that you save everyone, but can’t save me—but deep down, I never truly blame you.” When she pulled back, there were tears in her eyes. Diana felt tears of her own well up, but Barbara was gone before she could say anything in response to her admission.
She was stunned, yet she was also calmed and comforted, even though Barbara was no longer there to provide a reassuring touch. That was because Barbara had provided her something better even then physical comfort.
Barbara had told her a beautiful Truth.
Kubla Khan
By: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.