The Warrior's Tale

by Gilliland

Disclaimer: This story depicts a passionate and romantic relationship between two women, with some brief but graphic allusions to a physical expression of their love. However, scenes involving other aspects of the relationship--such as sulking, brooding and sniping --are portrayed much more explictly.
Author's Note: Although it was not my intention to deliberately confuse readers, I used alternating points of views and numerous flashbacks in this story. Plot is subordinate to mood, and the timeline shifts according to the emotional narrative of Xena and Gabrielle. The terminally literal may experience slight dizziness, but then so does the author, with far less excuse.

I had sought this place to hide. Just a short distance away, where the treeline curtain opened to an unbroken expanse of coarse sand and crags along the shoreline, I could be revealed.

There, beyond the trees, the torchieres still burn, casting up bright, orange-flamed tongues and oily smoke, and the last violet stroke of dusk has yielded to moonrise.

There, it is not safe to go. Nothing stands to couch a sound: the gentle lapping of the tidewater, the whistling of a greenwood campfire, the footfall of a boot along a path of broken shells.

Here, beneath the woodland canopy, I would cast no shadow. Dankness and rot surround any clue of sweat, cushion my warrior's boot, or conceal a scream.

It is not enough to contain my rage.

"Do you like it?"

Such a guileless question, so full of innocent hope. Xena relaxed the scroll into her lap. "Where did you get this?"

"From a dealer in antiquities. In Athens." With a slight shift of her body, Gabrielle's breast pressed Xena's arm. She studiously fixed her attention on the scroll, avoiding the warrior's scrutiny. "Pelisae's notes and sketches of medicinal plants and herbs."

When the silence that followed was unbroken by a response, Gabrielle spoke, softly. "This is one of the few surviving copies. I thought--"

"You bought this with the prize money, didn't you?" Without affording time enough for reply, Xena replaced the scroll into its tooled leather casing and busied herself with the lacings. "One of the richest prizes for bards in all of Greece, and you spent it on me."

"But I wanted you to have this." Bewildered, Gabrielle drew back.

"I didn't compete for dinars, you know that. Why are you--"

"We'll take it back tomorrow." Xena sought Gabrielle's eyes with calculated detachment, sure of the hurt and anger she would find there.

What she should have expected was the challenge.

"This isn't about the money, is it?"

The warrior uncrossed her taut legs and stood, casting an indifferent glance to the gift she had left lying at her feet. "I think it's going to be a cool night. I'd better gather some wood."

"Answer me!"

Xena paused, just briefly, but long enough to moderate her anger. "You're supposed to be saving your money for the academy, Gabrielle, not throwing it away on gifts for me."

"The academy?" The bard rose to her feet, eyes flashing. "Look, we've already discussed this. My place is here with you, not at the academy."

"And whose decision was that?"

"Just what are you saying?"

Xena looked to the trees, trying to order her thoughts. "I don't want your gifts, Gabrielle. I don't want you to keep giving things up for me. Your family. Your future. And for what?" Her voice drifted. "What could I possibly offer you in return?"

"I'm with you." Gabrielle's reply was sober and unwavering. "I've never asked for--or expected--anything else."

"And being with me will get you killed." The abrupt confession did nothing to assuage the warrior's guilt. "My life, my future, is filled with ghosts. The ghosts of all the people I've killed, and the people I've wronged. I'll spend what life is left to me trying to bury them. I won't bury you, too."

A feathery sifting of sand alerted Xena to Gabrielle's approach; even so, she flinched at the touch to her shoulder.

"My lover, my teacher, my protector. But oracle? I thought that was my job." A rueful laugh smothered the tremor in the young woman's voice. "And as to what I want for the future, well, that's my decision, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Xena deflected the hand that dared to turn her cheek. "Just your decision? Or just the one I would have to live with?"

Her words were efficiently honest, and effectively cruel.

"So that's it," Gabrielle said. "We're back where we started. Nothing has changed, has it?"

"I'm going for some wood." Xena paused, desperate for an entreaty to remain, yet knowing she had no right to expect one.

And with nothing more than "I'll be back," she headed for the trees.

I had left my love behind to seek this hiding place, for only in the dark can one hope to truly see.

I was told this once by a warrior who lived in the cedar wood near Amphipolis, my home. She was a contemptuous and blind old woman, but very skilled in swordplay and adept with the staff. She taught me how to fight with my eyes closed, when to listen with my body, how to catch the arrow in flight, how to deflect the dagger aimed for my back.

The eyes, she said, are liars.

I have always remembered what she taught me and have respected it, even though I had to kill her. She was too good a teacher, as I was too clever a student, and she had exposed my inner self. A warrior cannot be revealed, and she had made me a warrior.

I had the answers then to a different life. I have none to guide me now.

I am a warrior, and a warrior kills the thing that it loves.

I was determined to fight sleep. I propped by back against the rough bark of a tree and I listened, focusing my mind on the slightest of sounds: the flutter of a restless wing, the skitter just beneath a rotting carpet of fronds. I heard the cry of an owl deep from within the wood, taunting me.

Ghosts still follow me, even into the dark.

"Gabrielle." Her name keeps my demons at bay, so that somewhere between sleep and dreams I may find the path to memory....

The midday heat extruded far beyond the fingers of sunlight that stretched through the shuttered doors of the balcony, yet the air was light with chatter. Gabrielle was holding court for a group of fresh-faced youths gathered at her bedside, all eager for whatever tales of adventure she might share.

"But we couldn't very well have a proper Festival of Euphrosyne without our golden bard, could we?" Homer grinned.

