Life Ore Death
Kosmima is an OC I made for someone I know IRL,
as a thanks for working on LOD's impressively long TVtropes page.
I wish you'd get an account so I could tag you!
* December 8/9 [Renka PoV]
"I promise," I said toothily. "If I start to drown, I will splash my arms, and scream very loudly."
"As you wish," Diana acceded drily. She stood and departed the bathhouse without me.
I sighed as I sank into the hot water more deeply, though I kept my arms and elbows on the ledge behind me.
'
Finally I can be alone for a while. …I would usually be storing warmth here, but…' I sighed as I remembered that I was banned from Feruchemy. '
Perhaps I have been using it as an emotional crutch. Or, maybe it's just a habit. I don't think I could honestly say. Still….'
I had, at least, no complaints about the hospitality of the island. The women were welcoming, even to the two men, and I had been surprised to meet a young boy of eight soon after. He was the son of a refugee woman who had washed ashore, and having been too young to remember living in 'the world of men,' our male comrades had agreeably sat aside with him to tell tales of life off the island.
I had not yet been introduced to the Queen Hippolyta in person – that was scheduled for a banquet to celebrate the Wonder Woman's homecoming in the near future – but I had met several women who were counted among her inner circle already, albeit in passing.
I was most interested in eventually meeting Io, their foremost smith, but I was in no hurry. I would not flatter myself that I would need to engage with only the island's greatest metalworker to learn a large amount, when every woman here was no doubt an expert.
'
And almost every woman here is 3-5 times the age of the Lord Ruler,' I acknowledged, and suppressed a shudder. '
That still disturbs me.'
A civilization of millennia-old individuals would… well, I had not seen any
extraordinarily jarring signs of their ages' significance, but I had not been present long, and the art, at least, was
astonishing. Amazon artisans had perfected their craft over many centuries of personal experience, and their pet projects made over decades were….
I had seen a thorn bush intricately carved out of a single block of marble. If those words did not sound impressive when I explained it, I could only advise the listener to go
look in careful detail at a living thorn bush, and then reiterate with emphasis that it was carved
by hand out of a
single block of marble. I had not met the sculptor responsible, but the friend of hers who'd shown it to me had idly commented that Denelippe had entirely invented from scratch three new carving tools in the making of it.
The statues, the idle glass objects on shelves, the pottery urns, and the tile decorations were all tasteful, and all incredible.
Reflecting idly on them, I wished I had brought a camera, as Wally and Joseph would have jumped at the chance to examine these.
"Ah well," I sighed, and stretched a kink out of my spine. Then another. And a third. After, I lay back to let the heat succor me for some time.
With my extremities finally pruning, I leveraged my weight out of the hot water with my arms, but spent another second or two seated on the edge, kicking out ripples and twitching my toes. Although I could not stand unaided, again, I knew full well how lucky I was. My legs were no longer numb; about twelve hours after I had let go of the Sword of Beowulf they had finally responded when I tried to twitch my toes.
Now, of course, I was left sitting in a room of wet tiles, with my towels, clothes, and wheelchair out of easy reach.
'
No one is coming in to offer assistance,' I noted semi-gratefully. '
Now comes the decision: do I call for assistance, or do I crawl and struggle to dry and dress unassisted, even though it will be longer and ungainly? And what if another person comes in and sees me struggling?'
I sighed and swallowed my pride. At least it was a chance to test something I was curious about. "If someone could please help me?"
One of the women who worked in the bathhouse – though in a civilization where no one aged and even eating was not mandatory, the importance of a "job" had no doubt shifted – arrived after my second call, and assisted me very professionally.
As I got presentable, I asked my next question.
"If you do not mind," I hedged, "how do you understand me? I am speaking my native language at the moment."
"It is the blessing of Athena: all on the island who wish to be understood will understand each other. Many of us speak the same mother tongue," she acknowledged, rubbing my hair dry as I settled into the wheelchair, "but it is important when refugee women arrive."
"Thank you. The… is it five or six? The patrons of Themyscira are, I think, Athena, Artemis, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hera, yes?"
"That's a bit tricky, theologically. Hera is the patron goddess of all women, and we revere her duly, but the five goddesses who granted blessings to Themyscira and her inhabitants are Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, Demeter, and Hestia."
"My gratitude for the information."
"Do you need assistance going anywhere from here, or perhaps directions, visiting sister?"
"There remain three or four hours, I think, before the banquet. Mm, does the blessing of Athena apply to written words?"
"Yes, and her temple houses an open library." She gave me directions, and I went on my way.
While they had not been built with wheelchairs in mind, important buildings and central paths of the main city were largely wheelchair accessible all the same. I would not be able to enter by the front of the major temples, which were built in Greek traditional style with many pillars and a lot of stairs at the approach, but there were side entrances and I made it to Athena's open library without issue.
