When Ceres was twelve, Hippolyta finally unveiled the experiment she had been working on since before her marriage. She took Li Cheung and Ceres to a man-made cave she had sand blasted years ago and showed them what was inside.Father and daughter saw an oval door made of some sort of metal so hard it was almost as hard as a rock but harder. The door was attached to some wires which was attached to a lever. The door emitted some kind of hum and tiny bolts of electricity seemed to be seeping from its base to its sides and back.
Li Cheung looked at his wife and didn"t say a thing. Ceres curiously stepped forward and prodded the base with her heel. Li Cheung pulled her back before the foot could touch the hard surface and threw his wife a grimace.
"A large oven or something, Mama?" Ceres said, looking at the whole structure with a frown.
"No, no. It"s an experiment for going backward to another time," Hippolyta said. "What do you think? Pretty awesome, huh?"
"Why do you need to go back in time for?" Li Cheung asked, looking suspiciously at his wife. "I know battles have been far and between in this time but surely you"ve had enough of the carnage? You told me once you wanted to settle down and just live a quiet life!"
"I did but...."
"What? You"re not happy with me anymore? You"re bored, is that it? You want to go somewhere and leave us behind? Well, I won"t allow it. Where you"re going, I"m going too!"
"Husband, will you listen to yourself? You sound like a mad man."
"That"s because my wife doesn"t care about me anymore. Don"t lie. I saw you with that man the other day. You were practically flirting with him in front of me!"
"Man? Who is this man your father is talking about?" Hippolyta turned to her daughter and asked.
"Probably Trei. He was here to talk to you about his wedding to the village girl, remember? You were kind of very familiar with him, Mama. Father was incensed and wanted to shoot the guy but I stopped him. He had been sulking ever since."
"Hmnn…." Hippolyta said, throwing her husband an amused glance.
"I was not sulking," Li Cheung pouted. "But must he look at you like you"re his girlfriend or something? It"s really irritating."
"He looks at me like a sister who has known him since he was a baby. You"re the one who looks at me like I"m your girlfriend rather than your wife. That"s the root cause of all this unfounded jealousy. We"re an old married couple. Stop looking at me like I"m still young."
"You haven"t aged a bit since we got married," Li Cheung pointed out.
"So have you."
"That"s different. I don"t look at other women but you look at other men."
"As a potential enemy not a mate." Hippolyta sighed. "We"re veering away from the subject in hand though. What do you think about this thing?"
"What are you using it for?" Li Cheung was curious.
"I was thinking maybe the three of us could visit other lands, you know. Sort of an educational thing not only for Tanya but us as well. Wouldn"t it be exciting?"
"Does it work?" Ceres asked.
"I"m not sure. It"s in its experimental stage just yet so I"m going to need more input before we try it out."
"Ceres, honey, can you check if Yu Yan is home? I need to talk to your mother about inputting something in her experiment," Li Cheung said, looking at his daughter with a smile.
Ceres looked at him suspiciously. Her mother was shaking her head, laughing. Ceres turned around and left. After a while, she heard her mother"s shriek and her father"s growl then laughter and silence. Grownups. They sure act weird when they"re alone together.
At the tender age of twenty-four, Yu Yan became the youngest female to head a small division in the department of magic. Her department was a contingent force in case of attacks. Since she studied under her stepbrother and showed her capability in several encounters, she was very qualified for the position, even though there were grumblings of nepotism and underhanded tactics to get her promoted.
Yu Yan lived with her stepbrother and his family until she turned 15 when Li Cheung packed her off to school to study magic. She didn"t get along with Hippolyta who frankly told her husband she didn"t like the girl because she acted too much like a girl with little or no fighting skills. A very good judge of character, Hippolyta despised women who looked at war and tremble before it, like they would accept anything just so the men would not hurt or punish them. Even their beauty was up for sale so long as it can get them what they want, which was mostly a life of leisure even if the man was a cur and a coward.
Ceres at the age of twelve was already a veteran warrior with the mind of a tactician. She went to war together with her mother"s army fighting the beast of St Clair, vicious pirates who killed and ma.s.sacred their way into the coastal lands looking for a legendary treasure. Since said treasure was part of Hippolyta"s trove, the women gird up for war while Enxuo and the rest of the other men waited behind.
Li Cheung went of course and witnessed first hand the utter viciousness and barbarousness of the Amazons during the battle. His wife led her army like a G.o.ddess leading her troops to the promised land. Her armor glistened with blood, her magnificent hair tied in a knot atop her head, her sword flashing like a vengeful fire of doom in her hand. She never looked as beautiful to him as she did hacking bodies to the ground and he spent the rest of the day nursing a painful hard on. He knew then that Hippolyta forever ruined him for another woman. He waited for her in her tent, wondering what his life would have been if he didn"t knocked on that door or left after she slammed the door on his face.
She entered the tent and smiled when she saw him and he knew life wouldn"t have been better without her. Ceres followed her mother into the tent and threw her thin arms in a victorious whoop when she saw her father. Li Cheung felt his chest tightened. He reached out and drew his wife into his other arm and kissed his daughter on her forehead and his wife tenderly on her red lips. Hippolyta saw his shining eyes and an answering glint showed in her eyes as well.
The experimental door was finally ready for testing. Ceres was turning fifteen this summer and the unveiling of the time machine was part of her gift. Hippolyta had spent nearly fifteen years doing her research. By learning both magic and alchemy, she had fused together two elementals and came up with a product that was made from both. Science and magic. Truth and the effervescent illusion of eternal hope.
The door churned and started. It spun faster and faster. Hippolyta threw an apple inside and the machine sizzled as if stung. She looked at the gauge and read 1785.
"What happened in 1785?" Li Cheung asked as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Have no idea."
"Well, are we going to try it or not?"
Hippolyta hesitated.
"Maybe the two of us first? We"ll be back for Tanya if things go well."
"Are we really serious in doing this? What if we get fried using that thing? It"s a bit scary actually."
"I can do it and come back for you both," Hippolyta said.
"Are you nuts? Allow you to leave me? I"m not that dumb, lady."
Hippolyta smiled.
"What then?"
"We go together."
And that"s just what they did. Ceres wanted to protest but her mother had taught her that life usually does not stop just because you want it to. So she watched as her parents walked to the door, turn around and waved at her. They walked thru the door until something swallowed them and they vanished from her sight.
Ceres waited for them to reappear for hours. She was dry-eyed and calm. She waited for days, months and then years. She waited for a year until a young man appeared one day on her way to the village and she helped him with his stalled car.
By then she had become the de facto leader of the Amazons. So, she gave the young man a different name when he asked. She didn"t even remember him when he reappeared in the village a day later. He was persistent though and she thought why not? Hippolyta had her when she was already in her 30s in terms of human age. The troops needed new blood and he was young and healthy and seemed to be clean and educated, which proved he had good genes.
So, Ceres slept with An Ma, which was a funny name when she asked him about it, and he got her pregnant at their first try. She knew the child was going to be a girl and she was going to call her Tatiana after her mother"s pet name for her. What to do with An Ma though. If the baby had been a boy it would have been easy to get rid of him. But because the baby was a girl, she needed to explain to him.
All of that became moot though when Yu Yan kidnapped her baby and put her in the freezer inside Hippolyta"s cave for twenty years.