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Barbara Ann Minerva looked into the mirror and sighed.
Her brown hair was a mess, and there were bags under her blue eyes; in short, she very much looked like a woman who had just theoretically survived a flight from Mongolia to California.
To think, this is how I look when I succeed. Barbara couldn't help but reflect as she began to brush her teeth.
In addition to recovering several new artifacts, her work had come with one other unexpected upside; Barbara had been effectively out in the middle of nowhere when the aliens had invaded. In theory, she knew that Earth having been invaded by aliens was something she should be at least vaguely concerned about, but on the other hand, what was the point?
The aliens had both arrived and been defeated while she'd been busy excavating ancient ruins, so why stress herself out about a threat that had already been dealt with? It wasn't like the existence of alien life was some grand revelation at this point. Yes, Gateway City didn't see extraterrestrials as often as Metropolis, but 'didn't see them as often' wasn't the same as 'never'.
"I just know when Superman first told that reporter he was an alien, it made some X-Files T-shirt-wearing conspiracy theorist jump through the roof with joy. Be nice if that ever happened to me." Barbara sighed despondently.
Rather than stew in such bitter thoughts, Barbara attempted to formulate a plan for what she was going to do today.
It ended up looking something roughly like…
1: Drink coffee.
2: Eat breakfast.
3: Crawl back into bed and lie there until I stop regretting having survived an alien invasion.
That was what Barbara Ann Minerva had planned, but some people had other ideas.
There was a knock at her door, with a ringing of her doorbell following it up only a few moments later.
Barbara shook her head and actually chuckled to herself.
"Oh man, somebody picked the wrong day to try and get my attention." She snickered.
Then the knocking and ringing came again, even louder.
After the sounds repeated themselves a full handful of times without whoever was making them giving up and going away, Barbara reluctantly accepted that she was dealing with someone who could remain loud for longer than she could remain apathetic.
Making sure she was dressed in something at least halfway professional, Barbara checked at her front door's peephole only to find reporters on the other side.
All the reporters.
"That's different." She couldn't help but admit.
To be fair, this wasn't the first time that the press had shown up at her home unprompted; every so often, some reporter thought that they might be able to make some amusing headlines by going and interviewing a local 'kook' about her 'crazy' theories.
They were inevitably disappointed when, rather than answering her doorbell dressed in some kind of ancient Greek outfit and raving about how Zeus would punish non-believers, they found a woman who had turned down offers of tenure (granted to profoundly unimpressive schools) so that she'd have more time to do archeological field work. The answers she gave to their questions were inevitably calm, collected, and impeccably researched.
All of which added up to the vast majority of the people who interviewed her never even getting around to publishing an article.
Such interviews were conducted by individual reporters though; today, there was a veritable flock of reporters waiting on the other side of her door.
Bracing herself for the worst, Barbara stepped outside, still unable to even guess at what could have drawn so many members of the press to her doorstep all at once.
"You wanted my attention?" She greeted the crowd in a somewhat less than cordial manner.
"Dr. Minerva, what do you think about the Amazons!?" One reporter demanded while shoving a microphone in her face.
Barbara responded with a withering glare and remained stonily silent until the boundaries of her personal space were once more properly acknowledged.
"As a respected academic, I'm always willing to talk about my theories regarding Amazons..." She began in a dry and authoritative tone.
I don't know why there's an entire media circus outside my door, but I am not some monkey that dances for your amusement.
"That said, it'd be easier for me to answer a somewhat less open-ended question. What topic exactly did you want to hear my thoughts on?" She further clarified.
And couldn't you people have waited until I'd gotten a chance to eat breakfast?
"What do you think about the fact that they're real?" Another reporter clarified with a frenzied grin on their face.
It took all of Barbara's not inconsiderable mental capabilities not to simply gasp, "they're real?" back in response like an imbecile.
Instead, she fought to conduct herself in a manner more befitting a woman with two PhDs.
"So, to clarify, I've just spent the last few weeks doing archeological work in Mongolia, I got back home less than twenty-four hours ago, and I'm still suffering from jet lag. I think there might have been some recent developments that I'm currently unaware of..." She admitted, her cheeks flushing slightly.
