Chapter 1

She stood motionless on the cold and dreary deck of the ship she was traveling on without even realizing the passing of time, gazing off into the darkness. She couldn't really tell how long she had been standing there, it seemed like forever to her as she listened to the waves crash against the side of the vessel. She was anxious to reach port already, they had been sailing for about three days and she couldn't wait to be back on Greek soil again. It had been so long since she last stepped foot on that land…Six years had passed since she left everything behind to avenge Lyceus' death. A lot had happened during her time away, nasty and soul scarring things that couldn't be undone and today she was a completely different person than when she had left all those years ago.

She had led an endless path of blood and destruction through the various lands to the East in order to get what she really wanted- to hunt down the bastard who had cold bloodedly taken her brother away from her. In the meantime, she had even gotten mixed up with some shady looking people but it didn't matter to her, as long as they could help her achieve what she wanted then she was going to use them all to her advantage. But as the years slowly went by, that goal appeared to be drifting further and further from her view and instead, her mind was plagued of other thoughts that were far more sinister. The hatred that was inside of her for what had been taken away from her had started to fester and the constant whispers in her ear about dominating all of the known land to exact her revenge seemed like a light in the darkness.

She had done some unspeakable things to countless lands and she couldn't believe how easily she had been led astray to help the cause of another. The darkness growing inside of her proved to be incredibly easily fanned into a roaring fire up to the point that she could do nothing else but satisfy that craving of making the world hurt and burn. Those were her darkest years and she still wasn't sure how she had managed to make it out of it in one piece, though she knew she would be forever changed by it. There was no going back to what she used to be, the simple village girl whose only worry was how she was going to get out of the chores her mother had assigned her for the day. No, she was a warrior, one whose name had struck fear into the hearts of men and made nations tremble.

She couldn't escape from the things that she had done but all she wanted to do now was go home. She wanted to go to the one place that had been her refuge for so long before she had left on the path of destruction and spiraled out of control, back to the place where she felt safe before she let the manipulation of another coax her into something that she thought she wanted and when she finally did get it she realized that she was really all alone. That scheming bastard had abandoned her at the first chance he got once he no longer had any use for her. She couldn't believe that she had been so blind by his lies, that the hatred that was consuming her soul had veiled her vision to the extent that she couldn't see what she was really doing.

She hated herself for having allowed him in, in every way. She had never loved him, she knew that, but there was a bit of trust on what they had built together and when she thought he was going to be there he simply ransomed her off to the one person that he knew she hated with her entire being. Cortese…. The bastard had served her up on a silver platter to him, he took what he wanted from her and didn't even bat an eye as he left her there in chains at the feet of the one who had taken her brother from her.

Her new found hatred for the one who had betrayed her had given her a new focus. She had spent a few days chained against a pole in a tent in Cortese's camp but what they didn't know was that she had let them think they really had her. Sure, it looked like she was the one that was in trouble as the guards would come in and taunt her of what was going to happen to her but she had been planning that moment for years and nothing was going to get in the way of her revenge.

As the fifth day passed, she patiently waited for the sun to set and when everyone was too busy celebrating some recent raid they just finished, she slipped from her restraints and quietly escaped her confines. As unnoticed as a shadow- previous training from a time that seemed so long ago and that had prepared her for this moment- she gathered her weapons and headed towards her target. She slowly made her way to the commander's tent, unseen and swiftly slipped inside. Although she had made sure that she was as stealthy as possible, the filthy bastard wouldn't have taken notice of her presence anyway since he was too busy fucking some defenseless maiden they had taken from the village that they had just destroyed.

Xena couldn't care less about the girl, she wasn't even part of the plan, but the desperate look on her face as she silently stared at her while Cortese brutally thrust himself within her, was one of a soundless plea. She couldn't ignore the pain that come across her face when Cortese savagely jerked her closer to him and relentlessly started impaling her. The sounds of his filthy grunts as he enjoyed the way his cock plunged into her and the single tear that ran down the young girl's face as he continued to soil her had sparked something in Xena. She didn't know why but she felt compelled to end her suffering and she quickly walked up to them and forcefully pulled him off of her and knocked him to the ground.

Cortese had been in shock that there was someone else in his tent and that it had been his prisoner that was now standing over him. He never had time to react before Xena pulled her blade from its sheath and plunged it into his chest. She took joy as she watched the life slowly fading from him but the last thing she wanted was to give him a quick death, so she pulled her sword out and left him there to bleed to death while his men rejoiced just a few feet away from their dying commander.

She spent the following few days just wandering from place to place, not really able to decide what her next move should be. She had thought that once Cortese was dead, that emptiness she had been feeling all this time would finally leave her troubled soul. But it was nothing like that… She finally killed him, yes, but she still had this unpleasant sensation like nothing had changed. Something was missing and that is when the thoughts of wanting to go home started to invade her mind. Going back to a place where she was welcomed was like a dream come true and though she hadn't realized it then, she had been happy there. It was her home, no matter how dysfunctional things had gotten, how crazy of a turn her life had taken, one could always go back home. She briefly wondered if she would be easily accepted when she got there, a bit nervous of the reaction she was going to get.

A lot of time had passed and things must have changed a little. She wondered if it was still the way she remembered it, it seemed like a faraway memory but she could still picture it clearly in her head. She really wanted to return there and she was gradually growing more and more restless on that blasted ship. Just a few more hours until sunrise and they would be docking and then soon she would be able to go back to the one place that was home in her heart and take comfort in what she hadn't realized until recently that she had missed throughout all those years of loneliness.

It was her home after all, how could she be turned away?