Tag: sisters of paradise

League of Justice #2.2: “Conscience Does Make Cowards”

Isla Paraíso

“The air of paradise will stifle me till all I am is a shadow!” Diana was incensed. She had brought Hallie Jordan from the crash site to a luncheon in the meadow, and the matriarch had graciously agreed to let Hal return to the outside world, provided that she respect the secret of the island.

Another was chosen to escort Hal back to the shore and give her the rubber raft found in her jet and to point her in the direction of her fleet. Diana had wanted to be chosen. Diana had wanted to go all the way, to experience the entire world.

“Absolutely not! The Sisters of Paradise are exiles from the world. Out there is evil and death and the scrabbling of mad beasts. Here is civility and peace. You will not go!”

“Why is this the way of us?”

“In our good conscience, we cannot allow our gifts and abilities and our purity of soul be tainted by those beyond. The Sisters of Paradise seek true tranquility, and that is only possible in sequester.”

“Our conscience will make cowards of us all! If we are so much better than everyone out there, then we should be leading them! We should be helping them make themselves better! There is no superiority when it is hoarded, there is only selfishness and greed!”

“You are a foolish, small girl to not understand what is our purpose. You should meditate and think upon your sins. Return with a pure heart to ask forgiveness.”

With that, the interview with the Matriarch was over. And Diana’s decision was made. There would be no turning back. In the history of Paradise Island not a single woman had ever left. There was a hill, near the cliffs, were the sisters buried their own, year after year, and set an ornately carved statue over their grave. No statue would look over Diana’s grave. She knew not where her bones would crumble to dust, but it would not be here.

Diana returned to her dwelling, a small hut built into a tree. She gathered there her most precious possessions, really all she owned that was unique to her. She collected two bracers of an unknown metal. Long ago a meteor had crashed down upon the island. It was mostly rock, but at its core was a metal like none the Sisters had encountered. Her mother, a smith, had shaped it into beautiful bracers, covering from wrist to elbow. To date they had proven impenetrable and unscratchable. When her mother had died in an unfortunate accident, they passed to Diana. Her mother had been of the ruling line, third in line to be Matriarch. As such, she wore a singlet in honor of her office. That, too, had become Diana’s. She packed that, after all, she was a princess, even if it was of a people she was about to leave. An exiled princess…it had a melancholy ring to it. Next Diana grabbed a length of rope, more a whip than lasso. It was woven of high tensile cord, yet soft to the touch. It coiled tightly and resisted water and heat. Diana was an apprentice weaver and the rope was her graduation project. All that remained to make her a master of the craft was time and practice. Practice she doubted she would now get.

Diana dressed. She pulled on tall boots, tight breeches, a red corset, and over all a snug cloak of deep blue. Her crow black hair she pulled back into a tight braid. Beneath her sleeves her corsets gripped her arms. At her side her whip hung, waiting for action. Diana was ready, a woman seeking the wonders of a world beyond.

Before she left, she climbed to the top of the cliffs, and looked out over Paradise Island. She never intended to return, and wished to bid it farewell. Once there, she breathed deep of the island air. It was full of ocean, tinged with the earthiness of deep jungle, and the tantalizing fragrance of a thousand island flowers. She would miss her home, but she knew she must leave. Diana’s destiny was beyond the shores and shield, beyond the trees and tribal rules. Diana’s destiny was somewhere out there, in the wide world beyond.

Quite unintentionally, Diana found herself chanting a soft song of farewell:

Paradise, my paradise
I will see you no more
Paradise, my paradise
Sleep now and forever more
I will see you again, once upon a dream
I will walk your paths, bathe in a stream
I will run and drink your wind
To you my soul I will send
When I die, greet her warmly
Shelter her from the world’s storms
Paradise, my paradise
Remember me

Tears falling, she ran across the tops of the cliffs to a waterfall. Taking a single large, last stride, she leaped, into the empty air, down down down with the falling of the water, throwing her life to the fates. She crashed, splashed down into a deep blue pool at one end of a lagoon that led to sea. Breathing deep, once she reached the top of the water, she dove down again. Stoking hard, she swam out of the lagoon and into the ocean. It was cold and crisp and blue.

After about half an hour of swimming she spotted a yellow raft, with a single small figure off in the distance. Almost there. Diana’s freedom bobbed on the waves, guided by a female hand. Diana drew comfort from that, the fact that she was swimming from a mother’s embrace into the embrace of one that felt a sister to her, though they barely knew each other. A smile stole across Diana’s face, and she kicked harder. One last dive beneath the waves and she would be there.

Bursting forth from the water, she saw she startled Hal Jordan.

“What the hell?”

“Hal. It’s me, Diana. Can I come with you? I seek asylum in the United States of America. I can no longer stay in Paradise. I need to see the outside world. I need to walk it. Please, can I come with you?”

“Uh. Yeah. Sure. Though I don’t know how I will explain you to my commanding officer. But yeah, come aboard, sailor.”

Hal threw a mock salute and reached down to help pull Diana from the sea.

Diana brushed water from her face.

“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”

Her smile refused to fade. Everything now was new. Behind her the island had vanished into the night behind the Sisters’ shield, but Diana did not see it. She was looking ahead to the future. Grabbing a paddle, she helped guide the small craft across the ocean depths.

League of Justice #1.6: “The Undiscovered Country”

Isla Paraíso

The sky was dark, and threatening, lit from behind the clouds by a sun that wouldn’t shine today. The air was heavy with water and warm, warning of a storm to come.

