Chapter One
Xena gazed at the sunset, a sense of assuredness gripping painfully at her chest and closing up her throat. She was doing the right thing, she knew it. That didn't make this any easier. She pulled the bard closer to her. She would make good on her promise, even if it meant defying the gods. She wasn't sure how she would stay out of the afterlife or away from the karmic cycle, to stay by Gabrielle's side, but she knew no matter what she'd be there to watch over her, to wait until she could hold the bard once more, just like this, when the bard would embrace death as a friend at a ripe old age. She would make sure of that. She had to. As the last rays of the sun were cut out of the sky, an ice cold wave swept into her. She shuddered and looked at the bard.
"I love you, Gabrielle."
At first she didn't move. Then, slowly, Gabrielle steeled herself to look at Xena. But she only glanced, and seemed to see right through her, eyes unfocused.
Pain ripped through Xena, her voice came out of her strangled throat, "Gabrielle…"
But Gabrielle didn't hear.
"Xena…" she whispered. She shook her head, eyes puffy and full of tears. Then a yell swept over them, and the sound of running footsteps from behind.
"Gabrielle!" Xena yelled urgently, writhing in mid air as she tried to twist around to meet the oncoming threat. She couldn't move. But Gabrielle was already up and jumping over the fountain to meet her adversary. Her rush of wind as she swept past pulled at Xena, turning her half way around. Xena watched in horror as the skinny samurai ran, eyes blazing and deranged, long hair whipping behind him, mouth stretching in a violent scream. But the scream from Gabrielle was that of a wild animal, she snarled with complete loss of control. The two met and exchanged blows, Morimoto's sword focused and determined, Gabrielle's wild and desperate. As they circled each other Xena saw a look of savage rage on the bards face, her eyes swollen half shut with tears.
"If you will not give me the honor of a warrior's death, then by the name of Yodoshi I will take your head back to redeem myself!"
"Idiot!" Gabrielle cried, "Yodoshi is destroyed! And you deserve worse! You fraud! You… you…"
Gabrielle fought as her whole body shuddered with sobs, oblivious of the danger she was in. She couldn't win like this, she had to focus, she had to listen, and Xena had to warn her. But even as she took in a shallow breath to call out a word of caution, the earth breathed out, blowing her, like a fuzzy seed caught helplessly in the air, straight past the fight and off the mountain, into the waiting night sky.
"No! No! Gabrielle!" Xena cried, clawing desperately at the air, trying in vain to pull herself back toward her friend. But the indigo darkness swallowed her up. As the sound of the battle grew distant, Xena began to sob, her breath dragging in and out of her with more and more violence, filling her ears with her anguish.
She couldn't leave, Gabrielle needed her, she had promised, she couldn't be taken away! Time must have slipped by, for it felt like an eternity, yet her fear and her tears grew no less. A stormy grey cloud gathered around her, and she could feel her tears falling from her lidless eyes like rain as she was whipped around.
How could she have let this happen? What kind of a torment is this, to be tossed about helplessly, not knowing the fait of her friend, of her soul mate? What god would create such an afterlife and trap her here, away from her duty, her promise. It was unlike anything she could have expected, anything she could have prepared for, and yet it was all her fault. How could she have trusted Akemi. Akemi! She had made it sound so easy. She should have never taken her word for it, never have believed that her gods would let her go and follow Gabrielle without a fight. Akemi had deceived her before, how is it that she was so surprised when it all went wrong? And now. Now? Trapped in the wind, kept from the karmic cycle, kept from any afterlife, she would never see her soul mate again.
No. How could that be? She had seen their lives intertwined, time and time again. Had her decision to stay dead have such horrific consequence that she had broken her destiny? Where was Aphrodite? Where, she shuddered, was Ares?
Her soul shook with emotion. Over and over again she went over these thoughts, finding unending torment in the complete impossibility of ever finding relief. She refused to stop, not until she had found her way back to Gabrielle.
Then, for the first time, something within her broke. She couldn't do anything. With horror, the reality of her own helplessness crashed over her.
She cried out for help.
Fingers closed gently around her, and the earth pulled Xena back into its bosom. Xena shuddered as, for the first time since Mt. Fuji, she felt warmth seep back into her, filling her soul with earth, and merciful darkness swallowed her up.
