***Disclaimer*** I don't own the characters from Xena Warrior Princess. I just play with them from time to time.
A/N: I PROMISED I WOULD TRY AND FIX THE PAIRING OF CALLISTO AND THE BIG X, SO HERE I GO!
"ARES! Get out here now."
The God of War emerged from his room, scratching his beard and stifling a yawn. Just what he needed, his hot headed sister on the war path. He smiled to himself, the Goddess of Love on the war path, now that's different. Is there anything I can't do?
"Well sis, nice of you to drop by. After 4 years you decide to come home. Did ya miss me?"
"Hey bro, yeah I did, sorta. Anyway what have you done!" The Goddess of Love was trying to focus on why she was there, momentarily forgetting. "Oh yeah" she started to squeal at her brother. "I leave to do some love stuff around the traps and what happens? I have a short blonde, very irate warrior chewin my ass out because of a rumor she heard. Like I said, what have you done?"
4 Years Ago in a Far Away Land…..
It all started 4 years ago after the fall of Xena. The great warrior had fallen (deliberately mind you!) in a great battle in Japa. Her sacrifice was meant to free the souls of Higuchi, 10,000 or maybe 100,000 souls, anyway a whole heap of them, however Akemi had lied to her. Xena's little friend Akemi said that she must remain dead if their souls are to remain in a state of grace (whatever that means). Anyway, basically Akemi lied because she was actually in love with the great warrior and wanted her to stay dead so they could be together forever. Unfortunately Xena trusted her old flame and when the time came for her ashes to be released into the fountain, well let's just say it didn't happen.
Akemi, the selfish little brat had deceived Xena into staying dead and she missed her window of opportunity to return to the living to be with Gabrielle.
So, there you have it. One dead warrior and one grieving warrior. What a mess!
One would think that with time, the young warrior would recover from Xena's death however that was not to be…
Gabrielle had taken Xena's death hard and why shouldn't she, not only did she die and Gabrielle lost the love of her life, never to be seen again but Xena chose to stay dead instead of being with her soul mate. This made the great warrior's death even harder to take.
Gabrielle went through all the emotions of losing a loved one, you know the steps of grieving, shock, denial, depression, acceptance, anger etc. The blonde warrior was however, hung up on one of the emotions….. that was anger. She was so angry at Xena, unable to comprehend exactly what the dark warrior must have been thinking at the time. At first she thought her actions stated quite clearly "I don't want you anymore, you'll be OK find someone else to travel with."
Ha!, what an idiot, Gabrielle knew Xena was a brilliant warrior and strategist however she absolutely sucked when it came to matters of the heart. Xena never took into account those left behind, how it would affect others around her, especially the most precious person in the world to her. The one that was suppose to mean everything to her.
Her beloved soul mate would always be the first to raise her hand to go into battle, always be the first to say, "here take my life it's not worth much." It reminded Gabrielle of the time Xena volunteered to dive into the volcano to rid the world of Hope. By the Gods! It was Gabrielle's daughter, let her do it!
Alas no, Xena had to take charge once again and volunteer to do the dying. Gabrielle was totally pissed off!
What gave Xena the right to always think that her life was not as important as another.
It boiled down to two facts. One is that she still felt guilty for her past actions and needed to be punished for them and the other, she was after all the great warrior princess and there was no other fighter like her, so she believed. Well how wrong she was. In her final days, Gabrielle was just as good a warrior as herself.
Gabrielle, had spent the last 4 years wandering aimlessly through the land of Chin and India trying to come to terms with Xena's death. She missed her terribly, unable to focus on life in general. Her wellbeing deteriorated over the first few moons, her body was nothing but skin on bones and her mind hardly ever in touch with reality. Gabrielle was slowly but surely going insane.
By day she would hide from contact with other humans only coming out at night to forage for food. She was filthy and disgusting to look at, she hadn't bathed in moons and stank to high heaven. The blonde warrior was no longer a warrior, she was broken, lost and alone in the world. She wanted to die.
Surprisingly Gabrielle was still alive after another year of self pitying existence. Not wanting to join the human race she preferred her animalistic way of life.
It wasn't until the third anniversary of Xena's death did Gabrielle come to her senses, that is what senses she had left. The young woman realized it was time to find their daughter Eve. Gabrielle couldn't believe 3 years had passed and was ashamed with herself for being so selfish and not thinking of Eve the moment her mother died. She needed to contact Eve and give her the news.
After many weeks of physical therapy, eating properly and a little meditation to regain her strength in mind, body and soul, she planned out her strategy to find Eve.
She travelled further south through India hoping to come into contact with anyone that may have met the Messenger. For moons she searched for her daughter with no success. The moons passed and another year had almost gone with still no luck of finding Eve. No one had seen her or even heard of her. Gabrielle turned her attentions north and across the land of Chin, however still no luck. Was she dead? Could she too be gone out of her life?
Gabrielle decided to head towards home, going via Rome back to the amazons. She had no idea why she wanted to go through Rome, maybe her subconscious knew there was a slim chance that Eve was there.
