Chapter 1: The Oracle at Delphi
"I'm really going to miss you, Xena," Gabrielle said, smiling at her friend.
Xena glanced over at Gabrielle and grinned back. "I'm going to miss you, too."
The two friends walked along the main street in Athens in silence for a few moments. Gabrielle was on her way to the School of Performing Bards again. She and Joxer had been married for four months now, and in another seven months or so they were going to be the parents of a newborn baby. Gabrielle and Joxer both loved their life of adventure, but agreed that for their child's sake they should play it safe. So they had compromised; Gabrielle would finally get her chance to go to school and become a professional bard, and Joxer would settle down and live the life of a farmer at their home in Potidaea. Of course, if danger threatened the school or Potidaea, they were agreed that they could be heroes long enough to rescue the place. Once Gabrielle graduated from Bard School in four or five years, their child would be old enough that they could go back to their dangerous lifestyle. Gabrielle knew her sister would be happy to watch the child when she, Joxer, and Xena went anywhere especially dangerous, and by then the kid would be old enough to start learning the 'family trade' on the safer excursions.
"So, where are you going next?" Gabrielle asked, breaking the silence.
"Well," Xena said, shifting Argo's reins to her other hand as she led the horse along the street, "There's been talk of trouble up near Trachis. I'm going to go check it out, and I'll be stopping at Delphi on the way. Maybe their oracle will have something to say about it all."
"It sounds like fun," Gabrielle said wistfully. "I wish I was going with you! Good luck, Xena." The two women and the horse all came to a stop as they reached the School of Performing Bards. "Well this is it," Gabrielle said. "Goodbye, Xena!" Impulsively, she threw herself at her friend and hugged Xena fiercely. "You take care of yourself, okay?"
"Don't worry," Xena said, pulling away and smiling reassuringly at her young friend. "I'll be fine. I don't think Ares would ever live it down if he let something happen to me without winning me back, anyway."
Gabrielle laughed. "You're probably right," she agreed, as Xena swung up onto Argo's saddle.
"Goodbye, Gabrielle," Xena said, then turned her horse northward, in the direction of Delphi. "Yah!" Argo sped off at a canter, easily weaving her way through the people and carts on the road as Gabrielle watched them leave.
"Bye!" Gabrielle called again, then turned to go into the school.
It was about a week's ride to Delphi. Xena could have gotten there sooner, of course, but she valued Argo's health and respected her far too much to expect that kind of hard riding of her when the need wasn't great. As Xena swung down to the ground out of the saddle and led Argo in through the city gates, a young man in a white, hooded robe approached her.
"Xena?" he asked quietly, looking at the warrior princess.
"That's me," Xena responded immediately. If it was a fight he wanted, she had nothing to gain by hiding her identity, but she suspected his mission was peaceful.
"The oracle is waiting for you," the young man said, gesturing for her to follow him. "Come." He turned and walked swiftly away in the direction of the oracle's temple.
Cocking an eyebrow at Argo, Xena obligingly followed. When they arrived, two more young acolytes appeared. The young man who had led Xena and Argo to the temple turned to Xena and said, "These two will look after your mare. She will be well cared for during your absence."
My absence? Xena wondered, but she knew better than to ask a mere messenger boy about whatever the oracle's plans for her might be. She suspected that he knew, at least in part, but she also suspected that he would just tell her that the oracle herself would explain everything. Xena turned Argo's reins over to one of the other acolytes, and followed the young man inside the temple. He gestured to a table just inside the door, and after a brief pause Xena unsheathed her sword and laid it there. A moment later, her chakram joined it on the table, then the young man led her further into the temple with a smile.
The oracle was standing in front of the altar while she waited. She turned to face Xena and the young man as they arrived. The oracle smiled at Xena. "You don't trust me," she commented softly.
"Should I?" Xena replied evenly.
"I have no reason to harm you, Xena," the oracle responded with a smile of gratitude. "I owe you my life." She gestured with one hand toward Xena's metal breastplate. "You keep your breast dagger with you."
