Author's Note: The plot of this chapter was originally conceived for a humorous one-shot, but while I was outlining "Seven Conversations" a couple of months ago, it occurred to me that I might be able to adjust the plot a little and splice this material in at the end. That was when I added "(Plus One on Themyscira)" to my intended title, and also inserted a chat between Diana and her mother into the middle of the story to lay a foundation for this scene. (Originally I was going to have another scene with Diana and Alfred in which she spoke frankly about her feelings for Bruce, with Alfred giving the strong impression (without quite saying) that he was rooting for her. I actually wrote part of that scene, but now I won't be posting it.)

P.S. Every time we saw other members of the League visit Diana's home turf on Themyscira, they seemed to have no trouble communicating with Hippolyta and the other Amazons. So I'm running with the idea that, despite millennia of isolation, all Amazons speak fluent Modern English in addition to Ancient Greek (and possibly other languages as well).

The One on Themyscira: Hippolyta, Diana, and Aphrodite

Once upon a time it had pleased Aphrodite to create thousands of female figures from clay and impart the breath of life into each. These became her faithful Amazon "daughters." For some reason, the Goddess of Love and Beauty had then told her creations to study the arts of war, and for many years the Amazons had a well-earned reputation for being both honorable allies and ferocious enemies, depending on how they were treated by their neighbors.

In olden times, Hippolyta had spoken with Aphrodite fairly often. Now she wasn't even sure how many centuries it had been since the last time she had laid eyes on her creator. Too long, perhaps, but one didn't like to trouble a goddess over trifles. If you called her to ask for advice every hundred years or so, she might tire of such incessant interruptions and stop taking your calls!

Today, by royal command, the temple on Themyscira was empty, save only for Hippolyta herself and her daughter Diana, and they had been chanting a ritual prayer for about a third of an hour and counting, with no signs of any divine response thus far. They were prepared to keep this up all day and all night, if need be, but Hippolyta hoped it wouldn't come to—

The temple filled with light as something a few paces away from the supplicants flashed in all the colors of the rainbow, and then those lights coalesced into a female form. For some reason, Hippolyta had expected the goddess to arrive wearing a traditional chiton—or possibly nothing at all, which had happened before in the old days—but instead Aphrodite was dressed in what Hippolyta could only assume to be "modern clothes." Tight trousers made of coarse blue cloth, a sleeveless shirt that fit her torso very snugly and appeared to have the face of a handsome man on it, white shoes of some slick substance, and some flat green lenses in a metal frame were pushed up onto the goddess's forehead.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, darlings," the Goddess of Love said in flawless English, "but I just had to see what happened when Terri finally told her husband that the baby really was his, after all! Secret Hearts, you know."

Diana and Hippolyta had bowed deeply as soon as Aphrodite began speaking. As they straightened up, Diana leaned over and murmured into her mother's ear: "American television program. A type of neverending drama called 'soap opera.'"

"One of the greatest romantic achievements the mortals have ever come up with!" Aphrodite gushed. "I never miss an episode."

"We are grateful that you found time for us at all," Hippolyta said fervently. "Unusual have happened on Themyscira in recent years, and we seek the guidance of the Goddess of Love to help the Amazons avoid needless discord."

"Tell me of your troubles, then."

"My daughter Diana, who stands beside me, has spent the last few years in Patriarch's World, wearing the sacred armor from this temple and associating with some exceptional warriors who serve 'justice' as best they can.'"

Hippolyta had intended to go on from there, but Aphrodite forestalled her with a raised palm. "Ah! Does this mean that your daughter won the contest, and now the other Amazons are jealous because it was the Queen's daughter who took the prize and was allowed to leave?"

"What contest?" Hippolyta exclaimed.

Aphrodite raised her exquisite eyebrows. "Didn't I tell you to hold a great contest and select the worthiest of your sister Amazons to be the champion to help the Allied nations after that insolent immortal, Vandal Savage, began tampering with the 'natural' flow of events?"

"Er . . . no."

"No?"

Rather than keep repeating the monosyllable, Hippolyta made a show of shrugging helplessly.

"How peculiar," the goddess mused. "I know I was planning to . . . after all, why did you think every Amazon woke up one morning speaking English, in addition to the languages you'd already known?"

"I wondered about that at the time," Hippolyta confessed, "but I decided that if you cared to explain it to me, you would do so in your own good time."

