Timeline: This story occurs
after an attack on a warlord, but before the Warrior Princess started working
for the Greater Good.
Sex: Nope
Spoiler: None
Violence: Implied
Port Authority
By Kwipinky
The battle over, Xena, the Warrior Princess, Destroyer of
Nations stood proudly on top of a captured wagon of loot.
"Men, destroyers of villages, make a night of it. Eat, drink,
and be harsh. Tonight, enjoy your spoils and the port. But the celebration stops
tomorrow at dawn, and we will take Corinth."
"Xena! Xena! Xena!" The men applauded her allowance of a
celebration. They roared appreciation of their brief break.
Xena raised her gold cup and took a long steady drink, of
water, and tossed the chalice aside. She did not want to be a victim of a
drunken stupor; she was much too close to conquering Greece. She had
accomplished much since she began her path of death, and she rarely celebrated.
Xena traveled from bonfire to bonfire and listened to outrageous tales of her
inhumanity and when noticed she smirked evilly for emphasis.
Half a candlemark later she left to find respite away from
the celebration, so she set out into a copse of trees located near the town of
Poteidaia. Her army captured what Xena called idiot slavers; she took great
pride in humiliating their leader and took his army and cargo. Disgusted with
his groveling attitude she sent him walking, naked and weaponless. She released
his captives and told them where he was headed. Xena was not a slaver of
women and children. But somehow, she sensed she would meet him again, and
looked forward to a reunion.
In the woods, Xena spotted a large tree and it was very
similar to one she and Lyceus played and slept in as children. She climbed the
maple tree and rested in a crook with the leaves thick in the limbs. Peace, she
sighed, rarely enough did she feel so, so, nostalgic?
Four boys ran through the woods with a wineskin in their
hands.
Xena remembered playing with wineskins and pretending to be drunken warriors
with her brothers, but that was a lifetime ago. She shook her head to shut out
a particular memory, and a brief time later slept attentively. A trick she'd
learned from her brother too, awakened by the rushing feet she saw three boys
run out.
Weren't there four of them? She wondered. Xena followed them
through the treetops for a moment to determine what had scared them so
thoroughly.
The boys stopped running and bent holding their sides.
Sucking in great gulps of air, they began to argue.
"We can't tell anyone!" a blonde headed boy of about twelve
seasons said to a red headed youth about the same age.
"He'll die!" his brunette companion screamed.
"Shut up! The whole village will hear us! He's already dead,
and you killed him!" the blonde boy accused the redhead.
"No! I didn't! He isn't dead! He is asleep! Besides! You
stole the port!" red defended himself.
"I'm not taking' any blame!" blonde yelled and shoved his
companion to the ground.
"What now?" the smallest of the three, a brunette boy asked
with a shaking voice. Torn, he turned to head back in the direction they'd left
and pointed. "We can't leave him there!"
"I gotta go home!" blonde said and ran out of the woods.
"Wait!" brunette pleaded, desperation clutched at his words.
"We can't leave him! Please!"
"We must! Your father will kill you, and so will mine! We're
going home now!" red said and pulled the brunette, struggling behind him, out
of the woods.
Xena watched until they disappeared, and then, she listened.
The sound she'd heard was definitely human. She slid her lithe body down the
tree; took a step, listened, another step, and the ground squished in revolt
with each footfall.
A soft moan echoed in the thick musty air, and she stooped to
get a better look ahead. Stock still she listened and determined the moaning
sound's location. She rocketed herself forward landing beside a small form
lying in a bog.
She knelt and checked for a pulse. It was there, but very
weak, a second later and the boy emptied his stomach on her boots. She turned
him to the side and made sure his airway remained clear. The strong stench of
port assaulted her senses and she turned her head to find some fresh air.
She picked the child from the ground and headed into the
clearing where the boys had a small fire and where they had shared the wine
earlier.
The boy, still unconscious, vomited profusely. He moaned with
his wide opened-eyes fixed on nothing. She found some charcoal from their dead
campfire and mixed it with some herbs she'd found nearby. The herbs would serve
as a vomiting and diluting agent and the charcoal would absorb any port still
in his small stomach.
She'd used the treatment before in the tavern in Amphipolis.
She made a tube from a reed shoot, and then she poured the mixture down the
child's throat. She worked with him constantly rousing, jostling and without
talking she made progress in sobering the child up. She cleared the poison from
his body.
After a while she detected his pulse becoming stronger and
sat back on her haunches and surveyed her surrounding. She brushed his face and
watched him sleeping. He would be fine. But, he needed to be warm and she
looked around after hearing voices to get a fix on where to place the child so
he could be found easily when the villagers searched. Xena cocked her head
after she heard the voices coming closer. She turned the child on his side and
climbed a large tree and waited.
"Perdicus!" The searchers called for the boy. "Perdicus!"
"Over here! I've got him." A man called out.
Xena made sure they found the boy and watched as they took
his small form out of the woods. She sat down and sighed.
She remembered similar event with her younger brother. Xena
had stolen some port from her mother's tavern. Lyceus had challenged her to
steal the wine, and then to drink more than he did. He gulped the sweet liquid
and he passed out when the alcohol overcame him, just as the boy had. The
warrior remembered how frightened she felt when Lyceus fell over. The memory
brought back the sheer horror that gripped her as she tried to wake her
brother. Fear gripped her heart as she checked for his pulse and screamed his
name. When she failed to revive him, she dropped to her knees and sobbed like a
babe. She thought she'd lost him.
Suddenly, a woman appeared and saved him. A woman she'd never
seen before, or since. The woman foretold Xena she would one day do the same
for a child.
Xena shook her head. Foolish woman didn't know a thing. She
made was sure she was alone and exited the woods. A quarter candlemark later,
at dawn, she headed for her destiny at Corinth and left the town and the memory
behind.
~~the end~~