Xena didn't deny it. "What do you want?" she asked. "I came here to see what you knew about Trachis, but it seems you were already waiting for me."
The oracle looked solemn. "Leave us," she said to the young man with a small dismissive gesture. He nodded and quietly left the room. When they were alone, the oracle continued, "Your deeds are well known, Warrior Princess. You have come to be a great hero for our world."
"Well, I do what I can," Xena replied. "but I wouldn't neccessarily go that far."
The oracle smiled again. "Oh, yes. You are a great hero, Xena, as is your young friend Gabrielle. You tip the scales in favor of goodness and justice. You are changing our world with your courage, but you are needed in a different time."
"A different time?" Xena echoed. "Do I need to travel to the past to change something?" She was more than a little reserved about that idea. She had dealt - literally - with fate before and had seen what the consequences could be. She hadn't been willing to trade her happiness for the enslavement and abuse of many, including Gabrielle, and she wasn't any more willing to do similar now. "Just what is it you want me to do?"
"No, not the past," the oracle said with a small shake of her head. "There is great need of your courage in our distant future. Centuries from now, in fact."
"Centuries?!" Xena repeated incredulously. "But how is that possible, and how do you know about it?"
The oracle ran a hand along the smooth surface of the altar behind her. "I know many things," she said mysteriously. "I can see a bit into the future. I know what is in many minds and hearts. This time, however, the gods themselves have intervened. They have revealed a vision of the future to me. Not much, but enough to show me where you are needed."
"How do I get there?" Xena asked.
The oracle smiled widely at the warrior princess's acceptance of the quest. "It requires a ceremony. My acolytes will prepare you while I meditate. Return here at sunset, and I will tell you what you need to do."
Two young women in acolyte's robes brought Xena to a private room where she could prepare herself for that evening's ceremony. The room was comfortably furnished, but not extravagant. Xena was pleased to note that the temple of the oracle obviously had better things to spend their money on than impressing visitors with rich furnishings.
"Xena?" one of the acolytes said with a shy, hesitant smile. As Xena turned to look at her, she saw the girl was holding a familiar purple silk robe in her hands. "I found this in your saddlebag. You will need to change out of your armour for tonight."
"Why?" Xena asked immediately. "I thought I was supposed to help rescue the future?"
"You are," the acolyte agreed, "but you cannot take anything of war, battle, or violence with you. That means you'll need to leave your armour and weapons behind."
Xena gave one brief nod of assent. "All right." She drew her breast dagger out of the front of her armour and tossed it onto the armchair next to her. Without hesitation, she began undoing the buckles and straps on her armour. The second acolyte took the pieces of armour as Xena removed them, and laid them neatly on the chair next to her dagger. Then the first acolyte moved forward and held up the robe as Xena stepped into it and slipped her arms into the sleeves. Finally, the second girl moved close to Xena again to tie the sash around her waist, pulling the robe closed around the Warrior Princess.
"Come," she said, stepping away with a smile. "It is time. The oracle is waiting."
Each girl reached out a hand to take one of Xena's, and they led her from the room. As soon as they turned away, Xena couldn't help rolling her eyes - why did everything in an oracle's temple have to be so ritualized, anyway?
As the acolyte had said, the oracle was indeed waiting when they arrived. She stood in front of a large, flat, rectangular stone altar that rose impressively to her shoulders behind her. She had apparently been adorning it with pale lavender aster flowers, and placed the last small cluster of the gentle blooms on the altar just as Xena was led into the small outdoor garden where the altar and oracle stood. Seeing Xena's gaze fall on the blossoms in curiousity, the oracle smiled and explained, "The goddess Asterea's tears... May they help us to right some of the world's wrongs."
Xena nodded once, then looked straight into the oracle's eyes. "What do you want me to do?"
Before answering, the oracle waved a hand at the two acolytes, who bowed and retreated. Once the oracle was alone with Xena, she finally spoke.
"What do you fight for, Xena?" she asked unexpectedly, looking at the Warrior Princess with a keenly observing expression.
