"SERPENTIS"
-- serpens -entis c. a snake , serpent.
"C'mon! You get to lie in bed for a few days, and at the end of it, I-" her laugh was low and sultry. "We, become invincible."
Xena popped another grape into her mouth, rolling it around with her tongue before biting into it, loving the way Borias watched her teasing, full lips.
The dark haired Hun eyed her warily, "What makes you so sure this Cho Mei will be willing to defy Daddy dearest and lead a couple of complete strangers to the family jewels?"
"Because," She rose from the small ornate chair, prowling closer to him, to wrap one arm around his neck and trail the fingers of her other hand down his chest towards his family jewels, "Borias," She spoke his name chidingly, her fingers begining a playful dance that sparked the hunger in his eyes that could always convince him to follow her where words wouldn't suffice, "I've been doing some asking around about the Chos, and it seems before The Moonstone made its way into the family treasury, Mei was betrothed. Tragically however," her voice dropped an octave as she began to work the buckle of his belt, "It seems he died of a mysterious illness before the wedding."
Borias' hand swiftly caught her own,stopping her progress, "That still doesn't explain why we don't just storm the fortress and take this stone and whatever else we want."
Undaunted, she drew even closer, until she could feel his hot breath and the heat rising in her own blood, "The island is too well fortified for a straight on attack."
"Xeeena..." He reached his free hand up to cup her chin possesively, "Even if we make it into this island fortress, how do we know this Moonstone isn't some peasant fable? I don't like the idea of wasting my time...especially when there are so many better uses to be made of it..."
He leaned in for a fierce kiss, but she turned her face at the last minute and nipped his ear seductively before whispering in it, "I know because I've seen it in action."
TWO WEEKS EARLIER...
"Load the wepons on first." Xena leapt gracefully from the bow of the ship to land on the docks. Her legs had only been healed a matter of weeks now, and the freedom of movement it once again afforded her still surprised her at times.
They didn't embark until high noon and she still had a few hours to kill before Borias arrived with the second half of her men. Then they were back on the open sea with their prow toward Egypt. She shared a brief nod with the two men that always made up her personal guard and set off through the docks district to see what it had to offer. The smell of the sea mingled with the smell of fresh fish, and all around her, hawkers and sailors shouted and cursed back and forth respectively. The buildings were all low and squat, gradually rising in tiers, climbing with the surrounding landscape. It was a poor section of the city and the docks. She had chosen it for specifically that reason, to allow her ships and cargo to remain relatively inconspicuous. So when the trio of rich sedan chairs rounded the head of the street Xena stood surveying, they were beyond out of place with their rich red silks, and richly dressed guard, armed to the teeth. The villagers around her fell to their knees instantly upon sight of it. A hand covered in ornate rings demurely emerged from the silk curtains to graciously acknowledge the signs of respect. The guards eyed Xena and her men critically, the only three in the street not doubled over in homage, but in the end decided to disregard the foreigners. The procession had wound its way nearly out of sight, when a great commotion rose among the guards as a a masked, robed figure suddenly leaped down from a nearby roof top and cut down four guards with a few deft sword strokes. Before the surrounding guards could react, the figure had stabbed the blade through the silk covering of the sedan chair, and the rich lord inside fell from his perch, clutching at bloody robes. Far too late, a member of the body guard plunged his own sword through the blue figure's chest, and his comrades added their own thrusts to ensure the job was finished. There was now a great deal of shouting in the square. and Xena motioned to her men to follow as she shoved her way through the crowd towards the chaotic scene. A man who appeared to be the head of the guard had approached the second sedan chair and was engaged in a clipped exchange with its inhabitant. From the third chair, a young woman emerged, despite the efforts of the guards and ran towards the bloodied lord. She knelt shaking at his side and shouted something in a foreign tongue to the handmaiden that had accompanied her. The maid reached into a large velvet pouch at her waist and pulled out what appeared to be a pearl, though it was larger than any pearl Xena had ever seen, and it seemed to have a strange green-ish hue to it. The rich young woman took the stone and held it near the wounded man.
"The Moonstone!" She heard someone gasp beside her.
The woman's companion nodded, "That Yakuza wasted his life trying to kill Lord Cho for nothing."
To Xena's amazement as she watched. The stone began to glow with a faint green light and within moments, Cho's bodyguards were helping him to his feet, where he looked distastefully at his bloody ruined robes and spared the girl who had saved him with the strange stone, a curt nod before climbing back into the sedan chair and drawing the curtain. The small procession disappeared from view, the crowd now too thick to pursue it.
TWO WEEKS LATER...
"Just think," Xena rose from the low bed, snatching up Borias' fur cloak to wrap around her shoulders, "A stone that can heal mortal wounds just like that," she snapped her finges for emphasis, crossing to the moonlit window of the captain's cabin, to gaze out over the open sea, "We'd be undefeatable in battle and they say it can cure any sickness on top of that. We'd be immortals...gods..."
Borias rose in turn, not bothering to cover his own nakedness, and crossed the small cabin, wrapping his arms around her waist and began to trail kisses down her neck. His hands found their way under the cloak, drifting lazily along her thighs as his lips descended to her shoulders.
She shut her eyes, drinking in the feel of his deliciously skillful mouth and callused finger tips. Once she had that stone, no mortal concerns would dog her. Nothing would stand in her way of conquest of any kind.
"Xena." a low rap at the door startled her out of her thoughts.
