Cultivation In The Multiverse

Eighteen years passed, as they always did in Themyscira, like wind brushing across still water, unhurried and eternal.

Time did not weigh heavily on the Amazons. It danced around them, never through them. They were ageless, anchored in divine rhythm, and shielded from the decay that claimed the rest of the world.

And yet, for Queen Hippolyta, the years did not pass unnoticed.

They passed like shadows across the soul.

She stood barefoot in her private garden at dawn, the marble cold beneath her feet, the air still damp with mist. They carved the garden into the side of the eastern cliffs, hiding it away from the rest of the island, a crescent of white stone, vines of moon-colored ivy trailing along the walls, and a shallow reflecting pool at its center. Beyond the balustrade, the sea stretched endlessly eastward, pale gold where the sun kissed its waves.

This garden had no temple. No altar.

But it was sacred.

Because it was the closest she dared come to the truth she'd buried.

The truth she had lived with in silence for nearly two decades.

A quiet rustle broke her thoughts. She did not turn; she knew the steps well.

"You're up early," Hippolyta said softly.

"I could say the same about you," Diana replied.

She stepped beside her mother, radiating strength and elegance. Diana had grown into the very image of Amazonian excellence: tall, sharp-eyed, with bronze skin kissed by sunlight and her long raven hair braided down her back.

Yet beneath the warrior's poise, something stirred.

Hippolyta saw it. She had always seen it.

A shadow that had followed Diana since childhood, the unanswered ache, the feeling of reaching for something that had never been there.

Diana folded her arms and looked eastward. "I dreamt again."

"Tell me."

"The same cliffs. The same mist. I always have that same feeling, like something is waiting for me. Something just beyond the horizon."

Hippolyta said nothing.

"And when I wake up," Diana continued, "I feel it in my chest. As if I've lost something I don't remember ever having."

Hippolyta closed her eyes.

The waves whispered against the cliffs below.

"Mother," Diana said. "What's out there?"

The question pierced deeper than Diana could have known.

There were many things Hippolyta could say. Many lies she had rehearsed. But none of them would survive her daughter's eyes, not now. Diana was not a child. She was not merely a warrior or a princess. She had grown into a woman with the strength to face the truth.

And she deserved it.

Hippolyta exhaled, her voice heavy. "There is a place, hidden beyond the cliffs. A sanctuary. Older than most of Themyscira. Forbidden to all."

Diana turned to her. "What's inside?"

"A boy."

Diana blinked. "A prisoner?"

"No."

"Then who?"

Hippolyta looked away. The morning wind caught her hair, lifting strands like banners on a battlefield. She had never looked more regal or more human.

"Your brother."

The world fell silent.

Even the sea seemed to pause.

Diana staggered back a step. "What?"

"You were not born alone," Hippolyta said gently. "You had a twin. A boy. I named him Alexander."

Her voice wavered for the first time in decades.

Diana stared. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Hippolyta walked slowly to the edge of the terrace and placed a hand on the stone rail, fingers curling as if to steady herself.

"Because his existence was never intended to be known," not by the gods. Not by the island. Not even by you."

Diana's breath caught, her pulse racing. "Why?"

Because a male child born to an Amazon queen would have been viewed as a disruption. A threat to balance. The gods would have fought over him. The mortals would have feared him. He would not have had a life, only a purpose not his own."

"And so you hid him," Diana said, her voice trembling.

"I did more than hide him," Hippolyta said. "With the help of forces beyond Olympus, I removed him from fate. From prophecy. Out of sight. Not even Ares or Zeus could find him now. He is completely shielded, even from us."

Diana's fists clenched.

"You've told me all my life to be brave," she whispered. "To seek truth. And yet… You kept this from me."

"I did what I had to," Hippolyta said, her voice cracking. "I made a choice no mother should ever have to make. I gave you the world and gave him silence."

Tears burned at the corners of Diana's eyes, but she blinked them away.

"How could you let me grow up never knowing him? Not even a story?"

"Because stories give shape to memory. And memory can be traced," the Queen said, slowly turning to face her. "I had to bury him even in my heart. Or the world would have found him."

Diana dropped to the marble floor beside the reflecting pool, her hands in her lap.

"I've always felt… alone," she whispered. "Even with sisters, even with you. Like something in me was... unfinished."

Hippolyta knelt beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I know."

They stayed like that for some time, mother and daughter kneeling in silence while the wind wove through the ivy and the ocean sang far below.

Then Diana looked up. Her voice was quiet but steady.

"Is he alive?"

"Yes."

"Is he… like me?"

Hippolyta hesitated. "He is unlike anyone. Just as you are."

"I want to meet him."

"You will," Hippolyta said. "But not yet."

"Why?"

"Because he is walking a path that cannot be rushed. A path of stillness. Of purpose beyond blood or name. When the time is right, he will seek us out himself."

Diana's eyes softened, but her voice stayed firm. "Promise me that when the time comes… You won't keep him from me."

"I promise. I couldn't even if I wanted to."

That night, long after Diana had returned to her chambers, Hippolyta remained alone in the garden.

The moon was high. The reflecting pool shone like glass.

She walked to a stone bench beneath a silver-leafed tree and opened a hidden compartment carved into its base. Inside lay a single strip of blue cloth, faded and frayed, yet soft as silk.

It had once been part of the blanket that wrapped both her children the day they were born.

Her hands trembled as she lifted it.

She hadn't touched it in years.

She pressed it to her chest, eyes closing.

And for the first time in a long time, she let the silence speak.

My son, she thought. Eighteen years. You have been alone for eighteen years. Not because I forgot you. Not because I abandoned you. But because I could not do both, I rule this world and give you yours.

She felt the weight of her crown.

And the weight of her heart.

"I hope… You are not lonely."