"You mock me. 'Golden bard,' indeed." Gabrielle colored her embarrassment with a tint of sarcasm, unaware that Xena had detected the shyness in her voice. "If Homer's stories are half as adept as his flattery, we should all accede him the prize here and now."

A collective laugh rose from all but the gentle Homer, who responded with a knowing wink. "And I think it is Gabrielle who mocks Euripides." He leaned forward, lightly resting a hand on her arm. "You're much too modest for a bard, Gabrielle, which is probably why you're such a good one. Not like us pretentious academy types, eh, Twickenham?"

A lanky, tousle-haired student, both affable and anxious in manner, nodded admiringly at Gabrielle. "Th-the dean of the academy was so mm-mortified at the pp-prospect of endless recitations of...Sophocles that I think he'd have sent Apollo's...sent Apollo's chariot to ff-fetch you."

"Well," said Gabrielle, "I think it would take a broader repertoire than his to summon Apollo's chariot."

A conspiratorial chorus of hoots met her wry comment; it was an intrigue Xena did not feel privy to join. Among these unblemished lives, she was simply an intruder.

Was I ever so young?

From the farthest corner of the room she mutely observed each student, these boys yet to be men, barely more than children. There was a quality of roundness in their eyes and in their faces, a gentility to the language they spoke. Theirs was a world still absent of remorse, and fearless of urges they had yet to comprehend. Xena remembered a time when she saw that same innocence in Gabrielle. So much had been lost at the Thessalian temple; as she studied the weary nobility of her young lover's face and the quiet restraint in her voice, she came to realize the full measure of that loss. Gabrielle was as much an outsider here as the warrior.

I should have taken the southern route

"I could use some air." She affected nonchalance, but took a hard swallow. "I"ll be on the balcony...if you should need anything."

The storytelling continued throughout the afternoon, but Xena had no interest in the tales. She pricked her ear to Gabrielle's voice alone, and then only to an element of it--a certain pause beyond the catch of breath, or the slightest trip of the tongue--that would signal it was time for her return.

When it came, Xena suppressed the urge to run.

"I think that's enough for today." She searched for any sign of relief in Gabrielle's expression that would mollify her own impatience. "Or we won't have our bard for the competition."

Each student in turn was prompted to leave. Only when the last voice had long since trailed away did she turn to Gabrielle.

How long has she been watching me?

Xena had convinced herself that Gabrielle needed to be alone, that quiet was the same as peace. But it was the turbulent silence between the two of them, chaotic and confused, that threatened to tear them apart.

Move anything. Move now.

She retrieved the water cask and calabash, then filled a shallow bowl which she carried to her lover's bedside. With just a handful of cloths Xena constructed a ritual for herself: first dipping each cloth in the bowl, kneading until every fiber was thoroughly soaked, then wringing out any excess drops and, once she was satisfied, methodically and neatly folding the cloths one upon the other.

The cool water barely eased an aching tightness in her hands.

She watches me.

Balancing a hip on the edge of the bed, she pulled aside the spare blanket and began the gentle removing of Gabrielle's robe. It was a crude garment, merely two pieces of coarse russet joined at the shoulders and sides by supple cords. A few dextrous moves had easily released every knot, but she twice rechecked her work before braving the task of peeling back the layer of cloth.

I should have killed him.

She had thought this would get easier. Why had time failed to purge her rage? Certainly this was a trick. Perhaps she had only to wake to dispel some monstrous craft of Morpheus. But she could not maintain her hope for a deception. The body beneath her hand brandished every violation to her eye for sinister calculation: his knife had plunged there, below the neck; there, above the pelvis; again at the collarbone and the arm. Dark, torturous bruises mottled the once-perfect skin.

I have killed so many, and never knew their names. Why not him?

"You're angry."

"I'm not angry, Gabrielle."

"At me?"

With a wet cloth and few drops of oil, Xena began her lover's bath. When she could no longer sustain the pause, she murmured, "I shouldn't have let them stay so long."

"I enjoyed their company."

"Still--"

"It was nice to have someone to talk to."

A smile flirted with the corner of the warrior's mouth, but she remained focused on her task. "It's not me that's angry, is it?"

"I'm not--"

"Angry?"

"Don't tease." Gabrielle covered a stronger hand with her own. "I

"And I told you--" Xena quickly blunted the protest, repulsed by the turn in her voice. "I'm...not angry."

"Well, that was convincing. You don't lie very well, at least not to me."

With a fresh cloth in hand, Xena continued the bath. "You're tired. You just need some rest."

"Don't be patronizing."

"I don't know what you want me to say." She left Gabrielle's bed and busied herself with a tray of fruit. Drawing a short blade, she smoothly proceeded to slice a fig.

"Damn you." Gabrielle flung the wash basin from her bed. It clattered to the floor, flinging water and cloths on the warrior's boots.

Through the extended silence that followed, neither seemed impelled to move. Xena finally did, reaching down to gather up the scattered cloths. "I see you're feeling better," she said, offering a weak grin.

Two pairs of eyes met, but the answers they sought still eluded them.

"Xena?"

"Gabrielle, I'm sor--"

"Just hold me."

The simple request released a surge of panic through the warrior's body.

Am I afraid for her? Or afraid for myself?

Perhaps, in the end, it didn't matter. She went quietly to her lover's side, and gave herself to open arms.

I had no direction, but my body would not be still. These were the ruins of my celebration.

How did it come to this?

I had thought to gather up our half-eaten feast and to extinguish the torchieres. I had thought to collect her gift, now neglected in the sand, and find sanctuary for it. I had thought to do all of these things, but did none of them.

I wanted to flee, but for every place my heart wanted to go, my mind would not allow it. To my back were the trees, and Xena, and before me was the sea. I only knew that I did not want to be where I stood.