I would easily admit to being glutted for choice in my reading materials, even if I could not reach the top shelves.
I grabbed one piece on metallurgy – I was not an expert, and more information before I practiced anything could only help me improve – another on history, and I lucked out to find something about the actual events behind the myth of Theseus. I was certain I would be allowed back at a later date, even if I could not remove anything now, so I spent an hour reading quietly and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
After an hour and a little bit, I was interrupted.
"Argelleae's treatise is a bit dry," a woman who appeared to be about my age commented, dropping a new scroll on the table. "I shouldn't boast, but this covers all the same stuff and does it much more engagingly." I looked over the scroll, then up at the woman.
She was young, maybe even a year younger than me, or at least she looked it. Her skin was a color I'd been told to call 'olive,' her arms were thickly muscled, her hands were heavily calloused with some slight scorch marks, and her hairstyle….
Her hair was interesting; it was long, black, and pulled tightly back into a high ponytail. Her scalp, however, had been shaved oddly, into a pattern that looked a little like a much sharper version of Kaldur's widow's peak, as it was call in English. Beginning above her ears, two long triangles of scalp had been shaved smooth, creating an M-shaped borderline between her hair and bare skin.
Beyond that, her most notable characteristic was that she wore a large amount of jewelry. There were multiple metal and jeweled pins and clips of many designs in her hair, and a nose ring as well as her two simple stud earrings, 3 distinct necklaces, and many bangles.
'
If I didn't know better, I would wonder if she's a Feruchemist wearing metal-minds. Only, beads & gemstones are not conducive to storage,' I noted, '
and many of those metals do not look like ones used in the Metallic Arts. Then again, this is Earth: everything here is Rusting crazy.'
"Thank you for the recommendation. I like your… I think the term is fashion sense? I like your jewelry, especially. Is it enchanted?"
"Eh, only three or four pieces, and they're all small," she confirmed, sliding tin across my teeth & tongue. I perked up with interest.
"Really? I am learning a little about magic, and I would be very interested to learn more." I checked the scroll. "You are Kosmima?"
"Correct," she chirped and we shook hands. As I'd noticed, she had strong hands, hardened from work, but her skin was smooth and supple where it was not calloused. "You're one of the guests Princess Diana brought back from America, right?"
"I am Renka," I confirmed, "though you may shorten it to Wren, or I will answer to my hero-name, Ferris."
"Like iron?"
I pouted exaggeratedly. "While I am flattered by everyone's assumption that I understand Latin, no, and I am still learning English. It is named after the first thing I saw on Earth that took my breath away." I let my sentence hang there suggestively.
"A Ferris Wheel, huh? Cool. I couldn't help noticing your ring," she mentioned, "and I'm curious. There's
something about it…?"
"It is not magic, but it is made a magic metal: atium," I informed her. "You could discern that it was magic?"
"It feels really nasty to anyone with the right way of looking at it," she informed me. "Or. Not bloodstain nasty, or rot, but-,"
"I can imagine. I know more about it. You must be very skilled, to notice."
'Especially when bare atium didn't stand out to Mera.'
"Eh, it's sort of my specialty," she deflected.
As she had suggested it, and I could envision little harm (beyond brain-eating runes), I started scanning the scroll Kosmima had authored.
Shortly after I got engrossed, I came upon a passage wherein she described alchemy and the creation of magical metals.
Not all of which were necessarily created by alchemy.
"Is this serious?" Kosmima closed the scroll she was readin and put down the wax tablet on which she took notes.
"Which part?"
"Natural creation of magical metals?"
"Ah. Yes," she confirmed. "Getting the right mixes exposed to the right catalysts is rare, so things like Orichalcum aren't found in nature, but Vibranium can be created when impure platinum is exposed to extremes in thermal and kinetic energy, such as orbital entry."
"Platinum," I mused.
'I've been meaning to do more research on the periodic table and elements outside of the Metallic arts, but… Rusts, there is such a long list of things I am lacking in the time and effort to investigate, despite my interest.'
"I don't know for certain," Kosmima continued, "but based on some things Princess Diana has mentioned about her comrade, Hawkwoman, I suspect the Nth Metal mace she uses is another example of this phenomenon. I just wish I could take a look at that."
"I have seen it and spoke with her a little, for similar reasons," I agreed. "It is mined, and it does have to be refined, but Nth metal is not found normally on any other planet or in space around the planet. It is unique to Thanagar."
"For all that they say it's made to fight gods, I'm betting it's got some divine origin," Kosmima mused, to which I shrugged and hummed. "Of course," she added, "just because it's magic doesn't mean it's useful. Even Io has had some ridiculous failures over the years, and my track record isn't so great either."