Xena hardly had to pause to consider before she answered, boldly accepting her guilty feelings of the past the way she had always insisted of herself. "I've done a lot of terrible things, and now I'm just trying to make up for it in whatever small ways I can."
"That's the reason you fight," the oracle replied pointedly with a small shake of her head, "but what is it you fight for, Xena? What are you trying to do?"
Xena paused a bit longer this time. "Well," she said slowly, "I try to help people who need it. I guess I'm trying to change the world for the better."
The oracle smiled approvingly. Apparently, the conversation was going the direction she intended. "Good," she said. "Do you think that fighting is the only way to do that?" When Xena opened her mouth to reply, the oracle quickly held up a hand. "I am not here to judge you, Xena. I agree, sometimes fighting is exactly what is necessary - but do you think that there are also other ways to cause change?"
"Of course," Xena answered, wondering just what the oracle was trying to say. "What's your point?"
The oracle turned aside to face the table, placing both hands on its smooth surface and turning her eyes skyward. "If you do fight, or use any violence on this journey you have agreed to undertake, you could cause great harm instead of doing good. I do not know more, to advise you better. I only know that the situation in the future calls for a peaceful answer to the problem."
The Warrior Princess took several slow, quiet steps forward until she came right up to the oracle's side. Placing her hands on the table next to the other woman's, and resting her upper body weight on them, she asked the question that was foremost in her mind: "Why me, then? Why any warrior?"
"You are not just any warrior, Xena," the oracle almost breathed, "and because... you are a peaceful soul. You have thrown yourself into violence to spare it to others. Even in your history of evil acts, I sense this. There was always someone to protect, wasn't there? At least any time you knew your own motivation."
Xena gave no answer to that. I'm not so sure, she thought doubtfully.
Taking a deep breath, the oracle finally gave Xena her next instructions. "You have already lain aside the articles of war. Now you must also set aside the violence in your heart, however pure your motive. That is why I have told you all this. You must focus on trusting in the good of mankind, and believe fully in defeating this evil without striking a single blow, even barehandedly." She turned to gesture first at Xena, then the table spread with flowers, and Xena obligingly climbed onto the table and stretched out on her back.
"Close your eyes, Xena," the oracle whispered. "Close your eyes and open your heart. Breathe deeply, then open your eyes again and try to see a way of peace to change the world..."
Xena did as she was told, closing her eyes and taking several slow, deep breaths. She forced herself to remain still and relaxed even when the world seemed to tip and sway so that she felt almost as though she would slide off the table in any direction at any second. She could hear her own heartbeat sounding loud in her ears like the beating of Amazon drums, and the occasional few words here and there as the oracle offered up prayers for her safe journey in a soft voice. Then, suddenly, she heard singing coming from very close by at her side. Startled, Xena sat bolt upright and her eyes flew open.
She was no longer with the oracle. Instead, she sat on a soft surface like a cross between grass, cloth, and woolen lambskin. Turning her head quickly towards the sound of the singing, she saw a freestanding window in a black frame through which she could see flashes of people. From the speed at which the images changed, she assumed they were some type of vision. A quick turn of her head to the other side revealed a startled young woman, oddly dressed and sitting on a nearly equally odd-looking couch.
Xena put it all together and asked the young woman, "Is this a temple? Are you an oracle, here in the future?"
The girl found her voice and finally replied, the words spilling out quickly now in an excited tumble. "Oh my freaking gosh, Xena? I am completely going to flip. No, check that, I am obviously already flipping. I mean sheesh - people keep saying 'Xena's in my closet' and stuff but that's just to be silly!"
Xena decided to interrupt her odd train of speech before it became any longer. She'd learned early on to do just that in her friendship with Gabrielle, who had also always been quite the talker. Cutting directly to what could be answered most readily, she said, "Yes, I'm Xena."
"Oh, facepalm!" the girl went on in her strange dialect, suiting actions to words. "Now Xena Warrior Princess is in my living room - and in that purple kimono-thing of hers, no less."