Archive of Our Own ^beta

The five travellers materialised by the bank of a river. Tall trees towered over them, draped with creepers and vines. Rich green ferns grew up from the forest floor. A scarlet macaw screamed out as it flew off startled, a spider monkey dropped the bananas it was eating and darted away chattering into the canopy. The air was hot, heavy and humid.

Hippolyta spoke first. 'Where are we?'

Titania gazed down at her disparagingly. 'What do you mean? We are home, in the Amazon!'

Helena poked a nearby branch. 'Hey, there's hundreds of little frogs living in this flower!'

'My country is wide and varied.' Hippolyta chose her words carefully. The wrath of the fae was not something to incur lightly. 'The women roam over all the land, from the high mountains to the wide steppe, through the verdant forests and along the river banks. I have never seen a wood like this, or creatures like these.'

Titania looked momentarily disgruntled. 'But you're an Amazon. From the Amazon.' She pointed at the wide brown river. 'That's the Amazon.'

A huge beast suddenly rose up out of the water. It had small eyes set back in a great head, and when it opened its mouth the travellers could see the great yellow teeth. Helena drew back, clutching the baby to her breast.

'Looks like you might need the help of a Hippo?'

'I am the Queen of the Fae, and I need no help from any mortal creature.' Titania drew herself regally to her full height.

'Hippos have power greater than normal mortals. And it looks like you've made a common mistake. The Amazon warrior women of Greek mythology lived... well, we're not entirely sure, because they might just be legend, and the legends are hazy. Probably Scythia, which is a vague blob that by the 21^st century will be somewhere round the Caspian Sea, not quite Europe and not quite Asia. But, basically, somewhere the Greeks could get to. Columbus isn't going to discover the Americas until 1492, Theseus definitely wasn't fighting wars with them.'

Helena put up a hand. 'Can you discover somewhere if there are people living there already?'

The Hippo grinned, showing a remarkable range of teeth. 'Good point, well made. But still, it wasn't on any of the Greek trade routes. And no-one called the river the Amazon until the 16^th century at the earliest.'

Titania was beginning to look severely disgruntled. 'The warrior women of the Amazon! Everyone knows about the warrior women of the Amazon. You can google for them, they wear tiny leather bikinis, and appropriative exotic head dresses, and swing on lianas.'

The Hippo wearily shook her head. 'Well, you're sort of right. You see, Hippolyta's Amazons were famous, so when the explorers in the 16^th century got attacked by bands of warrior women in the rainforest, they used their classical education to name the river 'The Amazon'. Because it contained warrior women, and everyone knew warrior women were Amazons.'

Helena said 'Look, I know you're in the middle of a teachable moment here, but I just want to make the point that they didn't need to name the river. There were already people living here. The river already had a name. It didn’t need a white man to turn up with a classical education and stick a new name on it to show how clever he was.'

The Hippo smiled. 'True.'

Titania grimaced. 'Damn true. If he'd left it with the original name, I might have taken my original Amazon to the right place, instead of being here being patronised by a talking animal.'

'Anyway, I hope that helps.'

'Well, it explains what happened. But what do we do now?'

The Hippo grinned. 'You travelled here by fairy magic. I guess you use fairy magic to go back to the right Amazon. And in future, do remember to get a good beta. They're a great help with problems like this.'

Helena coughed. 'Err, excuse me, I'm very grateful that you helped us and all, and I think we'll all be a lot more careful with fact checking before running away with our fic in future. But while we're trying not to make giant bloopers, don't hippos live in Africa, not South America?'

The Hippo laughed. 'Now you're getting the idea! But this is Yuletide. There's always a helpful Hippo around, whenever you need one. Now fairies, away! We shall chide downright, if you longer stay.'

***

This place was also warm, but much drier. They were in a corridor. High shelves stretched away as far as the eye could see, stacked high with brown cardboard parcels. A small orange robot trundled by.

Titania made a grand gesture. 'Welcome home! To the Amazon!'

Hippolyta rolled her eyes. Helena giggled.

Titania looked around. 'Oh. Um. No?'

The drone rolled up to Titania, bounced against her leg, and made a plaintive beeping noise. She kicked it away.

Helena sighed. 'Our recipient's going to really hate this, you know. You had one job...'

'Look, at least Demetrius isn't going to find you here,' Titania snapped.

Hippolyta grinned. 'I think we can fix it.' She took a box down off the shelf and opened it. 'Hey, little-Indian-boy-Shakespeare-should-have-bothered-to-name? Look, here's some lego. You play with this, and watch Helena's baby for a bit, right? We're just going to go and explore.'

The boy looked a bit surly, but said 'OK'. He looked much more cheerful when he realised this was Angry Birds Star Wars lego, and he could make the Amazon drone beep irately when he fired bricks at it.

The women walked off. Once they were a safe distance away round the corner, Helena turned to Hippolyta. 'So, err, what's your plan?'

'Well... I just want to be very clear that this is a consent culture, right, and if you're not comfortable with the plan, no-one has to do anything they don't want to do, but I was thinking, and, well, you're all very lovely, and I think it's pretty clear from the request that if this just turns into a Giant Orgy then sporkmetender might forgive us all the anachronisms and the hippos and the breaking the fourth wall. Maybe?'

There was a pause. Then Titania ran her hand gently down Hippolyta's hair. 'Well, it's my fault we're in this mess. It'd be churlish of me not to go along with such a... helpful idea'. She winked. And then Helena was in Hippolyta's arms, kissing her passionately, and Titania's legs were entwined round Helena's, her hands cupped over Hippolyta's breasts, and weeds of Athens were strewn across the floor.

In the distance, the droid beeped gently. It was delivering a parcel containing 'The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World', but right now no-one in the warehouse really cared.