her grandmother no longer occupies the house. it is august, 2019, and no one truly knows who she is and isn't. she came here to get some space, and instead, the wonder woman movie movie is playing before her. diana is shifting uncomfortably in her head as they watch. for once, penny shares her discomfort as the move says that she--diana is zeus' child. at the exaltation of the sword before her, the supposed god killer. that seems to anger diana the most; in their shared mind's eye, penny sees that scene different: she sees the statue of a warrior, her head held high, her hands gone--yet at her side is a shining gold lasso that no one has ever touched, but all adore.

at the same time, the image blurs around the edges; and she sees the lasso laid against precious velvet. she can her hippolyta's voice, telling her that these were meant for her, that they would be what guided her, and it was blessed by the gods.

"they can't both be true," penny says, putting her head against her hand. the movie keeps going at a speed that she can't keep up with. she keeps feeling diana pulling on the knowledge: her mother writing in pain from an arrow shot at her shoulder; her mother telling her of being born from clay; and the clay's texture never staying the same in the recollections. even hippolyta's hair shimmers and shifts from a bright, straight blonde, to a long curly inky black.

they are. they can be, diana says, the sound her thoughts make forcing penny to sit up a little straighter. i know what we are watching isn't true. i know that the television who you've shown me isn't true either. i know i did not live her life as it is onscreen. diana shifts more as the scenes roll on. i have not always loved steve trevor. i think of him as etta candy's more than my own.

"you have kissed, though," penny says, frowning. "you have been together."

diana, somehow, makes it feel as if she's shrugged. as if her fingers have curled over the feelings, the memories of steve trevor in her head.

penny allows it. she mutes the television, though, and tries to shift through the wellspring of lives diana has lived. logically, she always knew that comics held different continuities, timelines, futures, pasts. that in mythology, gods could live in cycles over and over again, endless and always learning and unlearning, making and destroying.

it's so different when it's her own life now, shared with someone who wasn't always a god, but was god touched. she has questions for diana, big ones that are pressing against her mind, out of curiosity and out of a need to understand.

"how do you know?" she asks, standing up from the couch. the movie goes on as penny pets batty, and then pris. "which memories are real, which ones aren't? how can you be sure?"

diana takes momentary control of her hand, and reaches into the pocket of penny's pajama pants. their fingers wrap around the golden prefect, glowing and firm in their shared hand. my eyes are not always perfect. gods can deceive for sport. people can lie--lies so intricate and layered that it's hard to find reality, truth.

"that isn't really concrete, princess," penny says, keeping her fingers on the lasso. "i need something more than that. to-- to understand." she pushes insistently. she can feel in that strange sensation, diana reaching out to her. penny hesitates. then reaches back.

she finds herself pulled into that nowhere place that resembles themyscira. the grass a blinding green, the sky a beautiful blue. diana stands before her, the wind picking up in her hair. she looks regal here, and when she pulls out the lasso, penny intrinsically understands that the rope is real here as it is in reality.

diana offers one end to it. "you cannot lie here. try, however, to think of a memory. your own memory."

the lasso is warm beneath her fingertips. her thumb rubs against the side, as if penny is capable of rubbing through it, or wearing it down. instantly, the memory she has is of her grandmother adelaide, with her long white hair, her wizened face, the smell of the peppermint that permeated her house.

that's not the stand out, that's not what makes it stand out the most. it's the emotions behind her memories that are surprising when filtered through the lasso. usually, in her memories, the emotions, while there, weren't immediate. the feelings were more distant, in the past. holding the lasso between her fingers, the emotions are what's most overt now, recalling her grandmother's face in the memory: the warmth she had always found in her, the happiness she felt, the surety of a woman like this in her life. the woman who liked to listen to her stories, who took her into her home in a way that her parents never did.

diana tightens her grip on it. "you can feel it, can't you? the way you felt about her. the way she felt about you."

penny nods, trying to keep her own emotions at bay, trying not to be overwhelmed by how strong they were. she nods wordlessly in response. diana tugs on the lasso, and this time one of her memories emerges: diana walking down a beach. no battle flares, no men invading the beach. the smell of unfamiliar death, the awe and confusion of bodies around her, men moaning in pain. a metal wreckage, the smell of gasoline that has never permeated her senses before.

diana's emotions, sensations are just as overwhelming, just as strong as penny's own. diana's voice is gentle as she speaks, "you can feel it, can't you? the way i felt in my heart. the way every sensation feels here. how our emotions might not always be concrete or simple," she shuts her own eyes, letting penny experience the confusion, the surprise and curiosity. what it felt like for her to kneel down and see a man with blood running down his forehead, his eyes unfocused, his mouth forming words she couldn't understand then, but penny understands now as help me, please help me--

penny reaches out. wants to reach out to help him.