I chose the least unbearable place to wait. I seated myself just at the rim of the surf, where a steady broach of tides could fill the hollow of my lap. The water touches me like a lover, but I want the fire.

We came so close, that last day in Piraeus.

So close....

A cascade of dark, sweet-smelling hair rested lightly on the pillow of her breast. Xena had thought her asleep, but Gabrielle was merely loathe to give herself away. She had missed the warrior's body too much. The cradle of Xena's arms was power made tender.

Don't take this away from me.

The warm flesh pressed against her tempted Gabrielle to indulge her senses. Xena's musky scent sated every breath, and a subtle perfume of leather and sweat triggered her arousal. She wanted the moment to last, but the need rising in her own body resisted control. She forced her hips to be still, afraid her lover would wake, and the anger would begin again. Yet Gabrielle craved the taste of flesh in her mouth, wanted to suckle at the warrior's breast. And if the touch of the hand on her thigh felt like fire, it was a fire she wanted to take inside herself completely, and let it burn there.

She gasped at the sudden jerk of Xena's body.

"There's someone on the steps." The warrior pushed herself up from the bed, snatching a dagger from her boot.

So you weren't asleep, all along.

With dagger poised, Xena pressed a hand to the door. "Who's there?"

Gabrielle thought she heard a name--Achates, which she didn't recognize--but when Xena's adversarial posture slackened, she became more curious than alarmed.

"Wait outside." Xena collected her gauntlets and armor.

"Let me help with that."

"No." With a wince of regret in her expression, she softened her voice. "No, I can manage. You rest."

Gabrielle swallowed a protest, then sullenly relaced her robe and drew up the blanket. Sleep was a foolish notion, especially when Xena had left the door ajar. By lying very still, she could overhear most of the conversation outside the room.

"Epinondaes knows I'm here in Piraeus?"

"Too many wagging tongues to be had for too few coins. He knows you're here all right, and headed for Athens."

"How many men does he have with him?"

"Not sure. Five or six, maybe. You could take them, easy."

"No."

"What do you mean, no? This is your chance to be rid of him for good, Xena. And you've got the advantage now."

"I appreciate the warning, Achates...but I've left that life behind. I'm not going back."

"But this is your chance--"

"Besides, I have other things to consider now."

"Other things?"

"Other...people...I have to protect."

Protect me, that's what she means. Brooding, Gabrielle's fists tightened around the blanket.

From the beginning, she had understood Xena's instinctive need to protect her, and had put that instinct to the test more than once. The impetuous girl who had fled Poteidaia for life in the world with Xena could never have anticipated the hard lessons that lay ahead. After all, she was brave, and to a child--and she had been little more than a child, in many ways--bravery was the only weapon that mattered. That self-knowledge came later, as she fought her way through an internal maze of emotions both maddening and wonderfully new. She had never dared hope that Xena would be waiting for her when she finally emerged as a woman.

Yet the warrior had waited, and met her as a lover. Xena had known all along.

"I see I can't persuade you."

"No, Achates, you can't..."

"I don't understand you, Xena. Not that I ever did. You'll be moving on, I suppose."

"I have business in Athens."

"Then at least let me offer you a safehouse. I've a property just south of here on the coast, near Kallithea. It has a small dwelling on it...no more than a tenant's hut really, but it's well protected from the road. You're welcome to use it."

"It's a generous offer, but I can't--"

"Not so generous, I think. You saved my life, and I'm a man who pays his debts. My wife can meet you here in the morning. It will draw less attention if she takes you there."

Gabrielle angrily pushed the blanket aside. There was no safe haven, no peace for her anywhere. Not for Xena.

When will they ever leave her alone?

Xena stepped back inside and carefully secured the door. Her footfall, slow and unsure, intimated profound weariness.

"Who was that?" Gabrielle asked, feigning ignorance.

"An old friend."

"We could use a few more of those." The bard tried to lighten the mood with a casual voice. "What did he want?"

"Oh, we had some unfinished business...nothing for you to worry about."

"I wasn't worried." She suspected the touch of the warrior's hand on her forehead was an intentional distraction.

So she's decided I need protecting from this, too.

"Just as I thought," Xena muttered glumly, and retrieved a vial from a goatskin pouch. "Too much excitement for one day. You have a fever."

We're not going to talk about this, are we?

"I feel all right."

"Ummhmm." A measured amount of liquid was poured into a small dish.

"What's that?"

"Just some poison."

Gabrielle was glad she laughed; she was rewarded with Xena's first genuine smile for many days. Gods, how she had missed it.

"Seriously now," said Gabrielle.

"Something for the fever, that's all."

"I know your medicines." She eyed the liquid with suspicion. "They all taste horrible."

"And they all work, don't they?" Xena lifted the dish to Gabrielle's lips. "Come on, drink up."

Not only for the fever. I know what this is. She had seen that color of blue in the warrior's eyes before, cold and blue as shadows on the snow. If I drink this, I'll sleep, won't I?

A flicker of guilt crossed Xena's features, confirming what Gabrielle already knew.

She drank.

The ghosts still follow me, even into the dark.

I awoke slick with sweat and drew my sword, prepared for a fight even before my mind had cleared. But in an instant I had determined that my attacker was unarmed. I blindly snatched the small creature from my thigh and could feel its terror pulsing from its underbelly to my fist. A lizard, probably a skink. Its tail flicked wildly against my wrist.

"Small and brave." I smiled. "You shouldn't be here, little one. It's not safe to be with me." I dropped my hand to a patch of mossy ground and uncurled my fingers. "Go quickly."

At the moment it abandoned me, I was unsettled by a flash of regret. Is this what it would have been like? Who would I be without her now?