Before she knew it, still another reporter was shoving a stack of photographs into her hands.
"The alien invasion, Superman didn't stop it alone. He's made some new friends, one of whom is an Amazon Princess. She calls herself Wonder Woman, claims to have come from some kind of magical island..."
"Magical island?" This time, Barbara couldn't stop herself; the words just carried too much meaning behind them, even if the reporter didn't realize it.
Was… was... it not my fault? I'm just an archeologist, not a sorceress. Did I have the right location but not the right 'magic'? Was that what the blind woman meant when she said I "go the wrong way," that I was trying to logically solve a problem that was fundamentally never bound by the rules of logic to begin with?
"It's called Themyscira." Another reporter helpfully added.
Wait… is this actually happening? Am I the conspiracy theorist who just had their entire belief system validated by the arrival of a new superhero? What's the "Amazon" equivalent of an X-Files T-Shirt? Do I need to go buy one just to show whatever gods exist how thankful I am?
This was too much for Barbara to take in all at once.
"Listen, as you can clearly see, I'm a little out of sorts at the moment, and you've caught me at a disadvantage. Please, give me twenty-four hours to do some research and prepare a proper response. You people deserve better than just hearing me spout off the first inane things that I can think of." Barbara apologized while at the same time, none too subtly making it clear that they wouldn't be getting anything newsworthy out of her today.
She ended up having to repeat some variations of those words a few more times to fully disperse the crowd, but eventually they left her alone.
Barbara Ann Minerva went back inside and, rather than worry about coffee or breakfast, she simply collapsed on her couch.
They were real.
The Amazons were real.
She still had the photos that she'd been given by one of the reporters, and started looking through them.
They all depicted a woman with shoulder-length black hair and deep blue eyes. She was wearing what by all rights should have been a ridiculous outfit, covering no more than a one-piece bathing suit would have. On anyone else, it would have been comical, but on her it was… divine. The golden "WW" logo over the red fabric of her costume's upper half, the golden belt, the silver stars upon her blue fabric in its lower half, she somehow made it all look more regal than even the finest of dresses.
"I can see why you call yourself Wonder Woman." If someone had asked Barbara right as she got out of bed this morning if she believed in "love at first sight" (and she'd been willing to actually bother answering the question), the archeologist would have instantly dismissed it without a second thought. After taking the time to review the photos of Wonder Woman, her opinion on the matter had... undergone a distinct realignment.
A completely justified realignment of course. Not only was this Amazon Princess inhumanly beautiful, but her existence awoke things inside Barbara Ann Minerva that the archeologist had previously presumed to have perished back on some nameless island in the Black Sea, withered away in the shadow cast by a Dead Tree she'd found waiting for her there.
Amazons were real.
It didn't even matter that she hadn't been the one to prove it; she refused to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.
Amazons were real!
"The next time I teach a class, a brand new Greek god of Smugness will instantly leap fully formed from Zeus' forehead," Barbara predicted.
Such an event must surely be fated to occur, as not since Cassandra had a woman been so thoroughly mocked for telling people the truth. The only difference was that Barbara Minerva's story was going to have a much happier ending!
Invigorated by a surge of energy from having one of her most deeply held convictions finally validated, Barbara rose to her feet.
"The hounds of Hades howl horribly in their hunger!" She exclaimed triumphantly while raising her right hand upwards towards the ceiling.
All she was missing was a wooden sword and shield.
F**k you, Dad, I win.
XXX XXX XXX
Roughly a month later, Wonder Woman was holding what amounted to a press conference to talk about Themyscira and what she hoped to accomplish as a superheroine. Barbara An Minerva would rather have crawled there on two broken legs than miss such an event.
The Amazon Princess was, if anything, even more beautiful in person, and listening to the compassion with which she spoke almost brought tears to the archeologist's eyes. When she finally got a chance to speak to the superheroine, words that in a more logical world would have only dwelt in Barbara's dreams now sprang eagerly from her lips.
"Hello, sister, I've been looking for you for a long time," Barbara called out.