"memories that have layers, that aren't real don't feel like this," diana shifts them away from the memory with steve, bringing penny into the apartment, with ares' helmet between her hands, taking her away from such an overwhelmingly large memory. instead, she lets penny feel how easy it had been to crush it between her hands. how the memories at the edge of her mind had felt soft, immaterial. penny can tell immediately: the emotions are either too bombastic, even for diana, or too muted in the moments where it should have been large, overwhelming and clear. her fingers tug harder, on her own, and one simple tug turns them to shattered glass.

"minds can be fooled. but here," diana is finally close enough to reach up and tap penny's chest, "your heart-- my heart, cannot be fooled. not truly. and those who try to deceive either of us--"

"get a punch," penny supplies, with a cock of her chin.

diana smiles, and laughs. "yes. a punch."

memories are fickle little things. penny goes to sleep in the themysciran embassy, her hair long and dark, without the lasso, without the gauntlets. she hasn't had them for almost two years, and sometimes she still has such fantastical dreams, intertwined with memories. sometimes she dreams of that rainy night and conversation with her father. sometimes she dreams of those conversations with diana. and sometimes...

there she is a little girl, hair like a black flag. she is diana, daughter of the hippolyta tenth queen of the amazons. she is a little girl and she wants to get out of her mother's thumb. she runs past guards, past buildings spiraling into the sky. she breathes in the air that is so clean and fresh and her heart yearns and yearns for more than this. yearns to go past the shores of themyscira, past the fog. there is more to life than this.

she is also penny dupree and she wants to be more than a stupid, shy little wallflower. she feels taller, gawkier and more out of place among the people in her school. the girl who sneers at her has bright green eyes and freckles that make her stare at her over and over again and penny wants to know why she's so cruel to her when all she wants is to be her friend. later, when she is older she understands that she wanted to be more than just her friend, and maybe that's why they never got along. maybe that girl knew what penny did not at that age, and it makes her ache.

in her memories, steve trevor has eyes that are so bright, so wanting for her that she aches. she has never met a man before -- and she never will meet one like him at all. even when she can't understand him, even when she isn't able to wrap her mouth around his tongue, she understands when he mourns his fallen comrades. she reaches out for him, puts her arm around his shoulders, and she holds him when he cries. there is something there that she has never felt before, never seen before. something deep inside of her knows that this is the beginning of the end of her girlhood.

in penny's memories, she feels herself wilting benath her mother's iron will, beneath her thumb and her expectations. all she thinks about is running somewhere elsewhere. anywhere at all. her mind opens up before her, and she begins to write and write and write until she feels as if she can finally transport her elsewhere, to a better place.

the memories swirl, fold in on themselves. she is penny, experiencing high school. she is diana, who takes in the shore of man's world, her heart heavy with the knowledge she will never see home again. she is penny, who discovers real love with a woman who is a foot shorter than her and so much braver, who tastes like peppermint when she kisses her. she is diana who kisses mala when she's fourteen under an eternal sun. she is penny who picks up her sister and spins her around in the afternoon sunlight, happy to be with her. she is diana, who throws away her lasso to tell donna that she loves her.

penny wipes at her face, and she tries to pull herself out of the dreams, out of the memories. she realizes, slowly, that she is not asleep anymore. that what she is seeing vividly in her minds eye, comes with a searing headache. she pants, hand coming up to touch her forehead, focuses on running down a hill--remembers that it should be mostly red clay, not a flowering green. remembers that she wasn't without blemishes; a scar on her thigh from sixteen, a scabbed knee. they materialize, like an overlay, on the unblemished skin that she knows is diana's.

penny breathes. she breathes. she breathes, and her eyes prick with unshed tears.

"diana?" she asks, hoping for an answer.

"penny," diana says in that way she always does: calming, assured, good. penny swears she can feel diana's own self settle back into her, and she laughs.