I gave a vigorous rub to my limbs, but I couldn't shake a numbing cold that gripped me from within. I can only curl my body into an embrace of longing, and mourn the only warmth I have ever truly known.

The chill gust straining the balustrade warned of an approaching storm. Poseidon would be restless tonight.

Clutching the woolen chlamys to her shoulders, Xena mutely surveyed a bustle of activity on the wharves below. The smallest pinpoints of lamplight acknowledged the handful of boats still struggling to make port. Scattered about the docks, clusters of lean, dark-skinned fishermen tended their nets at an unhurried pace, while other seamen from more distant ports of call secured their exotic cargos and dispersed throughout the streets, trailing a scent of pungent spice.

The coming of night would not bring repose for Piraeus. She was the port city of Athens, and as such, one of dual natures.

Earlier that day, when her citizens gathered at the agorae, she was full of life, open and bright. Along the arteries of richly colored banners and tents, mothers haggled mercilessly with vendors while their children teased and begged for treats. Melodies of string and flute sweetened the cacophony; yet, if one sought it, the occasional voice of a bard could be discerned, gathering stories from those eager to be heard, and telling tales to those willing to listen.

But when the sun dipped below the waters of the Saronikos, and the Peloponnesus beyond, a coarser side of Piraeus had emerged. From her alleyways and taverns issued forth a ruck of urchins and vagabonds, seamen and slavers, who spoke in a language particular to the dark: the smile that veiled a cruelty, the whisper of some vulgar seduction, the beauty that beggared no sober eye. To those seeking cover for some private torment in only the deepest shadows, night was a familiar.

Xena shuddered against the chill. Just a few short hours ago she had stood on this same balcony, reflecting on an azure sea and sky dotted with brilliant pearls of sunlight and sail. Now she could but recall the warmth on her skin, or that singular beauty of Greek waters. The horizon had been lost to unyielding night.

She stepped back from the balcony, softly closing the shutters behind her. The flame from a single potter's lamp offered the only heat and light to the small room. It was barely enough to warm the pale glow of Gabrielle's cheek.

With a practiced, light step, Xena crossed the room and knelt at her gentle lover's bedside. As she had done so many times these past few days, the warrior drew a breath and held it, attuning her ear solely to Gabrielle's own breath sounds. Shallow but clear. Satisfied, she removed her chlamys and placed it about the delicate shoulders. The touch caused the young woman to stir.

"Xena?"

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"Is-ss all right..." Her deep blue-green eyes closed again. "I was just dreaming."

"A sweet dream?"

"Umm-hmm."

For a moment Gabrielle drifted back to sleep, but she woke again when the warrior's hand made the slightest move.

"It was so dark." A long stillness followed, broken by a sigh. "I heard you calling for me, but I couldn't find my way. Then...there was a clearing, and a lake beyond..." As she fitfully turned her head, the lamplight caught a sheen of fever on her skin. "...and a moon that filled half the sky. I was...frightened, but I didn't mean to be."

"I thought you said it was a good dream."

"But I found you." Gabrielle nestled her face into Xena's open palm. "You're safe now."

"You've always been there for me." The warrior closed her own eyes then, but not to invite sleep.

"Yes-ss," said Gabrielle in a wavering voice. "I found you. It was you, wasn't it, standing against the moon?"

"It was me. But I'm here now. We're safe." Stung by the sound of her own lie, Xena opened her eyes and fussed unnecessarily with the chlamys. "Are you warm enough?"

"Ummm. Nice. It smells like you."

Gabrielle's body relaxed into the warrior's arms and was once more claimed by sleep. Xena allowed herself a few indulgent moments at her lover's side, then abruptly turned away to light another lamp. She gathered the things she would need--the fine white linen, a needle, some golden thread--and set about her task. For the Festival of Euphrosyne, a tunic truly worthy of a bard.

The cold would keep her awake. Settling herself on a rough-hewn stool, she began to sew. With each stitch she relaxed a bit more, until she could finally permit her thoughts to stray.

Tomorrow.

She would tell her tomorrow, they would have to leave this place.

The moon was full-faced and ruddy, and set the swells of the sea ablaze with tips of cold fire. But if Artemis was displeased with me, I felt helpless to pacify her.

I had tried everything I knew. If only I were a warrior, or more experienced, or more resolute than angry. Perhaps if I loved Xena less, or more.

Yet I love her so completely, so perfectly.

Only the gods could be so cruel, I think, to imbue a love so perfect with the power to destroy us both.

Even the warm caress of the sea could no longer console me, and I began to resent its failure almost as much as I resented my own. If our love was cursed, then I was determined to defy the gods. I had proven once before that her hold over me was greater than any god's.

She will come. Xena will come.

And I will never leave her. I will wait until my love returns, or I will wait forever.

The fire in the hearth crackled and hissed. Xena had tended the blaze for hours, leaving Gabrielle to the company of her own thoughts. It had been much the same in the days since they'd left Piraeus: Xena would wholly possess herself of a task, then another and another, converting the moments into days and nights of tormented solitude. Gabrielle had spent her time recovering her strength, rehearsing her stories or gathering shells along the shore, but mostly she watched Xena, anticipating a cue that she might breach the wall between them.

That cue had never come, and Achates would arrive soon to escort her to Athens. The young bard waited at the sole window of their dwelling, her mind focused far beyond the steady rain that misted the morning light.

"I wish you could come with me."

"I wish it, too," Xena replied, her voice breathy and low. "But with Epinondaes and his men in Athens, it wouldn't be safe."

Gabrielle sighed. "No, I suppose not." The stifling heat and smoke from the fire compelled her to seek the cool breeze. She leaned heavily into the frame of the open window and filled her lungs with moist air. "No sense in taking chances," she said sourly. "Certainly not for...something like..."

