A Day at the Beach

by Daivd Schock

It was slack tide when she retreated back to the warm water of the lagoon. She walked out to where the sea reached a level just under her imposing bosom, then called to her three-year-old twins to join her. A few moments earlier, Lois and Jonathan had been content to sit on their bare little bottoms in the shallow water, splashing themselves and each other in the warm salt water of the south atlantic. But now they became frantic at being separated from their mother, and walked back and forth on their tiny legs with their small arms outstretched for their Mommy to come back to the beach to get them. But Mommy didn't come back, because Mommy wanted her children to learn to swim the same way she had -- the same way her own mother had taught her. So, she waited in the water and called for them to join her. Just as she expected, Jonathan plopped down on his bare bottom in the sand and began to cry in frustration. This was not the case with little Lois, who frantically paced back and forth, calling for Mommy ­ in spite of the fact that her mother had expected that her son would be the one to weep, not her brave (and aggressive) little Amazon daughter. What happened next totally surprised her. It was little Jonathan -- not his sister Lois -- who plunged into the briny deep. His love and need for his mother overcame his fear, forcing him into the water and compelling him to dog-paddle out to the mommy he wanted so very much. It was a shocked and very surprised Amazon mother who held out her arms and called her son to her, encouraging his efforts. Instead of her more aggressive daughter being the first to join her, it was her sweet little boy who summoned up the courage to plunge into the water and join her.He dog-paddled out to her, and was lifted out of the water by a very proud and happy mother who greeted him with hugs and kisses. "My brave little man!' his mama exclaimed between kisses. Meanwhile, the brave little man's sister Lois continued to walk back and forth on the beach in frustration, until she plopped down on her own bare bottom and began to cry. She was afraid and couldn't understand why her Mommy didn't come to get her. Instead, the Mommy in question just stood there in the water, holding her brother in her arms and calling out to her to join them. Maybe it was the sight of her mother and brother together -- or the encouragement they both gave her to join them -- that made a frightened little girl overcome her terror and plunge into the sea to join them. With the salt of her tears mixing with the salt of the ocean, Lois began to dog-paddle out to them both. When she finally reached them, she was rewarded with all the hugs and kisses she would ever want from the both of them. Later, as she lay on the beach, Diana made sure to always keep one eye on her children as she absorbed the sun of this tropical paradise. She had made sure to cover her son from head to foot in a thick layer of sunblock that would have made a greased pig proud. Due to her more rapid development, his sister needed no such protection, but he did. If his development followed that of his papa and big sister, he would one day be able to fly into the sun's corona with no fear. But today, he was just a little boy whose little pink bottom need all the protection it could get. The bottom in question was at the moment running for its life as his twin sister was chasing him down the beach in their Mama's direction with a fearsome weapon -- a large but harmless horseshoe crab -- in her tiny hands. Diana was happy to know that her son was enjoying the game as much as his sister, because for every scream he screamed in terror at his twin sister's attack, his distinctive laughter was heard as well. No one on the beach that day thought to ask the poor horseshoe crab his ideas on the subject. This living fossil ­ whose identical ancestors were old when the dinosaurs roamed the earth must have wondered what all the commotion was all about, or why he'd been suddenly yanked out of his nice wet world and made to fly through the air in the hot sun as a projectile. The poor arthropod's predicament only ended when Lois caught up to her brother as he reached the safety of their mother. Hiding behind her tall form, Jonathan was satisfied to hear Mama scold his baby sister, who ­ if one was being technical about it ­was only four and a half minutes younger than he was. Safely behind his mother, Jonathan stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry at his sister. "JONATHAN! YOU STOP THAT DISGUSTING NOISE, RIGHT THIS MINUTE!" shouted his mother. "POO-FACE START IT!" pleaded her son. "Diaper-baby mad because me an Amazon and he not!" protested Lois, who still had trouble with her syntax. Doing her best to hide her laughter, the woman known to the world as Wonder Woman (and to the two three-year-olds simply as Mommy), told her daughter to put the horseshoe crab back into the ocean where he belonged and would once again be happy. As little Lois was restoring the crab back to his liquid world, Diana asked her brother, "You weren't really frightened, were you?" He didn't answer with so many words as he hung his head. But the mischievous grin etched across his cherub face told his mother everything she needed to know on that subject She knelt in the sand as Lois arrived back to join her brother at her side. Looking down at her children, Diana told them, "First of all ­ you're not an Amazon, at least not yet. As for you, young man, you shouldn't call your sister names!" She fought hard to hide her smirk from her twins as she gave then both a look of motherly disproval. "But she chase me with that ugly thing, and -- " "And you enjoyed every minute of it!" his mother interrupted. She then took her two children into her arms. "Your family is more important than being an Amazon or being famous. You are brother and sister, and you must always be there for one another and be able to count on one another. And ­ in the same way you depend upon your mommy and daddy and your big sister -- you must learn to depend upon each other." Looking into each of their faces, their mother asked, "Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?" "Tink so, Mommy," answered her son as his baby sister nodded in agreement. This little lesson in family relationships came to a sudden end because of the equally-sudden arrival of two old friends. "It seems the little girl we played with now has children of her own!" Eiko's mother smiled. Without bothering to turn around, she answered, "But you've already have met my firstborn, so why should these two be any surprise?" "For an Amazon Princess of the Blood Royal to know the touch of a man hat all is surprising enough. For her to produce three