"I did it so that whoever won the upcoming Great Contest would be able to communicate with her new allies, of course! I remember now . . . Secret Hearts started as a radio show right around that time, and I was a bit distracted. But soon after that, I checked again to see how things were going in Europe, and I saw someone in the sacred armor from this temple was smashing war-machines, and I decided you must have gotten my message . . ." Aphrodite stared thoughtfully at Diana. "The champion I saw that day had long black hair much like yours. But you weren't alive yet, right?"

"Oh!" Diana said suddenly. "That must have been when five friends and I had traveled back in time to stop Savage from conquering the globe six decades ago. I was only in that era for a few days, Lady Aphrodite, and did not know you had observed me!"

"If you say so, my dear girl." Aphrodite waved a languid hand to dismiss the details. "Very thoughtful of you, Hippolyta, to anticipate my wishes by sending your daughter back in time to attend to that messy chore before I even got around to telling you to find a champion to handle it!"

Hippolyta briefly weighed the merits of accepting this undeserved praise rather than contradict her creator over a trifle . . . but honesty prevailed. "I'm afraid I had nothing to do with that mission. It probably began after I had banished Diana from Themyscira"—her daughter nodded to confirm the sequence of events—"and if her quest into the past met with your approval, that was serendipity."

"Ah, well, no harm done," Aphrodite said magnanimously. "By the way, why was she banished?"

This was the sort of thing which reminded a Queen that even her patron goddess may not bother to stay fully abreast of current affairs in the Queen's realm. After being a monarch for thousands of years, I probably need the occasional taste of humility, Hippolyta told herself. When she'd defiantly said the gods would have to take it up with her if they didn't like her pardon of Diana, it hadn't quite occurred to her that the gods might not even notice!

(Of course, it was quite likely that some of the other gods had noticed at the time, but hadn't bothered to mention it to Aphrodite. As Hippolyta had good reason to know, an immortal entity could afford to take the long view.)

She took a deep breath and began explaining. "A few years ago, when a sorcerer called Felix Faust invaded this island and turned all the Amazons he found into stone, Diana alone was spared because she had already taken the sacred armor and left the island, months before. When she learned what Faust was doing, she brought four male friends to Themyscira to fight him—and his master, Lord Hades, as it turned out. Afterwards, I felt duty-bound to banish her for bringing men onto this sacred soil, and so when they left, they took Diana with them, never to return (as I thought at the time)."

The Goddess of Love and Beauty looked puzzled. "You banished your own daughter? Even though her male comrades-in-arms had only lingered long enough to prevent a disaster? Whatever for?"

Hippolyta gaped. "What for? Great Aphrodite, you were the one who decreed that law against male visitors in the first place!"

"Well, sure, but I never meant it to be permanent."

"You didn't?" Hippolyta asked faintly.

"Think back to those days, Hippolyta. You had made a mistake in judgment with one of my kindred," Aphrodite said delicately, and glanced doubtfully at Diana.

Hippolyta realized the goddess was wondering if she needed to be tactful about old love affairs. "My daughter knows all about that."

"All right, you had made a serious mistake by giving your heart to my uncle Hades until you saw his true colors, and later you were tricked by my half-brother Heracles so that all the Amazons were enslaved for a time. I helped you get out of that one, but I was afraid that if this sort of thing kept up, untrustworthy males—mortals or gods, it made little difference—would become the new rulers of Themyscira for keeps, and that would mean control of the Gates of Tartarus fell into the wrong hands. So! With the help of Poseidon and a few of my other relatives, I arranged for your island to be hidden from the view of any mortal men who went sailing past. Then I told you to pronounce a law that no Amazon should leave the island until further notice, nor allow any mortal man to visit on any pretext whatsoever."

Hippolyta nodded silently. That was the way she remembered it . . .

"The whole point was that I figured you and your sisters needed a little extra maturity. The bunch of you were what, less than two centuries old at that point? Practically babies. I figured, 'let them stay aloof from masculine temptations for at least a thousand years, that'll give them time to think about how to be wary of men in the future.' Then I was planning to let you try again to socialize with outsiders, carefully! After all, my dear Amazons are as entitled to look for loving companionship from the opposite sex as anyone else . . . in the long run!" Aphrodite sighed deeply. "Men . . . can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, as I heard someone on Secret Hearts say a few years ago. She had a strong point."