An unexpected swell of resentment pervaded her thoughts, displacing her fears for Xena. Gabrielle immediately rued this self-discovery, which tinged her resentment with guilt.

"Gabrielle," Xena called softly, finally abandoning the fire. "Gabrielle, you know if it was just me--"

"Don't say that!" Heedless of the tears welling in her eyes, she spun away from the window. "Stop trying to protect me!" She parried Xena's reach with flailing arms and suddenly felt starved for air. "I've got to get out of here."

"Gabrielle, don't--"

Her knees were buckling as she cleared the doorway, but Gabrielle regained her footing in the sand. It was a too-brief recovery of control; the shock of drenching cold striking her skin sent a spasm through her gut, and the anguish in Xena's command forced another.

"Wait!"

Trembling, Gabrielle drew breath to abort a sob. "Please. Don't do this." Her angry glare kept Xena at arm's length. "I won't leave you. You can't make me leave you."

"Leave me?" Incredulity and horror battled to mold the warrior's face. "I don't want you to...I can't ask you to..."

"You can't ask me to do what?" Gabrielle snapped, taking a bold posture. "Leave?" Her jaw clenched. "Or stay? But you can ask me to live in this...this prison you've created for me. Is that what I am? Your prisoner?"

"I'm just trying to keep you safe, Gabrielle."

"Well, a prison is a very safe place to be, isn't it?" she said bitterly. "And you built it yourself, Xena, stone by stone. I watched you build it, and maybe I didn't stop you because I couldn't, or just maybe I didn't want to believe what was happening." Blanched by biting rain, her exposed limbs began to shiver. "You've done quite a good job of it, too," she said, her voice quaking. "No one could scale the walls you've built. Not even you. And I can't reach you anymore."

If the bard could have willed Xena to deny it all--every word Gabrielle had spoken, the anger she felt--her outburst would have served a purpose. She searched for even the smallest sign of a mute defense behind the warrior's inscrutable visage, and found none.

I am right.

She was spared from choosing her next move when the groan of an approaching cart caught her ear. From a wind-whipped copse of trees emerged a team of oxen, prodded by a driver cloaked in oilskins. The next thing she heard was Xena's sword being drawn from its scabbard.

By the gods, I am right.

"It's Achates." Xena glanced at Gabrielle, then motioned for the driver to advance.

Gabrielle bowed her head. "I'll get my things," she said, her throat raw, "if you'll tell him to wait."

Thinking the few moments alone would allow her to recover composure, Gabrielle quickly retreated to their shelter. She took much more time than was necessary to collect her few belongings. As an afterthought the bard picked up her staff and left that part of herself propped against the hearth.

"You're soaked." Xena crossed over the threshold. "Let me dry you off."

Time was all too fleeting.

Xena approached from behind and enveloped the young woman in a soft, dry blanket. The embrace evoked a base desire from Gabrielle's every nerve, her every bone and muscle. Vainly, she sought any distraction from the blood heat pulsing between her thighs.

"I...I think the time apart will do us some good," she stammered, shrugging herself free of Xena's clasp. "Three days...it isn't so long, is it?" She peered over her shoulder to find that Xena had knelt down by the hearth and was stoking the fire.

"Achates and his family are good people." It was an offhand comment, spoken too quickly. "You'll be safe with--" Xena caught herself. "They'll take good care of you."

"Yes, I'm sure they will." In reflection, Gabrielle considered her lover--this warrior woman, sheathed in armor and leather and weapons--and saw a vulnerable and desolate child. Gently, she ventured, "Xena?"

The warrior snapped her head up. "You are coming back?" she blurted out, then realizing what she had said, and the manner in which she had said it, turned her head away.

Gabrielle knelt down, and with the gentlest touch brushed the damp locks from her lover's brow. "Look at me," she said. Then, a tender command: "No, don't look away. Look at me." She drew a fingertip along the soft bow of parted lips, so inviting to the touch, then kissed them lightly. "I'm coming back. We'll find our way."

Breaking contact by sheer force of will, she pushed herself to her feet. "You know...I have to leave now."

"Yes, I know you do."

The young bard returned her attention to her packs and finished tying them up.

"Gabrielle..."

She turned around to find Xena holding a neatly wrapped bundle. The warrior held out her hands. "I...this is for you."

"What did you--" Gabrielle meekly accepted the gift and fumbled with the ties that bound it. "What is...oh, Xena, this is--"

A tunic. A bard's tunic of the finest white linen, and delicately embroidered with golden thread.

"You made this for me," Gabrielle marveled, in a halting voice. "It's beautiful."

"No crying now." The warrior slung the two packs over her muscled shoulders. "You'll ruin your voice."

Gabrielle stroked the fabric with her fingertips. "This will bring me luck, I'm sure of it."

"You don't need luck, Gabrielle. You're a good bard. The best. And I know you'll do well." Xena placed a warm cloak around her lover's arms. "Come on."

Shared apprehension made the short walk to Achates' cart seem agonizingly long. The rain had stopped, but an unsettling fog rose from the ground.

Xena lifted Gabrielle into the cart and placed the packs behind her.

"Be good to this one, Achates," she said with an easy smile. "There's not another like her." She dropped her voice so only Gabrielle could hear, "Not for me."

"She's in good hands, my friend," chuckled Achates, showing a toothy grin to Gabrielle. "And I'll have you know, young lady, I'm the best cook in Athens."

He gave a sharp snap to the prodder, spooking his already impatient team. The cart jolted roughly, but Gabrielle felt a steadying hand braced against her leg. She looked down upon the face of the warrior.

