Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction written by Caina Q. Fuller. I do
not own the characters Xena, Gabrielle or Ares, nor do I own rights to them or the show
Xena Warrior Princess.
Because I Love Her
Written By: Caina Q. Fuller
Sometimes in life we meet people who complete us. There are
many names for such people. Friend, lover, soul mate. Whatever you chose to
call this person, he or she is the one that makes your life complete. They are the
one whom you love, and more importantly they make you feel loved. They make you feel
special, intelligent and beautiful. They make you wonder: How could I have
ever made it through life without meeting this wonderful being? If I lose them, how
will I continue?
I am a man who has met such a woman. No, scratch that. I
am an old, wretched being who was blessed with a few moments of peace brought by this
woman’s presence. That’s who I am. I am one in an uncountable number of
creatures in the universe who was blessed to have known her for just a while. To
have loved her and been loved by her for just a little while.
Let us ponder together, just for a moment, what love really is.
Just so for once in my life someone try to see this issue from my point of view. Yes
I’m the bad one, but just listen for a moment. Would you ask yourself what love
is? I hear your first answer. You just told yourself love is a feeling. But
what is a feeling? A feeling is something ethereal right? It’s something felt
by each individual in life but at same time it’s something that cannot be
touched. And who is to say that each person in life feels the same thing you do when
you mention love?
So it is a concept you reply to me now. What is a
concept? A concept is an idea right? So love must be an idea that you
feel. No my friend, an idea cannot be felt. It can only be thought. So love is
more than an intellectual concept you now say, but it is substantial only when it touches
you yet it will not allow you to touch it. Unless…
There is only one time (and you’re free to disagree with me on
this of course), only one instance when one can touch love back, and that is when it is
trapped in a mirror. When you look into another’s eyes, as I have looked into
her eyes, and see love looking back you, then have succeeded in trapping the ethereal and
giving it substance. Then, and only then, can you reach out and touch this
“concept”, for the one you love has become the embodiment of love. When
you have touched them you have touched love.
I loved her. I felt love and I touched love, only to have had
it ripped away from me by the changes she has gone through in her heart. Don’t
you think that I know I’m not good for her? I never was. Not even when we did love
each other was I good for her. I was a poison to her. I was a plague looming over her
life. It’s amazing isn’t it? How one such as I can feel something so
tender and good, yet at the same time be such a negative force in another’s life?
She found her way past that hate we’d shared. She found her way
through the darkness that is still my soul, and she entered into the light. She
floated for a while in the sea of its goodness and warmth, but she was always in danger of
being swept back down into the depths of the Abyss of evil where I reside on the powerful
currents of her hearts wounds. Then she found an anchor made of innocence and love,
which is a powerful combination.
The anchor was and continues to be a healing balm to sooth the
deepest wounds ripped into her heart by my evil ways and me. The anchor is still
pure of heart, good of soul and beautiful in disposition. She is the compass that
points the eyes of the one I love in the right direction, which is always directly away
from me and all I stand for and lust for. The anchor embodies the love that my dear
one needs to survive. Not only does the former lover of my soul touch the anchor, but also
the anchor has a firm hold on her heart.
Who am I you’re asking? You know me well and I think you
figured it out in the beginning that I am Ares, god of War. The one I love is Xena,
and the anchor she loves is Gabrielle. I am the epitome of black, filthy evil with only a
seed of light in my cold heart.
I would never say this to Gabrielle, but whenever I see the joy in
Xena’s eyes when she looks at that blond bard, I pray to whatever force is mightier
than I to ensure that the one I love never loses her anchor to the light. I hope, deep
inside my heart where my small amount of love resides, that Xena stays on her new
path. I pray Xena keeps her eyes on the prize and finds the redemption she seeks
every day of her life. I pray she finds the peace she so desperately needs.
Are you shocked? Sometimes I am shocked by it myself. I am a god and I know
what you are asking right now. Why would a god of War pray this kind of
prayer? The answer is really quite simple. I pray it…
Because I love her.
The End.