children from that touch even more surprising!" "And why should that be so surprising my child hood friends? Are not children concieved out of love and the touching between a man and a woman?" Another voice added, "To have one children with a mortal with the power of a god is one thing. To have three seems to me to be a simple a case of showing off!" Diana smiled and replied, "If there's anything a wood nymph knows about, it's how to show off!" "But not as well as a daughter of a certain Amazon queen who used to show off and at the same time drive her poor mother crazy by diving off a two-hundred-foot cliff into bosom of Father Neptune's realm!" answered another young voice which came from behind Diana. "And I remember paying for it, when ever she caught me with the flat of her sword on my bottom!" She now turned around with a big smile on her face, shouting, " Zoë! Athea!" She then threw her arms around and hugged her childhood friends. [for more about Zoe and Athea check out a Leauge of One.] Lois and Jonathan stood together side-by-side, seeking comfort and solace in the face of the these strange new visitors' arrival. As young as they were, they were already used to seeing and enjoying the sight of seeing their parents and big sister flying through the air. What they enjoyed even more was the sensation of flight whenever a member of their family took them with them into the sky. However, the sight of these two strange children seemed to unnerved the two toddlers. Zoe, the youngest daughter of Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, looked like a twelve-year-old girl even though she was not a day younger than a thousand years old. The wood nymph of the Sacred Cedar Grove of Themyscira, Althea was almost as old and appeared just as young. But what shocked Diana's two children the most was the appearance of these two ancient girls. Zoë, the fun loving mermaid, was a solid blue from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, and Athea the wood nymph was as green as a well-cultivated lawn. Introducing her children to her childhood friends, Eiko's mother said, "Lois -- Jonathan -- this is Zoë and Athea ­ my friends even when I was a little girl no older or bigger than you." Zoë and Athea reached out and touched the two small children. They spoke in unison, "I see the father in both of these sprouts, and the mother here as well! Proud they will make their parents, and they will bring honor as well to their Grandmother the Queen!" "And how proud was my oldest daughter when you blabbed to her about me attacking her future father long ago in the great desert of Australia?" scolded the Amazon Wonder with a smile. "We only shared that memory with the product of your and the Man of Steel's love because ­" began Althea. " -- that was when we knew for the first time how much you loved the Lost Child of a planet long gone -- " Zoë continued. "And how much he cared for you," finished her partner Athea. Diana smiled. "That `product of our love', as you call her, has a name." "Many names, in fact," answered Athea."Eiko, and Martha and Clark and Kent as well," added Zoë. "But it will be a new name by which the world will know her in the future -- a name that will bring honor and pain for both parents and child," Zoë and Athea said in unison. "What do you mean by pain?" she asked , suddenly concerned for her firstborn's future. "You know as well as we do, our beloved childhood friend, that such is life -- that the bitter comes with the sweet, and greatness always comes with a price. You and your love have raised her to be special, and to believe in duty and honor as well as in herself. The rest of it has always been, and should always be, up to her!" The frustrated Diana then asked, "Is that all you can share with me?" "We know no more, our childhood friend -- and would tell no more, even if we knew!" ------------- As both mother and children sat with their visitors on the shore an hour later, Diana asked her childhood companions, "How did you know I loved Ka-el, even way back when?" "An Amazon does not shed her tears lightly," Zoë answered. "while yours flowed freely, just before you struck him from behind," finished Athea. "And my husband-to-be?" asked Diana. "His love for you could be seen by a blind man," said Zoë. "When he told you he would have fought and died at your side fighting the dragon, he only proved it," Athea joined in. Then together they both added, "What confirmed it to us, however, was when we saw that look on his face, when he thought you walked the Elysian Fields, and when he fought to bring you back from them by breathing life back into you." While Jonathan sat in Zoë's lap and Lois was doing the same in Althea's, the two nymphs looked at one another. Nodding their heads as if in agrement, they announced as one, "We are sure of this, as we are equally sure that even as much as you love him and he loves you in return, you were never meant to be the soul-mate of the father of these children." The children's mother smiled sadly, and nodded in her daughter's direction before saying, "No -- I was not, and this little one's namesake had already shown the truth of that with both her love and devotion to the man we both loved!" There was an awkward silence that seemed to go on for hours before Diana herself asked, "If you knew Lois was the one meant for Clark, then how did you know that I would end up with my husband some day?" "Sadly, mortal love may last forever, but mortal lives do not!" Athea replied. "And as you were taught, Child of Hippolyta, life must go on!" Nodding in the direction of Jonathan and Lois, Zoë added, "These two gifts from the gods -- and your daughter with hair of flame -- are proof of that!" The Child of Hippolyta grew reflective and silent as she stared out to sea. She wondered what might have been, and what she might have lost, had the fates been a little kinder to a certain loving wife and reporter. It was the sound of Zoë's voice that called her back from her self- absorption. "Are you happy, playmate of our past?" "Very!" she answered. "I have a man who both loves and respects me, a grown daughter who's turned into a woman of whom any mother would be proud, and two babes whom I will enjoy watching as they flower into adults. I am welcomed back home once again by my sisters, and have a mother who once again holds me in her arms. I need -- nor want -- anything else!" "Then you have learned the great secret, Princess of Amazons -- that hearth, home, and family are the only true riches!" Diana nodded her head in agrement and laid down on her back in the warm sand next to her old friends and talked of times of child hood past. While the next generation and the hope for future collected shells from the ocean's edge.