#i like the idea of the magic glasses giving diana wine and mr d taking it incredibly personally

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I love the PJO!Diana so much? It's just- I just- wow? So amaze. Thank you for that.

“hey i might write more of that diana at camp halfblood au if anyone was interested” me, swooping in like a peregrine falcon: I AM INTERESTED!

Well, hell, I got free time.  The first bit is here.

Diana knocks lightly on the door of the white manor house and waits.  Her hair is tied back into a braid in the style of her home, easily managed for traveling, and she is dressed harmlessly, like a museum curator, with a red scarf wound loosely about her neck and her lasso tucked into her satchel.

“What?” demands an irritable voice from inside, and the door flies open without a sign of anyone beyond it.  Diana’s three companions, whose names she knows now, are still on the grass beyond the porch, watching her with varying degrees of pity and amusement.  She strides through the door without regard for either.

There is a man sitting at a card table, and he is playing cards with a centaur.

Well, all right, then.

“Sit,” the man says, pointing at a chair with a can of Diet Coke, and folds his hand of cards with a sigh.  Diana doesn’t sit, remains standing, polite but stubborn.  He looks up to her and she sees a glint of something in his eye, more than the portly middle-aged man with a bad-tempered set to his mouth he takes the form of.  Diana looks back and breathes the taste of wine in the air, and wonders what he sees in her eyes.  Truth.  Or maybe battle.

“So,” the man says.  “I heard you’d be coming.“

“And here I am,” she says.  “May I ask why I’m here?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Amazon?”

“Not particularly.”

Dionysus gestures expansively toward the windows, to the sprawling grounds outside.  “This is the largest gathering of halfbloods on Earth, girl.  And the whole lot of them were almost massacred in the war against the Titans last year.  They need a teacher–a real teacher, with real battle experience.  Chiron is all well and good, but every person who’s assisted him so far turned out to be evil, a robot, or both.”

Diana looks at him for a moment.  “And none of the gods will take that on?”

“Ha!”  He turns to the centaur.  Chiron.  Diana wants to speak with him so badly that it makes her chest ache–Chiron, trainer of heroes, who knew her mother when she led the Amazons to victory.  “Listen to her.”

“These are the gods’ children,” Diana says, keeping the edge out of her voice through main force.  “Is a museum curator the best they can find?”

Dionysus looks at her again, and his eyes glitter again, and Diana sets her jaw hard and stares back.

“A museum curator, no,” he says evenly, taking a drink of his Diet Coke.  “A warrior trained on Themyscira, though–a veteran of half a dozen wars and the inspiration for a fistful of legends.  We’ll take that.”  He scoffs.  “You don’t even know where your power comes from, do you, girl?”

“My power comes from my people,” Diana says, holding her head up under the weight of his derision.  “And from the life that Zeus gave me.”

“And from prayer.”  Dionysus stares her down, and his voice lowers, into something that creeps into her ears and paints pictures across her mind’s eye.  “From a thousand soldiers on a battlefield in Germany, who saw a goddess take the field alone.  From a concentration camp, who saw a gate ripped from its hinges.  From fearful children and refugees across the world, who saw a single woman go to war and win.”

Diana sees herself, or almost herself.  A figure ten feet tall, holding a shield in one hand and a flaming sword in the other, her skin glowing gold and her armor unmarred by the battle, casting down those unworthy with all her power behind every blow.  

She is unspeakable, untouchable, undefeatable–divine.

Dionysus’ voice creeps further, lower still.  “And all those people in all those countries told their children and their children’s children about the woman who had saved them, and they built you your very own religion.  You gain your immortality from our father.  You gain your power from them.”

Diana swallows and imagines an iron wall around her mind, and the images disappear.  There is only Dionysus and the taste of wine in the air, and she smiles at him, baring all of her teeth.

“I’ve defeated a god before,” she says.  “Stay out of my head.”

Dionysus, wonder of wonders, actually smiles back.  Only half mocking.  “You have potential, girl.  So.  Will you stay and instruct the brats, or will you go back to hiding in a museum?”

Resting a hand on the table, Diana considers the question.

Percy is sixteen years old and he has the eyes of a man in his fifth or sixth decade, the survivor of a prophecy that ate up dozens of children before it was exhausted.  Annabeth has a coil of grey hair that falls into her face even when she ties it back.  They are children and they are warriors and they need help.