"No, please," she pleaded, under her breath, "don't watch me go."

Xena's hand fell away as the cart moved out, yet Gabrielle knew she was being watched. It was impossible not to feel it. Clutching the tunic to her breast, she twisted around, unable to keep her own oath.

Xena stood exactly as Gabrielle had envisioned she would: noble and untamed, and unrelentingly still. Tendrils of steamy vapor arose from the hot leather of her body armor, and a veil of mist gradually swallowed the warrior whole.

Gabrielle continued to look back long after the tableau had vanished. The sight had enthralled her and frightened her, and broken her heart.

It was as if she had seen a ghost.

"No! Gabrielle--" My lungs were bursting for want of air, and I thrashed against my restraints. I was wild and mad. "--don't go..."

I awoke. The cry had escaped from my own mouth and the restraints were of my own making. I had clawed my fingers deep into the ground beneath me, and my arms shook violently. I needed to bring my body back under command; still, rage overpowered my reason.

You were right. I can't do this. I can't scale the walls.

"Gabrielle..."

Her name stirred the air like an incantation, coaxing remembrance in a way the world shifts and forms itself to the waking eye. I knew that I was not in the amphitheater, nor was it my lover's face that appeared before me. But this was my tale, the warrior's tale that I told to myself. I was grateful for the illusion and the respite from torment that it offered me....

...The sun was just setting when it became Gabrielle's turn to perform.

Many had come before the young bard; she was the last. They had come and gone in a procession of eloquence and finery, some hesitant and some bold, some restrained and others gaudy or vain. Some had masks of beaten silver, or silken tunics, or buskins of the finest kid.

But despite their pageantry, it was the serene beauty of one unassuming girl that moved Apollo's heart. She had brought no harp or chorus, either to sweeten her voice or embellish the tale. Her simple tunic, fashioned of the purest white linen, was streaked with golden threads, and affording no buskins or sandals, her feet and legs were bare.

To display his favor for her modesty, Apollo drew a flame-colored tapestry across the sky, and from his chariot embroidered it with veins of ruby, of amethyst and sapphire. Then he fashioned the last lingering streams of sunlight and lavished her copper hair with a halo of gold.

She is a dream that loves a warrior, and such was my bard's tale: how a dream had wrestled death in the Elysian fields to win a mortal's love....

...I could not hold the illusion, which fled me for the shadows. I have no company now, save for the ghosts that follow me.

Three days, she had told me. It might as well have been three years, or thirty.

From a shadowed perch high in the trees, I had seen my love return in triumph. She was so radiant with joy, it took my breath away to look at her. And when she did not find me waiting there, she stole my tears as well.

I watched her as she searched for me. She was sly to disguise it, worried that Achates might suspect her. She hid her dread behind a smile and quick laughter. But I was following her, crouched as I was like a leopard in the trees, a predator set only on its prey. I could not help but watch her; it was my instinct.

Only when Achates had gone did she reveal herself to me. I saw by the way her body moved, like a battle-ready warrior striding through her camp, that I was no longer the predator, but the prey.

She wove a snare to trap me. Upon the sand she unfurled lustrous bolts of the most exquisite cloth in all the colors of an evening sky, and on them placed baskets gorged with ripe fruit and olives, and bottles of wine. She erected torchieres fitted with bowls of new brass, and lit the fires. Then she removed her rough leather boots, and the coarsely woven clothes she wore, and was naked before me.

No trick of the mind's eye could ever have promised the seductions of the flesh she gave to me then. I was the wild animal of the trees, all muscle and bone and craving, knowing nothing except what my senses told me.

I put my face into the wind, for the air was alive with her scents. I was intimate with them all: a salty-sweet fragrance that trickled the length of an elegant neck and gleamed on the suckling tips of her breasts; a slippery trail of musky cream held warm in the plunging line of her thighs. Her flowing mane whipped traces of night jasmine into a wind already redolent with wine.

From a basket she plucked a soft plum, lathered it with her lips and tongue, and took a bite of its meat. I savored the tartness of its juice in my own mouth.

Then she laid out the tunic I had made for her, smoothed it with her hands, and fitted it to her body. I was the pliant cloth that caressed her every curve. She pressed my ear to her breast, that I might hear her wildly beating heart.

I was mad. I had to have her.

I told myself I could do this, that I could destroy the wall between us.

"I knew my lover was the best storyteller in Greece, but you were my secret. Now the world will want to have you."

Gabrielle beamed. "Not the best now," she qualified, not falsely modest. "Maybe just the best at the festival. And I don't think there's enough of me to share with the whole world." She fumbled with her tunic, her tone abruptly changed. "I was worried about you."

"I told you I was hunting," said Xena. "I'm sorry, Gabrielle. I should have been here to meet you."

"Hunting...yes." Gabrielle dismissed the lie without comment. "Well, you're safe and you're here," she said, seating the warrior on a plush cushion, "and I've arranged a special performance just for you."

"You must have some influence with this bard."

Gabrielle shrugged. "I told her you were a warrior princess. She was very impressed, and...perhaps a bit afraid not to come."

"Tell her..." a deep furrow in the warrior's brow expressed her sorrow, "...tell her she has no reason to fear me."

"She knows."

"Does she?" Xena searched for the answer in her young lover's face. There was no trace of fear, but a poignant and melancholy beauty that forgave her everything.

By the gods, how I do love her.

"Yes, I'm sure she knows." Smiling, Gabrielle extended a goblet of wine. "But enough of that. Eat, drink, relax. I'm going to tell you some wonderful stories."

I cannot swear to the exact moment my rage returned. I believe it had never really left me, but was merely out of my reach, stalking me and waiting for just the right advantage. The more I wanted her, the closer I came to total surrender, and I knew this was one battle I could not afford to lose. I am a warrior, and she who loves a warrior dies.