"One thousand years of utter isolation was all you intended? But it has been over three thousand years since you gave me that edict," Hippolyta pointed out.

"Really? My, my, how time does fly. For a while there, I was spending much of my time away from Earth and its calendars . . . don't ask; long story. Well, I'm sure a few centuries extra didn't hurt you any. It's not like you could get all grey and wrinkled while you were waiting."

Out of the corner of her eye, Hippolyta saw Diana twitch a hand in a way that meant: May I speak? (They had worked out such codes many years ago, when the child Diana often sat in on the meetings Hippolyta had with her senior officers and advisors.)

Since this conversation had already drifted far away from Hippolyta's plans for it, she decided nothing would be lost by letting her daughter steer it for a bit while Hippolyta tried to regain her bearings. So she nodded a minuscule nod.

"Lady Aphrodite," Diana said, bowing again for good measure, "my mother recently informed me that some of our sister Amazons are, in fact, growing impatient with the ban on travel to other nations of this world, and the lack of opportunity to"—she paused delicately—"socialize with men upon occasion."

"Natural romantic urges," Aphrodite murmured. "I truly didn't mean to deprive them for quite so long."

"Of course not," Diana said politely. "It seems, however, that they were resigned to your will, as they understood it, until I began having adventures in distant lands, and sometimes returning to speak of them to my mother and any others who wished to hear."

"Returning? Repeatedly? Hold the phone! I thought you said you banished her," Aphrodite said suspiciously, staring at Hippolyta.

"Last year I changed my mind and pardoned her," Hippolyta admitted. "I rather expected to hear some . . . criticisms . . . from Olympus about that."

Aphrodite laughed softly. "Really, darling, do you think we have nothing better to do up there than spy on every little administrative decision you make, and loudly second-guess it?" She paused, looking thoughtful. "On second thought, don't even try to answer that. Whether or not most of the things we do with our time are 'better' may be arguable, but certainly they are more entertaining."

Diana grabbed the conversational ball again—which was just as well, since Hippolyta was finding herself at a loss for words. "From what you say, Lady Aphrodite, I gather that you are amenable to the idea of letting some of my sisters acquaint themselves with the residents and cultures of the modern world. That will do much to solve the very problems which my mother wished to consult you about. My chief concern is that so much has changed over the centuries, and even speaking Modern English would not prevent some of my sisters from experiencing—or causing—a great deal of confusion and embarrassment if they tried to 'dive right in' before they understood the new customs and technology and so forth."

"I suppose you could import a few satellite dishes," the goddess suggested. "Let the Amazons watch the soaps for a few years before they go anywhere, and they'd learn lots of fascinating things that nobody was teaching girls back in the Bronze Age!"

Hippolyta heard her daughter gulp before saying, "I had something a little different in mind. There's a modern concept among mortals called a 'halfway house'; I don't know if you have heard of it on daytime television . . ."

Aphrodite shook her perfectly coiffured head, and Diana provided a concise definition of halfway house: "A place with a controlled environment which is meant to help people successfully make the mental transition from one status to another before they try to 'fend for themselves' in the outside world."

"Interesting. Tell me what you envision as a 'halfway house' for your sisters, then."

"No more than half a dozen Amazons living and working in the house of a very wealthy man whom I trust implicitly. Some of their duties will involve serving as bodyguards, but the rest will more domestic: Cleaning floors, laundering clothes, maintenance and repairs, learning to cook with modern kitchen equipment, that sort of thing. Room and board and a reasonable wage in American dollars, and free time for exploring that city and the surrounding region after they know the ground rules. After, say, two years of this, an Amazon ought to be acclimatized to the way things are done in the United States of America. Then they could strike out on their own, perhaps seeking new employment elsewhere, subject to my mother's approval."

"Only six Amazons, you say?"

"I am sure there are more of my sisters who wish to explore the world," Diana conceded, "but I advise starting small and seeing how it goes. My mother and I might learn a great deal from such an experiment, and if it went well, we could consider finding other ways to prepare larger numbers for excursions beyond these shores. Perhaps using the first six as teachers."

