The Descendant

"Hey, Lys!" Anabel Weston hailed me in the hall between classes. I pulled my head out of my locker and smiled at her. We'd gone out on a double date on Saturday night and had fun. My parents won't let me date on my own until I'm sixteen, some months away, but going out in a group or a double date was ok. Mason Trevallen bumped into me on the way by and snickered. I frowned at him and turned back to Anabel. She looked after Mason a little nervously.

"What's up?" I asked, to prompt her. We didn't have all that much time to get to class.

"Uh, Lys..." her voice trailed.

"Yeah?" I said impatiently.

"Christian is telling everybody he saw your boobs on your date on Saturday," she blurted out.

"What??" I said too loudly. She winced.

"Your chest, anyway," Carl Burns said, snickering as he looked at that part of my anatomy. I crossed my arms protectively, holding my books over my non-existent cleavage. "I'd snap your bra strap, but you don't wear one." He was still snickering as he walked off.

"You'll get into trouble with the administration if you snap anybody's bra," Anabel called after him, but he just flapped his hand at her.

"He didn't! We were never alone together!"

"I know, but nobody wants to hear," Anabel said. "But it'll be a flash in the pan, a couple days of gossip, then everybody'll move on. There's always next weekend's parties, somebody will do something notably stupid." She patted my shoulder as the bell rang, and we had to rush to class. I kept my books in front of my body and my eyes forward, but I could see quite a few students laughing. Lots of snickering going on today.

God, teenagers suck. High school is bad enough, what with classes and all. Add other people, hormones on a low-to-rolling boil, and attitude and privilege saturating the air like all the perfume and aftershave most people wore, and it was a special kind of hell. My grandma Alex said that she thought socially we'd have evolved by now, but apparently it's human nature to establish pecking orders. I'm not special; yeah, I'm a Wayne, one of those Waynes, but I go to a private school where you're there because you're rich, basically. There are seats reserved for students who aren't rich but smart, but mostly, we're a bunch of rich brats. I think it would be nicer to have been admitted on those grounds because at least you made it on your own merits. It's not like I'm stupid, mind you, I'm just no genius. As hard as I work--and I do--there's almost always a C or two on my report card. In my family, that practically qualifies me for special ed. My sister, three years younger than me, gets a B every few semesters, and everybody else is a high achiever too. So high school is bad enough, but to be a mediocre student when virtually everybody else in your whole, extended family gets academic honors without much effort is kind of humiliating all in itself. And people know. All my cousins (and there is a massive crowd of us, all within about ten years of each other due to the Return) are smart, even if we don't all go to the same schools, and word gets around. I'm grateful to get out of class for the day and pack up my backpack with homework and drag out to the curb.

Normally I'd go to Wayne where I can do my homework in the employee cafeteria, have a snack, then go home with Dad at six. I can shadow people in different departments if I finish my homework early; anybody who works for the company can apply to have their kid do the same, but most don't, for whatever reason. But today is ballet day. Our butler Alan picks us up from school, drives us there, and then home. My sister Derinoe is already in the car with Alan's daughter Vanessa; they go to the same middle school and are best friends. They're chattering like mad, as usual, when I get in the front seat and buckle in. Alan smoothly pulled away from the curb as soon as I buckled in.

"How were classes today, Miss Lys?" he inquired over the giggles from the back seat.

"Finished studying World War I today," I said. "We're getting a speaker in tomorrow, a vet from Flanders." While the living history aspect of Returnees was fascinating, what they had to say was usually pretty awful. And I was aware that public education had a pacifist bent to it, downplaying the allure war had for some people, usually those who'd never served. It was entirely practical to stress diplomacy and trade solutions over military ones, since budgets were still strained to bursting with the sudden weight of humanity from the Return. Wars were just too costly. Even with the millions who had chosen to emigrate to the dark elf planet, and a further billion plus who had emigrated to other planets in the universe who'd opened their doors to a quota from humanity, there was no denying the situation was tight. Some races were expanding their quotas, for those who wanted adventurous lives and were willing to work hard or serve as a soldier. That got a lot of the war hawks off planet, relieving stress of a different kind. It's a lot harder to work peacefully for solutions to problems like water supplies than to simply march in, kill a bunch of people, and take what you want. There are small forces maintained by countries for law and order, but these days, armies have been mostly privatized and are usually small and maintained by various villains for their nefarious schemes. Mercs, that can be bought for the few countries who do still try the old strong arm approach.

