Rough morning...

Morning light cut through the blinds of the Queen’s bedchamber, stirring Hippolyta awake as she turned and looked over to find her love Phillipus with her arms around her waist. Waking up along side her, the dark skinned, elderly looking woman hummed and sat up, rubbing the fatigue out of her eyes as the Queen turned in bed to plant her feet on the warm stonework of the floor and sit up.

“Morning my love.” Spoke Hippolyta, grabbing handfuls of her frayed, grey hair and braided it behind her.

“Morning, yes.” Sighed Phillipus, tracing her fingers over her leathered face, a saddened frown “The guards had informed me that our three… ‘guests’ are staying in the princess’s quarters.”

Stopping mid braid, Hippolyta looked over her shoulder, her face unreadable. “Is my daughter showing favoritism to these men?”

“It would seem the choice was a matter over a wager between her and your advisors my queen.”

Narrowing her eyes, Hippolyta went back to the braiding of her hair, completing the task and then moving to a cupboard to fetch something to wear. As did Phillipus, who started by gently wrapping a silken veil around her face, to hide her visage. A choice she made after taking a single look at herself in the mirror and closing her eyes immediately after seeing her reflection.

“Well then, perhaps to start the day we should see how our new arrivals are faring in the comfort of my daughter’s quarters.” Fully dressed and looking herself over in the full-length mirror in her quarters, Hippolyta took one look at her reflection with steely resolve. Breathing in sharply as she brushed down her robes, turning her head back and forth to see the wrinkled, sagging flesh of her face as she tried to keep up a firm and stoic resolve. Deep down… She was sobbing. A dark thought had taken root in the back of her mind of late, she had seen many of her sisters restored, and others only growing worse. Amongst those who had regained their beauty and grace, SHE was not one of them.

What did that mean for her? For Phillipus? And her sisters who would spend the rest of their eternal years looking so old, so frail, so… Grotesque for the rest of their lives. Closing her eyes and folding her hands in front of her, she felt Phillipus rest her gnarled hands on her shoulders, turning to see her veiled face, the queen nodded, and the two left their quarters to check on the arrivals.

*

Waking up in what Gary had believed at the time was a lounging chair in Wonder Woman’s personal bedroom, the man sat up and rubbed the bride of his nose between his fingers. He still felt a little sleepy, but he couldn’t sleep a wink at all last night. How could he?

Looking up and around the large opulent space, Diana’s bedroom was almost as big as his apartment back home. The ceiling alone was three times his height and covered in art he swore was probably as old as Spain or Greece were. Certainly, had the décor of either. The marble statues, the ancient armor and weapons hanging off the walls, the paintings, it was too rich for him. But he still appreciated the gesture, after all, how could he turn down Wonder Woman?! Getting up and squirming his feet into his shoes, Gary went to check on his father and son, finding them on the massive bed at the heart of the room.

Sitting down next to Harper who still slept under the blankets, Gary rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder and watched him make a face and curl up even more like a ball under the heavy blankets. “Hey kiddo, you up yet?”

Seeing the boy pout and pull the blankets over his head, Gary chuckled. “Yeah, I bet she has nice blankets…”

Getting up, he walked around to the other side of the bed to check up on his father. Joking to himself internally that he needed a car to get around the thing when he finally reached the other side. Sitting at the edge of the bedframe and shaking his father’s shoulder gently, Gary’s smile slowly faded when he leaned down closer to look over the man better.

“Dad? Are you okay?”

Turning him over, his eyes widened when he found his father in a cold sweat and clutching at his chest, wheezing slowly with each breath as if trying to control his breathing.

“DAD!”

Hearing his father murmur silently, the man lowered his ear close enough to hear him cry out for his medication.

“Oh god, I didn’t know… I didn’t know…”

Immediately getting to his feet, Gary ran to the door, knocking on its heavy surface before opening it, alerting the two guards who turned sharply with harsh gazes in their eyes.

“You’ve got to help! It’s my father, he needs his medicine.”

Storming through the door and keeping the man at arm’s length, Atla and Areto bent to look the man over on the bed, awaking the child in the process as they slowly turned him over and found the old man’s face pale and his eyes blood shot.

“What IS this illness? Is the island at risk?” Demanded Areto, her eyes narrowed as she took the seriousness of the situation.

“My father is diabetic; he needs daily injections of insulin to keep his blood levels normal or else he’ll go into shock.” Explained Gary. “His medication must be back with the fishing boat!”

Frowning, Areto stamped her spear to the floor, ignoring Harper’s cry of shock and darting up, awake. “This does not ring true; this sounds like a deception.”

“WHAT REASON DO I HAVE TO LIE?!”

Gasping as a spear’s tip was shoved up his chin, Gary immediately raised his hands in surrender, his attention on his son shaking his grandfather’s shoulder trying to check on him while the two guards questioned what was going on. Closing his eyes and calming his voice down enough to try not to get them anxious, Gary spoke again.

“Please, he needs his medication, or he might die.”

Turning their attention back to the elderly man pacing his breath and looking like his heart was failing, the two guards were unsure on how to act on the situation. Die a beatus? They had never heard of such an affliction. Cornered with the genuine cries of the child trying to shake his father awake and the man at spear point, the two were for a loss of words until someone at the door spoke up for them.

“What is the meaning of this?!”

Looking over to the entrance to the bedroom, Areto and Atla were at a loss between saluting and keeping their spears under the man’s chin at the sight of their queen at the door. Making their way inside, Hippolyta and Phillipus divided their attention between the man in their guard’s custody and the older looking one being checked on by the child, a worried look on both their faces.

“Your highness, this man claims the other is deathly ill.”

“He just needs his insulin, it’s back at the…” Feeling the spear tip raise ever higher, Gary was **** to raise his chin and wince with a sharp hiss.

“DO NOT speak out of turn before our queen!”

“What shall you have us do my Queen?” Asked Areto.

Looking past her personal guard to the worried look of the child and the now ghostly pale man in bed, Hippolyta turned to Phillipus who gave the same expression.

“I will not have the same mistake be committed that cursed us again, bring him with us to the purple ray, we shall see if his words are true there.”

Pulling their spears away from the man, Atla and Areto carefully lifted the man off the bed, surprising Gary, and Harper of their inhuman strength as they lifted him easy between them after shouldering their shields and using a free hand to lift the man up and make their way out the room. The others following them as the queen looked to the ceiling.

“Please, tell me this is the right decision…”