Aphrodite glanced at a miniature timepiece on one dainty wrist. "Fine, fine, whatever. I have a date for a rock concert in Athens in a few. Hippolyta, you are hereby granted the authority to allow some of your sisters to leave the island on such terms as you see fit. Also: At your discretion, mortals of either gender may visit Themyscira by invitation, provided no more than twelve at a time are invited, and they never linger more than a week at a stretch. That should keep them from seizing control of the island any time soon. Does that solve your problems?"

Oddly enough, those were more or less the concessions Hippolyta had been hoping to gain today—but she'd expected to have to fight hard for them! She nodded quickly.

"There is one other thing," Diana ventured.

"Speak, daughter."

"There is a man I love. If he agrees to marry me, I shall need to relinquish my gift of immortality before we are wed. He would not go through with it, otherwise."

"If?" Aphrodite cocked her head. "You mean he hasn't asked yet? Or you haven't, as the case may be?"

"He has not even admitted that he loves me," Diana confessed. "I have known him for years, and we have saved each other's lives more times than I bothered to count, but he insists we should be 'just good friends.'"

"So romantic," Aphrodite sighed. Her blue eyes went strangely unfocused. "This fellow is called . . . Bruce? My, he is a handsome one! I can see why you want to embrace him tightly before all the 'best years of his life' have slipped away! And just look at that incredible self-control he's been exercising to avoid embracing you . . . well, well, you two will have a lot of missed opportunities to make up for, won't you?"

Hippolyta blinked as she realized her daughter's cheeks were suddenly changing color. Diana managed to say in an almost-normal tone: "But about the immortality?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I could never forgive myself if I stood in the way of such a grand passion. When the time comes, merely return to this temple and pray for me to revoke it, and the thing will be done. Your other divine gifts will be unaffected," Aphrodite added kindly.

Diana dropped to her knees. "Lady Aphrodite, I am eternally grateful for your charity. If ever my humble talents may be of service to you in some difficult and dangerous task, you have only to say the word, and I will give it my utmost!"

"You're welcome, and be sure to pass that lovely sentiment along to your daughters," Aphrodite said absently. "I really must be going now."

"Daughters?" Diana repeated faintly.

"If you won't be ageless any more, then a few decades from now I may need them to handle a few chores in your stead," Aphrodite observed. "All that youthful energy will come in handy, you know . . . not to mention the likely aid of those resourceful boys who will be falling in love with them by then . . . it'll be fun! Ta ta for now . . . my date will already have been waiting twelve minutes for me, and that's enough torture to keep him humble for a while."

The goddess shimmered . . . and vanished.

Diana rose to her feet, and she and her mother silently regarded one another in the silent temple.

"Halfway house?" Hippolyta finally asked, mainly as a way to avoid talking about Diana's proposed mortality. Intuitively, the queen knew that anything she said on that subject right now would be the wrong thing to say.

"I was thinking of a place called Wayne Manor, in Gotham City," Diana explained, seeming relieved by this choice of topic. "I was visiting when you called me. The house is very large, but the owner only has one loyal manservant to do all the necessary chores, and that servant is getting old. For various reasons, the owner is afraid of trusting new employees to keep his secrets if they live and work under his roof and see everything he does. "

"Do I know him?"

"His birth-name is Bruce Wayne, but when he visited this island, he called himself 'Batman.' Some of his secrets—beginning with the simple fact that he is Batman—would be worth fortunes to his enemies. Or even just to 'news reporters' looking for an exciting story which they could be first to share with the world. After you called me a few days ago and talked about restlessness on Themyscira, the thought came that very few of my sisters would be tempted to violate a sacred oath in exchange for mere wealth."

Hippolyta silently conceded that very few was the correct choice of words; some of her subjects had weaker moral fiber than others. But in principle, Diana was right: any Amazon who took a bribe to betray someone's trust would be despised by all her sisters as soon as the truth emerged. Those who might risk such ostracism were scarce, and after millennia of all living in the same community, Hippolyta and her trusted advisors should have good ideas of which Amazons were best not risked at "Wayne Manor."

So Hippolyta focused on a different point. "I remember Batman. You think he should hire Amazons? Does he even want to hire Amazons?"

"I haven't mentioned it to him yet," Diana said with a shrug. "I wanted to see if Aphrodite would give consent, and if you would then agree with the details of my plan. Once I had things all lined up, I could worry about explaining to him that it was the best solution to his staffing problems."