Yet I also knew, with the certainty of the heavens, that I had no will to live without her.

I told myself, I will do anything to protect her.

I told myself, I am the wild animal of the trees, knowing nothing except what my senses tell me.

I told myself, I will build a hold around her, and another for my heart.

I told myself, I am mad, and I will have her.

Tell her...tell her she has reason to fear me.

With a soft cloth, Xena blotted a sheen of sweat from Gabrielle's throat and arms. "I didn't realize that storytelling was such hard work," she said, nestling her face in Gabrielle's hair. "Thank you. That was beautiful." She inhaled deeply of jasmine. "And so are you."

"Umm, well, I have you to thank, don't I? Without the warrior princess, I wouldn't have much of a repertoire."

"I suppose," Xena murmured, circling her lover with feral strides. She leaned into the bard's shoulders and breathed against her ear, "but you left out a story."

"Hmmm?" Gabrielle relaxed into Xena's arms.

"I said you left out a story." Rough hands encircled the woman's small wrists. "Didn't you?"

Startled, Gabrielle's body twitched, and Xena's hold on her tightened even more. She was caught. "What...are you talking about?"

"I'm not the only one who doesn't lie well." Xena lowered her head, taking the tender nape of Gabrielle's neck in her teeth. "You know the one, Gabrielle," she growled, low in the throat. "The story of Mitoa and Thessaly. The story that won you the prize."

"How did you--" Gabrielle gasped, in an effort to break free. "Who told you?"

"Oh, *you* did. Just now." With a menacing chuckle, Xena released her grip.

Gabrielle rubbed her chafed wrists. "That was cruel," she said, her eyes glittering with tears.

"Well? Why didn't you tell me the story?"

"Please, Xena," the bard stammered, trying to catch her breath. "Not tonight. Not this night, please."

Crippled by a wave of self-loathing, the warrior woman relented. "All right," she said, casually pouring herself some wine. "Not tonight." She drained the goblet in a single swallow and tossed it aside. "It was wrong of me to ask."

Ignoring the apology, Gabrielle retrieved the discarded goblet and clasped it between her hands. After a time, she said, "I have something for you."

Xena seated herself among the piles of damask, looking remorseful. "Gabrielle--"

"Just wait here. I'll get it," said Gabrielle, scurrying into the shelter. She emerged a moment later with a large, intricately tooled leather case in her arms. "The tunic you made for me was so lovely, I just wanted...to get you something." She knelt at Xena's side and placed the case in the warrior's lap, then watched in uneasy silence as Xena untied the lacings of the case and removed the heavy scroll it protected. For the longest time, Xena said nothing, and her face was completely hidden by the scroll. But as the minutes passed, Gabrielle grew restless. Finally, she could stand it no more. She asked, shyly, "Do you like it?"

You set a feast before me and I set another stone.

I tried to exorcise the demons from my body. I screamed as far as my fury would carry me. But I was locked in mortal combat with my own savage heart, pounding in my chest, roaring in my ears. I was so cold, and brittle as glass.

Only in the dark can I hope to truly see.

Desperation can betray the senses, and I have been told the eyes are liars. But I have learned that there is no truth to be found in the dark, only places for fools to hide. I cannot survive without the light, or Gabrielle. Only she can lead me from this hiding place.

I threw my head back, and through the smallest break in the canopy of trees, a glimmer of moonlight struck my eye.

She is calling me.

It is time to leave the company of ghosts.

I searched for her by the water's edge and found her waiting there. If she knew I was watching her, she did not give herself away, or move.

I stripped my body of armor and hide and shed my warrior's boots. I stripped myself of my animal skin, and walked a path of broken shells that cracked beneath my feet. I didn't want to startle her, thinking she might not know what to expect from me. Perhaps I should have expected nothing from her, but knew she would give me everything.

The moon was full and bright that night, and so it seemed to fill the sky.

She had her back to me, waiting, simply waiting, and when I came to her she looked up at me and smiled. She is where my heart belongs.

And so they knelt in silence, oracle and ghost, touching only as reflections on a restless sea. At what moment Xena reached out she could not later recall, but as her fingers brushed the darkly mirrored image of her desire, the reflection fractured along the broken surface of the water.

"No..." The warrior opened her fist to find the moment gone, and shut her eyes to a haunt she had no wish to see. "Don't leave me."

Her cry was so soft Xena hoped she might have only imagined the sound of her own voice. She was frightened to think she had revealed herself so easily. The touch that answered her, though gentle, frightened her even more, and she hardened herself against it.

Gabrielle said, "I understand," took her lover's hand to her cheek, soothed trembling fingers with the warmth of her mouth. "Don't be afraid."

Yet the warrior's fear would not allow her to look. With her eyes closed against the light, Xena allowed her lover to guide her hand. It followed the smooth, unlined plane of Gabrielle's brow and the tapering curve of her cheek. Recognized the defiant strength in the firmly rounded chin. Surrendered to tears at the plumpness of lips that smiled so sweetly for her now. She felt her own dread implore her to stop.

"I can't..."

But Gabrielle told her, "Yes, we can," and led the warrior on with an insistent hand.

There. A steady pulse, hotly coursing the length of the neck, a single bead of moisture held warm in the hollow of the throat...a thready scar, nearly imperceptible, just below the collarbone...

"No. Wait." Gabrielle's voice defied Xena's recoil, a pause held just long enough to drown the warrior's rage. The bard's loving hand led elsewhere, tripping lightly over the delicate embroidery trimming the tunic.

So many nights, lost at arm's length, spinning my web with threads of gold. Spinning, spinning my spider's web.