Unlike everyone else present, she didn't speak to Wonder Woman in English; she did it in Amazon.
The effect was instantaneous.
Suddenly, a superheroine whom Barbara had seen take blows that could have crumpled tanks without losing her composure now looked utterly poleaxed.
In turn, Barbara abruptly wished that she wasn't so gods damn tall, that would have made it easier for her to vanish into the crowd rather than to have to stand there, knowing she'd probably just violated some sacred Amazon taboo.
"I'm sorry." She mumbled awkwardly, reverting to her birth language.
"Say it again." Wonder Woman insisted, likewise sticking to English.
"I'm sorry," Barbara repeated the words, a little louder this time.
The Amazon Princess flushed slightly and shook her head.
"Not, the apology, the greeting." The superheroine clarified.
"Hello, sister, I've been looking for you for a long time," Barbara knew in her heart of hearts that she should have stuck to English, but she couldn't stop herself from speaking Amazon again; if nothing else now that she'd already trespassed where she wasn't welcome, the punishment for two missteps surely couldn't be twice as harsh as it would be for one.
"Your accent is atrocious." Wonder Woman replied in Amazon.
Not to say that she spoke the language in the same manner that the archaeologist did. Barbara Ann Minerva had always been something of a natural polyglot, but whenever she spoke Amazon, the words came out haltingly, awkwardly, requiring a few extra seconds for her to mentally translate each sentence beforehand.
Wonder Woman, on the other hand, it almost sounded like she didn't so much speak as sing the words. Such was the all but inevitable difference between one who had struggled to learn a language and a native speaker.
"So Amazon IS phonetic. Thank all the Greek gods." Barbara gasped.
Since she'd only had written samples to work with, there was no way for her to have been sure up until this exact moment. She'd always assumed it had been phonetic, because she wasn't going to waste her time trying to guess a language's unwritten rules at random.
"Hermes is really the only one who deserves your praise." Wonder Woman countered.
"Because he's the god of languages and speech!" The archeologist blushed deeply at having let such an obvious mythological mistake slip past her.
Barbara Ann Minerva had not even known Wonder Woman for five minutes, and already this was unquestionably the best conversation she could recall herself having in who knew how long. Here was someone to whom the Greek gods weren't childhood fairy tales; they were a way of life!
Somehow, the fact that they were having it in the middle of a crowd of people who now could only stand there and scratch their heads in befuddlement just made it even better. For this one brief moment, Barbara Ann Minerva was in some strange way the Amazon Princess's equal, elevated above all others present by virtue of her intelligence and dedication.
"How did you even learn to speak my language?" Wonder Woman's tone wasn't accusatory, just curious.
"I already spoke Greek, Russian, Swahili, and Mandarin. Between the four of them and various relics I located, I was able to piece it together." Barbara explained, wondering if she'd ever smiled quite this broadly before.
"You also apologized in English. Leaving aside your Amazon, you speak five languages?" Wonder Woman was clearly impressed by the breadth of her conversation partner's linguistic capabilities.
"I speak eight languages fluently. I can sort of get by in another seven." Barbara hoped that the Amazon Princess would understand that she was only trying to be truthful with her rather than to egotistically boast.
"What is your name?" Wonder Woman inquired, unexpected passion lurking behind the question.
"Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva." The archeologist eagerly introduced herself to the superheroine.
"Barbara: 'stranger', 'foreigner'. If you felt the need to learn that many different tongues, it would seem that you more than live up to your title." The superheroine reflected.
Barbara was, of course, aware of the Greek linguistic roots of her given name; it was just that when Wonder Woman talked about it, all of a sudden it felt so much more meaningful, even downright… mythic.
"You make it sound like it's my destiny to wander the Earth, never finding a true home." The archeologist couldn't help but admit.
"Have you already found one?" The question wasn't unkind, even if Barbara could very much have done without the twisting sensation it created in her stomach.
"Not yet." The archeologist lacked the strength of will necessary for lying to Wonder Woman.
XXX XXX XXX
Many months later, Barbara Ann Minerva would eventually find her "true home"… it was in the arms of an Amazon Princess.
The End.