Let the Circle…
***
Who says karma only goes one way?
***
The fire crackled merrily, completely at odds with the warrior's mood. She sat glumly hunched over it, listening to the muted nighttime sounds of the forest and wondering yet again if it wouldn't be easier to go back. Sure, standing up for the underdog and doing the right thing is all well and good, but warlords certainly eat better than wandering ex-warlords-turned-hero. Now she was stuck with what she could catch herself, in this case a rather small rabbit. She poked at the chunk of meat slowly cooking over the fire. Not black enough yet. She couldn't be a mercenary either, she mused. It was too close to what she had given up. She couldn't let herself be tempted… She sighed and hunched over farther.
There was a sniffling sound from the underbrush, and the girl that had been following the warrior finally made an appearance. The warrior smirked to herself; the girl had lasted three candlemarks longer than she had predicted. Outwardly the warrior merely scowled.
The girl shivered. "I was gonna follow you, Xena, and help you when you needed me," she began haltingly, "but it's colder than I thought it would be… and I didn't remember to bring food…"
The warrior wordlessly handed the girl the rabbit-on-a-stick. The girl gratefully accepted and sank to her knees by the fire.
"I'm not going to baby-sit you, Gabrielle," the warrior drawled. The girl looked up, dismayed. Fearing she was being sent home, she mustered her arguments and prepared to do battle, but the warrior wasn't done speaking. "You'll have to keep up with me. You'll pull your own weight and help with chores." The girl's eyes lit up, and she let herself smile a little. She raised her head to look at the warrior.
Their eyes met for the first time, really met, and there was a flash of recognition between them. The girl's eyes filled with wonder, and the warrior's with shock and disbelief. The warrior looked away in denial as her eyes filled with tears. No. This wasn't possible. It couldn't be…
The girl was too amazed to speak, too dazzled to notice the warrior's shaking head. She said one word, filled with such love and compassion and hope and happiness that the warrior almost didn't register the word being spoken. "Dar?"
The warrior - a warlord from the age of fifteen, who had once plotted against the great Hercules - burst into tears. "Kerry," she breathed. The girl jumped up and threw her arms around the leather-clad woman and held on with all her might. The warrior hugged her back fiercely. "I didn't know…" she whispered.
"Neither did I," the girl said, not loosening her hold on the silently weeping warrior. "Not until just now… You've changed." The girl leaned back and studied the leather-clad form with new appreciation. "I've always liked you in leather, but the warlord thing? Not you, Dar."
"Yeah," the warrior hiccupped. "It's the military attitude. Must have gotten it from Dad. Navy SEAL Andrew Roberts Dad, I mean. But anyway, I didn't KNOW…"
"…until now," the girl finished for her. "I didn't either. What is it with this soul mates thing that we can't remember until we see each other? Who came up with that rule?"
"Dunno," the warrior answered, succinct as always. "Don't care. Now that we remember…"
"Never leave you," the girl assured her. They held each other for a long time, staring into the fire and feeling good in each other's company.
"Greece," the warrior muttered at last. "We've seen France, Australia, Iceland, even Samaria. Never thought we'd be in ancient Greece. Not a cell phone in sight."
"Warlord," the girl repeated. "You've been a cop, a writer, an actress, even a bounty hunter. Never thought you'd be a warlord." A pair of ice-blue eyes looked up at her, and she laughed. "Okay, it's not that far out," she admitted. "I just never thought you'd be so good at it." She put a hand on her warrior's cheek. "These are dark and dangerous times, love. You did what you had to do."
The warrior's gaze turned inward. "Sorry," she whispered.
"So many lives… so many sins to atone for…" She let herself float in the same
anguish and guilt she had earlier, but they were tempered and made darker by
the new memories that she possessed. At the time, there hadn't seemed to be a
problem with it; all the fighting and killing and pillaging was just another
day's work. But now, with Dar's attitudes and mindset sharing space with
Xena's, the woman was appalled at herself.
The girl's face grew lined, and she looked briefly world-weary, older than her years. "You didn't know," she said firmly. "Now you do."
A small part of the warrior detachedly marveled at the rest of her, so quickly she had gone from tight-strung bow to draped across the lap of a girl she had met only the day before. The rest of her glared at that small part, then snuggled deeper into the girl's embrace. It would be a little while before Dar and Xena could reconcile their differences, and they'd probably be going two falls out of three until then. Kerry and Gabrielle would be okay, given the fact that they had quite a few things in common, including a proclivity for shopping and a fondness for a certain tall, dark warrior. There would be a period of adjustment, as there always was, but ultimately love and karma would prevail. They were, after all, soul mates.