Disclaimer: The characters of Xena and Gabrielle belong exclusively to MCA/Universal and Renaissance Pictures. No copyright infringement was intended in the writing of this piece.
Author's Notes: This poem was written after a re-watching of 'The Greater Good' and 'Callisto', so I guess it contains spoilers for those episodes. This piece should be read as a companion piece to 'Yesterday', which was written as a reversal.
Feedback: Love to hear what you think, I'm at archaeobard@hotmail.com
Fear
archaeobard
Xena said to focus,
Yet sometimes that is difficult in the extreme.
She had always seemed so strong, so indestructible.
Though there she was, cold and as lifeless as stone.
Something came over me, enshrouding me, grief perhaps.
There had always been that tangible line between existence and hate
That she had walked for so long.
I was treading it now.
I finally realised what it must have been like to be her.
To carry around inside you the lust for revenge and the burning desire that went with it.
Yet at that moment of realisation came the fear.
The fear that drove her.
The fear that spoke in a cruel whisper,
"Do you really think you are capable of protecting what you love,
Because I can take it away so very easily?"
I knew, for I was incapable.
I couldn’t stop it.
I couldn’t protect her.
She had never asked for my protection,
She had never seemed to need it.
She was the one always looking out for me.
I was the liability,
I was the lose link in the chain.
I never understood until that moment why she let me stay.
I used to think it was because I cleared a space
In the darkness of her soul and let in a little light.
I was wrong,
The answer was much more simple.
So simple that I may never have understood.
She was lonely.
It was a loneliness borne of self hate and depreciation,
That is like nothing I have ever known, until now.
Now as I sit, huddled by myself, I can feel it.
It has somehow descended unwittingly on my heart and I am powerless.
If I could tear out my soul and lay it naked on a rock I would gladly do so,
For it is useless to me now.
I am empty except for a tiny ember I know that if I feed will consume me whole.
Much later, when the fear had passed,
I made her promise that if anything happened to me
That she would not become a monster.
I never made that promise to her.
Gabrielle of Poteidaea.