Hippolyta nodded approvingly. In her experience with men (which, granted, was over three thousand years out of date), it was better for a sensible woman to make the important decisions first, and then find a way to bring the man up to speed on the essence of what had already been decided. "I suppose the next question is: Would any of my restless subjects want to work for a mortal man as the price of being allowed to explore the outside world?"

"If only a few of them are willing to pay that price, it will be enough to start with," her daughter pointed out. "Then, when they come home for visits and tell amusing stories about their experiences, that may persuade others that it doesn't sound unbearable. If we call for volunteers for the first group, it should help to mention that the owner of Wayne Manor is one of the very few mortals whom the Queen of the Amazons has publicly hailed as a True Hero while placing the golden wreath on his head. Temporary service with a 'Savior of Themyscira' sounds more honorable than signing a contract with some swaggering stranger who only thinks he's good enough to give orders to Amazons."

There was logic in that, but Hippolyta was already thinking a few steps ahead. "Is this the same man you hope to marry, Diana?" (Aphrodite had said something about a Bruce, once she began using her powers as Goddess of Love to probe the subject of to whom Diana's heart was committed.)

"Yes."

"Then there could be a simpler way to make it palatable. Wait a bit, then call for volunteers to render service to the Princess of Themyscira in her new home, and by extension to the man who just happens to be married to her."

"But will I still be their 'princess,' Mother? Once I relinquish immortality, the chance of my ever inheriting your throne will drop like a rock. Which makes my title meaningless."

"As long as you and I both live, you are the Queen's heir. And if, as the goddess suggested, you bear daughters of your own, they will become my heirs as well."

There was an interesting expression on Diana's face; Hippolyta gathered that her daughter simply hadn't thought as far ahead as my daughters will be princesses too.

They spoke a while longer of the details of Diana's proposed arrangement, but Hippolyta finally had to bid her daughter farewell because Diana had a commitment to keep in Batman's beloved native city of Gotham.

As she flew away from the island, Diana thought about what she had bitten her tongue to avoid saying to Hippolyta about the obvious flaws in Aphrodite's leadership style. They might have that conversation someday, but it would be more tactful to give Mother a little time . . . a year or two, say . . . to assimilate what had just been revealed about their patron's shortcomings.

My American friends would say that Aphrodite has her virtues, but they don't include strategic planning ability, attention to detail, and long-term commitment. You want wisdom or justice? Talk to Pallas Athena. You want sensible, predictable schedules for large-scale enterprises? Talk to Demeter about agriculture. You want chastity, and the focused attention of a great huntress? Talk to Artemis. You want long-term commitment? Talk to Hera. But if you talk to Aphrodite, you should expect none of the above!

Author's Notes: And that's a wrap! (For this story, at least.) This "Seven Conversations" project was meant to help set things up for a much bigger story I'd been planning for a long time, which currently has the working title of "Changes of Fortune." In it, we will see some honest-to-goodness resolution of the Batman/Wonder Woman romance (not to mention tying up some other loose ends from the Justice League cartoons). Some of you may be pleased to hear that "Changes of Fortune" will involve a lot more violence than this series of eight reasonably civilized conversations did.

Now to explain a few references from this chapter. (If you don't care, skip the rest of this!)

In case anyone doesn't remember: Diana and several other Leaguers all traveled back to the World War II era in the three-part storyline "The Savage Time" at the end of the first season of the original Justice League series. As you've now seen, I assume that this meddling with history effectively derailed Aphrodite's plan to arrange for an Amazon to win a contest and be selected for the role of "Wonder Woman, Champion of Themyscira" during that war, as "actually" occurred in the Wonder Woman comic books of the early 1940s (and, for that matter, in the live-action TV show of the 1970s—its first season was set during World War II).

You may recall that, at the end of "Paradise Lost," J'onn J'onnz, Flash, Superman, and Batman were all awarded what looked like golden replicas of laurel wreaths for their services in saving Themyscira and its residents. Hippolyta called them "true heroes." I assume that their receiving such honors means an Amazon warrior could sometimes take orders from one of those "true heroes" without forfeiting her self-respect in the process.

I've written a couple of Justice League one-shots which have established that, in my DCAU timeline, Bruce and Diana will eventually have super-powered twin daughters who are eager to "continue the family tradition" of superheroics. Aphrodite somehow knows all about those girls, well in advance of their conception, and in this chapter she was giving Diana fair warning that she'll be calling in a favor from the next generation, one of these days.