Alan and I chatted until we pulled up to the studio. We went in and got changed; the teacher has a changing room as well as assigned cubbies for students who stick with it long enough. Fortunately, my class is different from my sister's; there are three studios in the building and classes booked all afternoon in order to keep up with demand. Our teachers are old school and I put on my pink tights and leotard with a sigh. Pink. It's either that or white, which nobody likes, so we're all attired in a narrow range of pale pink. I fix my feet and put on my pointe shoes, leg warmers, and a wispy little dance skirt, and clomp out to the studio to start warming up. I'm in the most advanced class, which is because I'm among the best in the school. But don't deceive yourself; in this class the difference between the students who have a real shot at a dancing career if they want it--like my cousin Miles--is very pronounced from the rest of us who are merely very good.

Miles is actually my uncle, the second son of my Grandma Alex, but we all think it's a pain in the neck to keep track of who's an uncle/aunt/niece/nephew in our generation so we all just refer to each other as cousins. The Return has played merry hell with family structures. Miles is the star student. He's the best of the best, and in the summer he'll try for a place in a ballet company. Nobody has any doubt he'll get one, the question is just where. There are a lot more boys dancing than there used to be, I'm told, and our class is almost half boys. It's nice because almost everybody gets a partner to work with.

You'd think that I'd also be excellent at dancing too, but you'd be wrong. I'm fairly short for a female these days, 5'5", but this is the best height for a dancer, I have long legs, high-arched feet, no chest (as we already know) and a long neck. My turnout is the best in the class, even better than Miles. I'm just missing... something that can't be taught. No matter how hard I work, I'm just lacking the spark that takes the technically proficient into a top-tier dancer. I try hard not to let it affect me, but it still bothers me sometimes. It's like another glass wall around me.

We're doing selections from Swan Lake for the next recital, using traditional choreography, which is nauseatingly overdone, but apparently you need these things in your repertoire. The costumes will be pretty, though. My partner for this one is Jake, who's kind of shrewish and mean, but he's a foot taller than me, which means that lifts are no problem and he won't drop me. We look good together, his hair darker than my mid-brown, the same pale skin. He's handsome and I can be somewhat striking when I cake on enough makeup for performances. For part of the dance, the pairs are mirrored across the floor, and the teacher selected two blondes to mirror us for contrast. It does look pretty.

We work for two hours, getting a small break when Miles and his partner dazzle us all with their brilliance (sincerely, I'm not being jealous or catty, they're both going places) and then it's back to the locker room. When I get back out to the curb, Deri and Van right behind me, we go home where we're on our own until dinner. Deri and Van disappear to do their homework together and I go up to my room. I drop my tights and leo down the laundry chute and quickly shower, then get to work. I've got a couple hours of peace until Mom and Dad get home.

It's not like my parent pick at me or anything, I think it's just that they're getting worried about me. They've noticed my mediocrity at everything I do, of course. I'm getting a tutor next week to help pull up my Cs in algebra and bio. It seems like everything involves struggle. Nothing is effortless, the way things are for pretty much everybody else. People in the family pretty much just bulldoze their temporary struggles with hard work, and they succeed in the end, usually brilliantly. They seem to think I'm just slacking even though I'm bulldozing with the best of them. With a dad like Daniel Wayne and Wonder Woman for a mom, you'd think that I'd be as awesome as my little sister, who is beautiful, smart, and talented, but you'd be wrong. Some of the kids at school say that even the best families are saddled with losers now and then. I say nothing about the rumors at school, because I don't want Mom and Dad calling up Christian's parents and getting him in trouble, which would make things more difficult for me at school. You'd think that fifteen was too young for anybody to be getting too sexual, but that's not the case, at least among the kids at school; there's always the precocious ones and the rest of us straggling behind. After Mom and Dad have finished their careful questioning, they move on to Deri, who bubbles about her classes, her friends, her activities. I eat stoically, listening to my little sister's endless successes.

