The
following companion piece to Gabrielle’s reflections in "What Stories Are
For" is from Xena’s perspective, after she’s sent her soulmate away from
the battlefield in Japa and prepares to face the enemy alone.
What Stories Are For Too
By IseQween
August 2002
I have my eyes closed, listening. Waiting for war to reveal
itself behind the unnatural stillness of the forest. Like I told Akemi, that’s
what I’d learned to focus on, what I thought I needed to survive. Maybe she
couldn’t understand, but Gabrielle did. It’s one of the things I wanted her to
know. She’ll have to do that on her own if everything goes as planned.
"Xeenaaa!"
I do sense many horses, munitions clanking on carts, the rasping
of weapons being drawn. But what impresses itself most upon my consciousness is
another sound, whether on the wind or in my mind I can’t tell. Either way, it’s
Gabrielle. Calling me. Trying to defend her Warrior Princess once more against
the darkness I’ve worn like my own skin.
"Xena?!"
I can’t turn back, of course. I don’t need the distraction anyway
this time. Her voice has become my anthem, stirring my blood in a good way,
even as it rallies me for the fight of my life, to kill and die probably as I
haven’t before. It summons the Xena who makes a difference, who does what
others cannot. And may actually be worth the effort. All that practice
listening for war, yet I will get through this day attuned to love.
Amazing.
Never have I felt myself so invincible or the blood so pure. I
glide and slice and parry like I’m already on some other plane. Impervious to
my mortal wounds or the sheer impossibility of what my body seems to be doing
on its own. It’s as though my time is standing still, and despite the thrashing
of limbs around me, the countless soldiers hurtling my way, what I hear, what I
see and feel is her: my center of calm, my point of light, my shield against
any doubts. My grace. Her gifts freed one dead soul, why not 40,000?
Even if this is my finest hour, it can’t be Gabrielle’s, no
matter how much we wished or she deserves the credit. I owed too much before
she saved me. My honor and any justice lie in paying that debt on my own. I
cherish her choice to share it with me, to bear all the painful consequences of
a life at my side. Just because she’s gotten so good at killing hasn’t changed
that she’s still too good to die.
"Gabrielllle!"
I cry out for her anyway, partly in agony at leaving her like
this, mostly to conjure up visions of an eternity looking into her eyes. I see
myself again on my knees – winters ago outside Poteidaia, here in Japa as I
prepared for this battle – resolving to do what I must. And Gabrielle, again
appearing before me as though the answer to a prayer I didn’t realize I’d made.
She’s heard me like no one else. Taught me to listen her way, to
hear music in a life of broken strings. Made us a song, blessing me to play
forever in her heart. She’s resurrected me before in so many ways. Maybe she
can figure how to bring me back in the flesh this time. I can’t worry about
that now – about anything other than this possibly final chance to justify what
got me here and her unwavering faith it would be good enough.
"Gabrielllle!"
I pray she too will go on from those moments when we were last
together, when our eyes spoke of love too full for words or time. That she
remembers "the pinch" as another way I entrusted my life to her, so
she could give it back to me, whole. I’m reliving that like I told her I would,
until I have no more seconds left. Whatever happens after, it will still be her
voice, her hands that send me on my way.
It’s growing quiet again. Only a few more soldiers, and then the
leader I can barely see through the red in my eyes. Not as attractive as
Gabrielle or exactly what I’d hoped for the finish of my career, but he is part
of the job I’m here to do. The means to an end bigger than us both. Wonder
which of us will be more surprised when I become a ghost? I believe
everything’ll be okay. That Gabrielle will be all right. I have faith now too.
I’m not sure what she’ll make of all this – she’s the one with
imagination – only that it will be whatever she says. She’ll fill in what’s
missing. Probably give me eloquence I never had, more tenderness than I’ve
shown, nobility that’s really hers. She’s completed my dreams and thoughts
since the beginning. She is my breath, and will no doubt always find me in the
sun that warms her face, the earth she curls her toes in, the flames lighting
her nights.
So what if everything is more than I – than anyone else –
could’ve imagined, or if others try to give it their own spin? Steel whooshing
through air is so finite, so unpredictable sometimes. It means little when you
don’t know how to listen right. My "battling bard" does. Ha! She’ll
have the last word, count on it. We'll live on as always, however she defines
us, from that first day she called me "friend." Isn’t that, after
all, what stories are for?
X
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