Her feet pounded against the heavy sand whump whump whump in uninterrupted rhythm. Behind she left divots marking the path she made since she left the jungle.

The ocean waves crashed against the shore, relentless as her footfalls. She let her mind wander their dark and restless surface, then below, where the wet things roamed.

She remembered a day when she went swimming, farther off shore than ever before, racing dolphins. She was faster than most, but there were a pair of wolphins, dolphin-killer whale hybrids, that outpaced her, the first time anything had beaten her in a race other than the wind.

She loved her morning run, especially when it turned from jungle to beach. Isla Paraíso only had beach on half the island, a good fifty miles or so. The other half of the island was comprised of rock cliffs rising hundreds of feet from the ocean floor. Thick jungle with a few plains breaking out of the overgrowth covered the rest of Paradise Island.

She snorted, then regretted it as the snort interrupted her breathing. Paradise Island is what she and her sisters called the island, but it really was anything but paradise. Situated in the heart of the Atlantic, it was prone to be swept by hurricanes, in season and out. It was full of dangerous predators. And, other than the several hundred women who called it home, it was void of intelligent life.

But, she then recalled, there was plenty to make such a place like unto paradise: myriads of exotic birds, thousands of wild flowers in all colors and shapes. Everything seemed to be so vibrant and alive here, like it was protected and blessed in some special way. The pace of life was slow, uncomplicated, unhurried. At least, that would have been paradise for someone that wasn’t her. She craved adventure and excitement, which was why she enjoyed her runs so much. It was the one time of the day she could escape the doldrums and move as fast as her heart desired. While in the jungle, she had to be wary and alert to evade predators and venomous plants and quicksand and dangerous muck and ooze that could ensnare her and leave her somewhat easy prey. She loved the way her pulse pounded when a wildcat caught her scent and swept along in hungry pursuit. Never really in danger, her heart nevertheless quickened with the sensation of being chased in an earnest life or death struggle. She was strong and deadly herself, but one wrong step would leave her vulnerable. She reveled in the excitement of winning the chase when, without breaking stride, she leapt up into the trees and ran along the branches or swung from vines, or when she flat outpaced the wildcat, leaving it breathing hard and searching for slower prey.

She ran barefoot, as always, and relished the sensation of digging her toes into the sand, grabbing it, and throwing it behind her as she ran. She knew that an endless spray of grit was being left in her wake. She again reasoned, like usual, that Isla Paraíso was a paradise to her as well.

Diana reached her favorite place on the shore, a large broken rock that jutted out into the sea. It was an anomaly on this part of the island, there was plenty of rock on the other side, but not here. Diana leapt to the summit, and stood watching the stormy waves. They were gathering energy from the coming storm, more angry and violent than before. She paused from her run, breathing in the tangy salt air. There were few smells, even among the heady aromas of island flowers, that she loved more than the smell of the sea. To her it was a wild call for more than she knew, for a life lived beyond the confines of the island, no matter how paradisiacal. She longed to see what was beyond the sea.

She knew of course that out to the east lay Europe, and beyond it, Asia. That beyond the rock cliffs lay America, arrogant giant that fancied itself a ruler of the world. That above lay an Arctic Circle, and below her island lay an Antarctic wasteland of frozen ice and blinding white snow. She knew the world was vast beyond the confines of Paradise Island, but she was forbidden to see it. Diana and her sisters lived in exile, and had for hundreds of years ever since they found the island. Using selective breeding from the few males who first came with them, and then later science of their own devising, the sisters maintained an entirely female population, ruled by a matriarch. The Sisters of Paradise, as they called themselves, were stronger, smarter, and more potent than most strong men elsewhere on the planet. They were almost goddesses in the genetic perfection they had achieved, and so they named themselves as gods. Diana herself was named for an ancient Roman deity. Diana was the goddess of the hunt, of the moon, and of the giving of life. Diana loved the association, though she often smirked at the presumption of naming one’s daughter after a goddess. She was proud of the heritage her mother bestowed upon her by naming her Diana, and always strived to earn it, day after day.

Dismounting the rock, Diana continued her run along the beach. A light rain began to pelt down from the darkening sky. Diana didn’t mind the rain, mostly she ran fast enough to avoid all but the occasional drop, unless it down poured which it seemed it would do any…now. The falling water was so thick it obscured Diana’s vision, but she laughed and ran faster. Nothing unleashed her soul more than the wildness of the elements.

A loud crack and boom sounded overhead, but it wasn’t lightning nor thunder. Breaking through the clouds, a military jet, smoking and on fire, dove towards the beach. Another explosion rocked the craft, though it little mattered. In seconds the vehicle smashed into the beach in a plume of sand. Diana ran towards it, defying searing heat and striking flames. There was a pilot trapped in the cockpit, a woman. Diana raised a fist and smashed it through the clear canopy. Grabbing the pilot she jerked her from the plane, and ran backwards. There was no time to spare as the rest of the fuel and munitions the plane was carrying exploded spectacularly. A dark, oily smoke rose to join with the dark clouds of the storm.

Diana laid the unconscious pilot out beneath an overhanging banana plant. The large leaves gave shelter from the falling rain. Diana gazed at the military aviator, noting a lack of injuries. She then allowed her eyes to linger on the beautiful visage revealed beneath the helmet, which Diana removed. Diana wondered who the woman was, and how her plane managed to pierce the shielding the Sisters had erected around their island specifically to ward off intruders from the outside world.

Diana smiled. This was different. This excited her more than the wildcat, more than the run, more than the storm.

This was new.