Queen Hippolyte was reclined on her favorite settee when Ona admitted Diana into the sitting room. Diana respectively bowed her head and waited until her mother beckoned her forward.

"Come here daughter", Hippolyte said quietly and with a gesture, Ona was dismissed to leave. Diana picked up the brush and continued where Ona had left off.

"How are you finding your visit, Diana?"

"Very comfortable." She hated this talking to one another as though they were strangers.

"Drusilla tells me that the two of you had a talk when you first arrived?" It was more of a statement than a question.

Diana put down the hairbrush. "Yes, we did. And we haven't talked too much since, other than our conversation this morning," she replied matter-of-factly.

The Queen said rather abruptly, "Your sister's impetuous nature allows her to proceed sometimes at the risk of disappointment. I, on the other hand, choose to wait for things to come in their own time. It gives one opportunity to find a way of facing the inevitable." Her words were spoken like a mantra and Diana knew what she said to be the truth.

She turned to face Diana and asked point blank, "I am correct in assuming that this is indeed only a visit?"

Diana nodded in the way a small child would when asked to confess to a wrongdoing and suddenly felt anger over the position she was being forced into. She lifted her eyes and met her mother's.

"If there was one thing that has stayed with me out of all that you taught me growing up, it's this... there is a predestined road that we all must travel. It is not our choice, sometimes, the direction our life takes. Yes, I made the initial choice to leave Paradise Island. But mother tell me, why was I the one that found Steve Trevor there on the beach? Why of all the islands, did he happen to land on ours? You don't think there was a reason for all of that happening? That maybe it was meant for me to do what I have done? You have never tried to understand... I thought at one time you did, but..." Her words trailed off as she began to cry.

She could not understand what the expression on her mother's face meant. It was one she had never seen before... as if there was a sudden crack in her always calm and gentle exterior.

In fear of her face betraying her feelings, the queen looked away. Her words came out strangled and low.

"Is this how living in that land of barbarians has taught you to speak to your mother and queen?"

Indignant, Diana said, "If you mean, thinking for myself? The answer is yes. And now if you'll excuse me, mother..." She turned to leave.

"If you leave this time daughter, you will not leave with the power with which you came. You will return to your other world, but it... it will not be as Wonder Woman."

Diana whirled around. "You cannot mean that..." she gasped in disbelief.

Her mother stood. "I am the Queen and that is exactly what I mean."