"It's midnight." Borias sighed into her hair.
"Good. Wait on deck for my orders, Dagnine," she called through the door.
Xena turned and found Borias' lips in a searing kiss. When she withdrew her tongue from the warm cavern at last, her eyes gleamed with anticipation for the power that was just within her grasp a few leagues inland. "Get dressed. Immortality's waiting."
Borias grinned wolfishly and released her to seek out the cotton shirt and leathers that lay already neatly arranged on a side table. Xena found her own attire, an ornate silk gown and slipped into it, taking up a small sheathed knife that had lain beside it.
"Borias."
The Hun turned to her and a mingled look of confusion and irritation crossed his handsome features at the sight of the blade. "I thought you said no weapons and no armor. Xeeeena, this is not the time to be straying from the plan."
Xena blinked innocently up at her lover, "Just a small adjustment. We need Cho to buy the disguise."
Borias shook his head and began untangling the ties at the side of his tunic, "We agreed we would claim to have escaped a slave ship from Jappa. Not likely we would wash up on the beach well armed."
"No." she agreed, "and we won't."
Borias looked up at her, his frown deepening, "Then what's the blade for if-"
His words were cut short as Xena skillfully unsheated the kinfe and stuck it deeply in his chest in one fluid movement.
He cried out and reeled away from her, "You treacherous snake!" he choked.
Xena laughed darkly and pushed him back onto the bed, "Watch your tongue Borias, or it'll be next." She reached a hand toward the hilt of the wepon still buried in his chest, but he managed to grab her wrist and wrench it away. His breathing had become laboured and he held a hand over the seeping wound. Xena rolled her eyes at his venemous expression, "Relax. I didn't hit anything vital, just muscle and tissue." She made another move to extract the blade, but Borias tightened his grip painfully on her wrist. She returrned his glare, "The longer this is in, the more poison gets into your blood, so either you let me pull it out, or I present Cho with a corpse."
"Poison?" He wheezed. Nearly all the blood had drained from his face.
"Had to make this look real didn't I?"
He released her hand, still glowering at her, though his eyes were getting glassier by the second. Just as swiflty as she'd rammed it into his chest, she pulled it free again, and he cried out a second time, though with more pain that surprise this time. Xena resheated the bloody weapon and picked up a small pouch from the table next to her, shoving it into Borias' trembling hands.
"Put this in the wound and stop looking like a kicked puppy. We have to get moving while the tide's still with us."
"THIS was not the plan." He ground out.
"No, but there's no known antidote for Teisis poisoning, so you might want to think about getting to the stone with the legendary healing powers."
Grudgingly, the Hun managed to smear some of the herbs from the pouch inside the wound and Xena hastily bandaged it over his shirt. Getting up on deck and into the long boat proved to be more of a challenge than she'd expected, as the poison she'd purchased the previous day began to take effect far quicker than she'd anticipated. Once they were out on the open sea, the rowing of the small craft was left exclusively to Xena, as Borias had little enough strength to lean over the edge, violently ill. His condition forced them to row considerably closer into shore than she would have liked, even with the cover of darkness. The approach to the island was made in silence, save for Borias' wretching and breathless cursing.The last leg of the journey, a swim, had to be shortened accordingly.
A furlong from shore Xena tossed the oars and retrieved a large axe that had sat at the bottom of the boat. "This is it," she whispered.
Borias lay unmoving against the stern of the small boat.
"Borias!" she hissed impatiently.
Groggily the hun stirred and stood up wiping his mouth with a groan. His face was waxen in the wan moonlight. He nodded blearily at her and stared down at the water below, trying to force his cottony brain to remember what he was supposed to be doing. Xena came to his aid with a sharp kick from behind that sent him sprawling over the edge into the dark ocean. Determinedly she hoisted the axe and in a few strokes had the little boat a pile of driftwood. She joined Borias in the freezing water, having to grab him under the arms and guide him to a piece of the shattered boat, to which he clung weakly. The tide guided them the rest of the way ashore, just as the sun began to emerge over the rim of the ocean to the east. Xena pulled herself up on the beach, cursing the silk that had become considerably heavier when wet. Beside her, Borias lay shivering violently. In the distance, the towers of the Cho fortress stood against the lightening sky. Any minute now, a patrol of guards would come thundering down the beach and she would spin the story she'd laboriously prepared about being kidnapped from her noble family and imprisoned in the Jappa fortress, and of course the cruelty of the wound inflicted on her betrothed captured along side her. Speaking of which...Xena rose onto her elbows and eased toward Borias' trembling form.
"Borias?"
There was no answer.
She hauled him none too gently from his stomach to his back, peering down shrewdly at his pale features. Her fingers went to his neck, feeling an erratic pulse. If he died on the beach, this whole thing went to Tartarus. She got to her knees and pulled him into a sitting position to better clear some of the saltwater from his lungs. A few sharp strikes to the chest and he'd coughed up a satisfactory amount. He hadn't woken however, even from the pain of her battery against his wounded chest. He was freezing, his body wracked with violent shivering. The earlier bloodloss and now the cold water, had done him no favours. She unwound the bandages to check the wound and grimaced at the angry waterlogged flesh. Careful not to further disturb the wound, she re-bound it and shifted Borias' position in her arms so he could benefit from more of her body heat. "Don't worry, Borias. It'll be hot baths and silk sheets soon enough."