Epilogue

It is night. An eternity has passed since the sun was warm on my skin, yet it is still the same day. I am back in the basement. The scent of Steve’s blood is a faint, coppery ghost in the air, a reminder of the price of my new existence. My first command, the kiss, was a violation of the soul. I obeyed. My second followed soon after.

“Remove your boots,” he said, his voice calm, almost gentle. “And the belt. I want you as you were when you first woke up here. Utterly mortal. Utterly fragile.” 

My hands, steady with the cold precision of my unbreakable oath, moved to my waist. I unfastened the Belt of Gaia, the conduit of my divine resilience. The moment it left my skin, I felt the last echo of godly fortitude drain from my flesh, leaving me terribly, achingly vulnerable. I did as I was told, my bare feet cold against the filthy concrete. But he wanted to feel like a God, his ego needed to be fed. So a cheap imitation, a desecration of my legacy, golden belt was placed around my waist. 

He knelt before me, a sickening parody of his earlier trophy-taking. He took my right foot in his hands, his touch surprisingly clinical. He explored the delicate architecture of the arch, the phalanges, the metatarsals, as a scholar might study a relic. Then, his grip tightened, and he began to crush.

The pressure was immense, a grinding, focused force. I felt the small, perfect bones within my foot give way with a series of sickening, grinding cracks. A white-hot, immaculate agony shot up my leg, a pure signal of mortal pain so intense it eclipsed thought. My body, which knew how to withstand the blows of gods, had no defense against this. Tears streamed down my face, but I made no sound. A silent endurance was part of my obedience.

He twisted, and I felt the ligaments tear with a wet, searing finality. He moved to the other foot and repeated the process with the same dispassionate curiosity. He was not angry. He was… pleased. This, I understood with a chilling clarity, was his truest, cruelest form of gratification. Not the simple fact of my defeat, but the slow, methodical, hands-on breaking of a thing he once saw as strong. He would let me put the Belt of Gaia around my waist and my wounded feet would heal, ready for the next time he wanted to feel like a man. 

His cruelty grew with each passing day. He wanted more. He would  place my feet on an anvil and swing his hammer on my vulnerable feet and ankles. The pleasure on his face as he watched me scream made me want to vomit. His cruelty advanced to what he considered love. He would drink and take me. He does things to me that has no name on Themyscira.

Now he is gone, and I am left alone in the jaundiced light, my feet a ruin of broken bone and mangled flesh. My body once free to roam the world is now the property of a misogynist. The warrior who once walked the fields of Elysium cannot stand. The champion who ran to meet the world’s sorrows cannot take a single step.

Master Vex is mortal, he will grow old and one day die as all mortals do. When that happens I will finally be free of my oath. But until that day…

This is my world. A quiet basement, a cycle of commands and pain, where the only truth is my suffering, and the only certainty is my master’s next demeaning whim. My life is no longer my own; it is merely a canvas for his cruelty. I belong to Master Vex.