“I’ll teach them what I know of fighting,” Diana says after a moment.  “But I’m a volunteer, not a prisoner.  I come and go as I please, and I won’t be beholden to Olympus or anyone who lives there.  Yourself included, Lord Dionysus.”

“Mister D, here,” he says.  “And those sound like satisfactory terms to me.”

“Right,” Diana agrees.  She knocks her knuckles against the table and says, “I’ll go see what your arena looks like.”  She starts toward the door and stops and turns back.  “And one more thing.  My name is Diana.”

“I know your name, girl.”

“Then,” Diana says sweetly, “I recommend you stop calling me girl.”

***

It’s at dinner that night that Diana meets the rest of her new students.  Camp Halfblood.  She’s almost endeared.  She’s had one or two people ask her if she’s been claimed yet, and Percy and Annabeth, her self-appointed guides after Rachel was dragged off on an errand, both snickered until they were blue in the face over it.

“Who was your mother?” Annabeth asked curiously after the second time the question was posed.  “A goddess?”

“My mother is Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons,” Diana said.  “She crafted me from clay and Zeus gave me life, as a weapon to protect them.”  She doesn’t know if this is the truth or if she is Zeus’ daughter in the more traditional sense, but she also doesn’t much care.

“Well damn,” Percy said, frankly impressed.

And now they are in a pavillion, with Diana at the head table and watching the students offer sacrifices to a brazier.  The smoke billows thick and heady, and Diana watches it rise with a considering eye.  How much of a god is she, then?  If she gains power from prayer, from belief, as Dionysus implied, then could she gain strength from a sacrifice the same way they do?  If someone knew her name to direct a prayer, would she hear it?

Camp Halfblood has ice cream, and it’s magnificent.  Diana elects not to think about sacrifices, and Dionysus waits for everyone to be seated again before he stands up.

“Right,” he says, his voice carrying even though he sounds bored.  “New instructor.  You,” he says, pointing to her.  “Stand up.”  Diana simply looks at him until he sighs and says, “Please.”  Once she’s standing, she offers a wry little wave to the pavillion and tries not to look at how empty it seems, far too few people to fill the tables.

“This is Diana,” Dionysus announces.  “She’s going to teach you how to kill things more competently than you currently do.  Introduce yourself or something.”

“All right,” she says, because it seems fair enough even though he’s clearly using it as an excuse to sit back down and ignore her.  The students–campers?–are attentive, though.  “My name is Diana, princess of Themyscira.  I am an Amazon and I have a great deal of combat training.  I look forward to working with you all.“  She considers for a moment and adds, “Are there any questions?”

“I thought the Amazons vanished like thousands of years ago,” a voice from the crowd calls.

“Themyscira is a hidden island in the Atlantic, so, yes, they did vanish but we’re still alive, anyone else?”

“Are you a halfblood?” another voice shouts, and Diana purses her lips.

“Not…as such,” she says carefully.  “My position is–under debate.”  Dionysus snorts at that.  

Percy, sitting near the front where he can see Diana–she thinks that he did it as a kindness, so that she could see someone familiar nearby, and she’s touched by it–gestures to get her attention and smirks as he says, “You’d better just tell them.”

Diana glances briefly at Dionysus–this is his home ground, his approval to give–and then sighs and looks back at the curious faces spread out like a small lake.

“A century ago,” she says, “I left Themyscira and fought a god to end a World War.  I was–I was naive, I suppose.  Until then, I didn’t know what I was.”  She has never said this out loud.  To anyone.  It takes an act of will to force the words out.  “I’ve never been to Olympus and I certainly don’t live there, but I am the daughter of Zeus, and I am a god.”

The pavillion explodes into shouting, and Diana sits down.  Percy grins at her and salutes with a glass of something in a truly toxic shade of blue, and Diana grins back.

“You’ll fit in just fine,” Dionysus sighs.

Diana considers that for a moment, picking up a wine glass that fills itself with pale gold liquid at her touch.  A sip reveals that it is wine from Themyscira, the crisp sweet white that Diana always favored, and Dionysus gives the glass a slightly betrayed look.

“I think I’m offended by that,” Diana decides at last.

“That’s fair,” Dionysus concedes, and slams his Diet Coke like a shot of tequila.