I used exactly these types of conversational hooks all the time. I immediately recognized it.
But.
'I am on the island as an honored guest, under the protection of the Princess Diana and – I assume – her patron goddesses. No one in particular should know in advance that I would be here, and no ambush should be set up. I could very easily be forced in my weak state.'
'I shall simply have to hope that this is a pleasant surprise in store for me.'
"I would be very interested in hearing more about this. In my experience, a 'failure' may… well. I am very creative," I boasted carefully.
"I could take you to the main forges," she offered. That it was a public building instead of her private one suggested I'd be safe.
"Yes, please."
The paths there were mostly smooth – the Amazon architects had also had many years to experiment with paving and roads – and while it was a little out of the city's main area, it was still a public venue, albeit one currently unutilized.
That last detail made me a little suspicious again, but along the way we had seen several Amazons who waved or otherwise showed amicability toward Kosmima and myself, so I let my worry about offending or alienating her outweigh my concern about a trap.
"Ah!" At the sound, I glanced over to where Kosmima was riffling through a cabinet she'd unlocked. "Here it is! I haven't quite figured out how to make it," she mused, "but this is a metal Io showed me about two centuries ago." I hammered brass on the uneasy, queasy feeling in my stomach at the reminder of how long everyone here had lived as she walked over to show me the nugget in her hand.
"Glowing," I noted.
'I wonder what I could do with this,' I thought as she tipped it into my hand, and it shifted from the dimmed color of afternoon sunlight to the color of a sunset.
'I really want to learn more.' "Is glowing the only thing it does? Is it… pho- pho- does it…?"
"No, it only glows when it's in contact with a person. It's pretty much just a mood ring, shifting with your emotions; or maybe it works the way actual mood rings work, changing colors in response to body heat, sweat… it might have medical uses somehow," Kosmima mused.
"Does it glow when in contact with an animal?" I asked. '
Or a person who is not human, like M'gann?'
"I… never tested it." Kosmima glanced out of the forge, toward the street. "I'll put it on a horse or something, later."
"Mm. I will be interested to know." I considered testing its mood or health monitoring abilities by either sinking back into some other emotional state – I still had some frustration simmering inside my ribs – or hyperventilating to raise my heart rate.
Instead, I decided to stop doing everything immediately at once, and just handed it back to her.
"I can show you some of the other stuff. I think there are some works with Orichalcum, Adamantite, and Mithril around here…."
"Yes please," I agreed immediately. "Are there any other magic metals?"
"Those ones are the most common, because they're so useful," Kosmima deferred, "but I'll look around."
What followed was an interesting, if simplified, experience in teaching me about the most basic magic metals, as well as some common uses for more mundane metals, such as iron and silver.
It was only when the time was growing short that I decided to bring up the matter at hand.
"Thank you, Kosmima. This has been a very enlightening afternoon," I informed her. "I have two more questions. May I?"
"Go ahead and ask," she agreed, closing the doors to the forge behind her.
"One: are you coming to the feast with me?"
"Nah, I don't think so. It'd be great to see everyone dressed up – a bunch of my pieces are really popular with some of the court leaders even if the Queen doesn't usually wear them – but I have other obligations I should work on, and I always feel awkward in crowds."
"As you wish. Two: I've learned some trust for who you are, but what is your nature?" I inquired, and Kosmima twitched. I kept talking. "You have referenced or understood things from off of Themyscira, you were suspiciously fortuitous in your timing and method to approach me, you feel slightly unusual to my mystic senses, and you have referenced your age as being much younger than the other women living on the island, but older than an ordinary human could become. I am assuming you may be a nymph, or a demigoddess…?"
Kosmima started chuckling, and readjusted her skirt and tunic self-consciously as she refused to meet my eyes.
"Wow, has anyone told you you're sort of impressive when you get direct like that?" I smiled and stayed silent. She adjusted her skirt again. "Yeah, Hephaestus is my father. I'm just a little over three hundred years old." She hesitated. "I hadn't expected to tell you that up front, but… So, I have house on Malta that I'm usually at, and a jewelry shop. I've got something I should get to, but drop by some time."
"Malta. I once made a short trip to Ischia," I recalled, having done that just before the Disappearance Disaster.
"No, they're not really close. Eh, just, look it up on a map, please?" She pulled out a pocket watch on a chain.
"I will visit in the new year," I promised her. '
Malta. It is the same as the Nelazan word for a pebble, like her gems. Easy enough to remember.'
"Thanks, 'cause I really have to go now." So saying, Kosmima turned on her heel, stepped over to a mirror left leaning against the outside wall for some reason – or perhaps for
this reason – and when her reflection stepped aside with a bow, she stepped inside and was gone.
Impressed, I sat there contemplatively, until I heard the bells ringing to call all Amazons to the banquet.