Xena sloughed the image from her mind, calmed by the rhythmic beat of Gabrielle's heart beneath her palm. Again she followed her lover's lead, eyes fiercely shut against the light.

"You see?" whispered Gabrielle. "We are both safe here." She took the rough warrior's hand in her own, plied its calloused tautness, coaxed and shaped it as a cup, then fit it as a mold to her breast.

I am the pliant cloth that caresses her every curve. She pressed me to her breast, that I might hear her wildly beating heart.

Xena accepted the full weight of the yielding flesh in her hand, at first content with the sweetness of memory. But with just the slightest pressure, firmer flesh rose to meet her fingertips. She coarsened her hold, provoking a hunger devoid of tenderness or mercy.

"Tell me your fear, Xena."

She wove a snare to trap me. Wild reflexes rebelled at the ambush; a warrior's body, in one great lunge, pressed and pinned her attacker to the surf. She was the predator once again, poised to devour her prey...

"Xena, no!"

...and then she opened her eyes to meet an unyielding look of love, absent of surrender or fear, that revealed itself in the cool wash of moonlight. As Gabrielle's face coalesced before her, as the body pressed beneath her own drew breath, Xena's rage grew. Roiling reflections of oracle and ghost wrestled in the tides, transfixing the warrior's gaze.

"Get away from me, Gabrielle. You have to get away..."

"Tell me."

It was a command, delivered deceptively soft, but Gabrielle's hold was unrelenting. Muscle and sinew twisted to break the warrior free, but Xena's mind summoned the strength to strangle her fear.

Reason had finally overpowered her rage.

Xena rested her face against her lover's breast, seeking comfort in the rise and fall of breath. "I'm afraid to lose you, I'm afraid to love you...and I can't...protect you."

"Or protect yourself. That's why you hold yourself back from me. And that's the wall between us, isn't it? All the tomorrows, the yesterdays, bound up by memories and fears, with only this moment in time standing between us." Gabrielle trailed the back of her hand along the line of the warrior's leg. "The wall is now, the place you won't touch me."

Xena stilled her lover's hand within a grasp. "I can't lose you. Not again...never again."

"So you would condemn me to a life without love, without living? I don't fear death; there are things much worse than death."

"But I do fear death, Gabrielle. Not mine, but yours. I'm afraid of what my life would be without you, who I might become...." The brutal confession sent a shudder through her limbs. Xena pushed herself to her knees.

"And who are you now?"

"I ...I am lost, lost..." Despairing, she bowed her head. "I thought...if I didn't love you so much--"

"You mean, if you could only give me small pieces of your heart each day, you could make love last for a lifetime. But I can't promise the future any more than you can deny the past. If you hold back love from me now, what piece of your heart will you offer me tomorrow?" She paused. "And what if tomorrow never comes?"

Xena sought her lover's face, desperate not to be abandoned, and surrendered her fear.

I must breach the wall.

"Show me the way," she said

"Your heart already knows the way." Gabrielle held out her hand. "Trust me."

As her love spread herself upon the sea, wrapping warm thighs around her own, Xena watched. She watched the seafoam lick the crests of her lover's bosom, was seduced by coils of flame-colored hair that floated upon the swells, flashing with a moonlight filigree.

Slowly, so slowly, Gabrielle dipped her own hand below the water and gathered the folds of her tunic about her waist, then guided Xena's hand to other folds, to the heat of lips that parted at her touch.

"I came back from death for you...to offer you this moment. To share with you this moment. It is all we can ever promise to each other. I won't share you with ghosts." Gabrielle took her warrior lover by the wrists and drew her down. "You must give me everything you are, my love, my only love, and I will give to you everything that I am."

She had freed me.

I had no choice but to love her. It was my instinct, my true instinct, to love her more than my life.

And I had freed her, as well. I lifted her body from the tunic I had made, the web I had spun from golden threads. Lifted her into the air so easily it was as if she were only a dream, and lighter than air itself. I wrapped her body around my own, kissed her tears away, and carried her from the sea. I laid her down on the lustrous billows of cloth she had spread for me, and her skin was alabaster upon them.

She was my feast, and I hers.

And I have told you truly, for I do believe it now, in all things we gave together, and took. We crafted our love like a string of pearls, one moment touching upon the next. As I suckled at her breast, so she suckled at my hand. When one body pushed and drove, the other lifted urgently to meet it. We dispelled our fears with every cry of pleasure, and spoke the name of love to exorcise my ghosts.

And when we both were finally spent, we sought each other's warm embrace, and shared a single dream.

If I have no other life to claim other than the moments she shared with me then, it is a life fully lived and envious of no god.

This was her tale, my warrior's tale, that she gave to me when we were both very young, and I swear by the gods that it is true.

But that was long, long ago.

I am old and soon to sleep, and though I have told many stories in my life, I have never shared this one before. This tale will be my last. My eyes fail me now, as my voice did years ago, yet my memory is as keen as it was when I was a girl.

When I was but a dream who loved a warrior.

If time should find this a worthy tale, do not give me credit, for she was always at my side, ever reminding me with her teasing smile never to leave a tale untold.

When my hand grew weary, she steadied it in her own, and when I could not find the words, she whispered them sweetly in my ear. As I wept she stroked my hair, and told me that she loved me.

This is my warrior's tale, as I have told you, and I was merely her scribe.

I am alone now, with only the waning light of day to warm me.

But soon to sleep, soon to welcome sleep.

And when I close my eyes forever, I will search for her in the place where lovers dream, and will find her waiting there.

-Finis-

[please forward any comments to Gilliland care of: MaryD at ldyaislina@earthlink.com]


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