Ah, Deri. I love my little sister, but I kind of resent her too. She's going to be gorgeous, like Mom. She's only twelve, but her figure is developing already in line with every other female in the family, she has dainty features, thick dark hair. Her studies are pretty much effortless, she succeeds in virtually everything she tries, she makes friends easily. She's a real Wayne. However, to be honest, part of her success lies in her... well, let's call it a gift. And this requires me to explain a bit. God-touched. How to explain? Humans can be given abilities by the gods; my Mom was blessed so by five goddesses and a god. The impact of the blessing can and usually does linger, to varying degrees, through a family's generations. This is how Grandma Alex's abilities that are related to Odin's favor could persist in the family until they apexed in her. So that's one way humans can be god-touched, the direct bestowal of a god's favor. The other way is through reproduction. When a god and a human reproduce, their offspring is a demigod. Often they have heightened abilities. See the myths, like Heracles, for examples. Unlike the bestowal of favors, the flare of divinity fades out over a couple of generations. So my mom, Diana of Themyscira, got hit from two sides; daughter of Zeus, bestowal of favors. And this means that both Deri and I are god-touched too. Like all the Waynes, actually, since Grandma Alex's family has the blessing from Odin. Where we diverge is in the expression of our gifts. Deri got smacked by the blessing of Aphrodite. Hard. Her heightened ability is attraction and love. She can make anybody love her. And I mean actually love her, to the part where they're brokenhearted when she turns them down. Fortunately for her, she can dial it up or down. Her default setting is near zero, where she makes no effort to extend her gift. It's the best that she can do, but even without exerting herself, there's a background effect, like radiation. People just really like her. She's the most popular kid in middle school with no effort. She is popular with her peers, her teachers, pretty much everybody she comes into contact with. It's incredibly useful. Mom and Dad have managed to convince her that there will be consequences to abusing her abilities, so she usually doesn't use them. She does some, of course, she's a kid, and nobody likes to get into trouble. But even then, it's just a nudge here and there to keep punishments to scoldings or to persuade someone to do something. Nothing too big, and never anything illegal or immoral.

My gift is that I can see who is god-touched and how strong it is in the person, and a resistance to the expression of those gifts. That's it. I can't tell who bestowed the power, how long ago, what the power is or how it manifests. Just whether it's there and how strong it is. I see it as an aura, sort of an extra hue. With my mom, it's so strong that I can't actually see her, just a golden haze. I wouldn't know what she actually looked like if there weren't photographs, because the aura doesn't show up in recordings. Grandma Alex is another whose face and form are obscured by the god-touch, although with her it's like looking through a veil. They're the two most heavily god-touched people I've ever seen. But you'd be surprised at how many people have some godly imprint. After a couple of generations, the god-touch that's bestowed by reproduction fades to a baseline hum, and even I can't see it in sunlight or strong artificial light. But I can see it in lower-light conditions. And there are a lot of people who have the god-touch through family descent. So that's another thing I've washed out with. The resistance part is just that I'm unaffected by the non-physical expression of gifts. I'd still be hurt if somebody god-touched with strength hit me, but Deri's gift doesn't touch me. I only love her because she's my sister. I can also tell if she's using her ability, it feels like pressure.

After dinner, we go to the library where we have tea and cookies. Alan's family sometimes joins us; Van and Deri take their usual sofa to catch up on the hour they've been separated, and I listen as Aslyn talks with my parents. Alan serves us and observes, as always. He takes butlering to the highest level. Usually there'd be other family members; it's a rare night when Grandpa Bruce doesn't join us, but he's at Grandma Serena's with their daughter Tabby, and who knows what else. They may be divorced, but they're usually like cats in heat with each other. Whatever. I always think Grandma Serena could do better. Grandpa Bruce is a great Batman, but he's pretty much a jerk as a person. I've been brought into the family secrets, but Deri hasn't, because she can't keep a secret to save her soul. So I know about the bat cave and have the same access as anybody even though I won't be participating in the family tradition. I also know the truth about Mom's parentage; Deri got the cover story where she thinks, like most people, that Mom was created by the patron goddesses of Themyscira. After I have my tea and some oatmeal cookies, I can escape, and I go to my room to put in some extra studying.