During her travels Gabrielle had finally accepted the death of her lover and was now wanting human contact again. She wanted sex. Once or twice she would frequent brothels to satisfy her needs. It wasn't love she searched for, as Xena she understood, was her one and only true love. All she wanted was sexual contact with another human being.
It was time to go home, back to the amazons to settle down, where else would she find such a selection of brave, healthy, beautiful young women. After a lot of soul searching what else was there. Maybe she could start a new life with one of the amazons. She wanted a companion in life, even if it wasn't with her soul mate, she wanted someone.
A few more weeks had passed and Gabrielle was almost finally home. She was just on the outskirts of Rome heading out when she heard strangers talking about her warrior princess. What they were saying couldn't be correct for they were discussing her as if she were still alive. Unable to control her curiosity any longer she approach the two men and asked them as to whom they were talking about.
She was shocked and amused for they both said it was indeed her warrior princess. Of course she didn't believe them, until…
"Fuck!" You have got to be kidding me, what did you say?" Gabrielle had one of the men by the throat pushed up against a tree, her hand squeezing his testicles. He was screaming in pure agony unable to answer any questions she may have.
"You swear on Ares head that Xena Warrior Princess is alive? On what proof do you have?"
"On th..th.. the proof that we know her mother and grew up with her. She is like our sister. We saw Xena about 10 days ago just south of Amphipolis. She lives! And who might you be?" He asked in a very quiet manner not wanting to upset the woman.
The blonde warrior released the man, realizing he was no threat to her. "I am Gabrielle, Xena's companion. I do not believe you, she died in Japa 4 years ago. So do not tell me she lives, you lie!"
"My dear friend I do not lie. She lives." He held Gabrielle's hand and looked deep into her eyes realizing this woman was hurting beyond his understanding and tried to convey the knowledge he had about the warrior to her without hurting her further. "Gabrielle, Xena did die in Japa 4 years ago, however by some miracle of the Gods she again took breath 2 days after her demise.
Gabrielle looked at him and his friend earnestly, by the Gods he believes what he's saying, is it true, does my true love live?. At that point everything went black, Gabrielle had passed out.
Her nostrils flared as she came around and her eye's scrunched at the stench. "What in God's name is that smell!"
"Pig's fat burning, we're making you some supper. You fainted earlier and I told my brother it has to be because of hunger. Why look at you, you have no flesh upon your bones only sinew. My dear we need to fatten you up."
Gabrielle groaned, her mind was reeling where in Hades am I, who are these men? and I fainted, why? Oh shit, shit, shit…. they said Xena was alive Shit!
The blonde tried to gather her emotions and calm herself down. She looked at the two older men, one was short, bald and past middle age while the other was tall and lean and a little younger than the other. They said they were bothers, sure they are and Xena's my sister!
"Excuse me good man, what is your name and where am I?"
The two men went over to Gabrielle, one of them helping her to sit up while the other had the prepared stew to feed her. Her acute sense of smell took one wiff of the meal and she lost what contents she may have had in her stomach all over the floor. "Gods I'm sorry, I guess I'm not hungry at the moment."
She tried to smile at the same time while trying to control her gagging reflexes. Gods this sucks, it smells so bad and they want me to eat it, no way. I'd rather eat Argo's food.
"Argo, I forgot about Argo, Xena's gonna kill me." Silent tears now streamed down the blonde warrior's face. She turned to the two men who were staring at her with perplexed looks on their faces. In a whisper Gabrielle explained the situation regarding Xena's beloved horse and that they had left him in a stable in Rome before they departed for Japa.
"I am so sorry, my dear, maybe he is still there you never know." He gently patted Gabrielle's arm, giving comfort to the warrior. "My name is Calis and this is my brother Angus." He indicated toward the taller man. "You fainted earlier so we bought you to our home which is just outside of Rome on the way to Amphipolis. When you're well rested we could help you find Argo if you like."
Gabrielle was now cleaning the floor after her little mishap earlier. She threw the last of the bucket of water to wash the area down before handing it back to Calis. "Thanks Calis but I need to find Xena however I believe a little chat with a certain God will be in order first. She shook both men's hands and thanked them for their generosity while apologizing to Calis for harming his manhood earlier. He blushed and accepted her apology.
"If ever you need anything, or if you just need to talk, our door is open to you Gabrielle, farewell and good journey. Say hello to Xena and her beautiful wife for me."
Gabrielle stopped dead in her tracks, she turned and slowly walked back towards the two men, her eyes darting from one to the other. She stood almost on top of the taller brother, peering up at him with tears in her eyes. "Angus! di….di.. did you say wife?!"
"Why yes, that was why we saw Xena 10 days ago, it was to attend her joining ceremony." The tall man smiled and began to walk back inside his house. He turned and began to wave at Gabrielle. "Good journey my friend, take care."
Gabrielle was stunned, she walked into the woods before collapsing to her knees and with one deep breath she screamed "APHRODITIE!"
A/N: That's it for now. Hope you liked it.