Xena awoke to the sound of knocking at their door and she sat up slowly, her eyes adjusting to the poor light of the room. After a few moments she got to her feet and approached the door, opening it gently.
"So sorry to disturb you, Xena, but I just had to check up on the two of you." The queen stood before Xena in her night robes alone. Xena yawned a little yawn and put on a subtle smile. She nodded.
"That's very nice of you," she said. "We're fine, Gabrielle's fine… She'll be alright. How's your daughter?" The queen was the one to put on a small smile this time.
"Iphigenia's just fine," she said. "She's shaken up, but I trust that in a few days she'll be back to normal. She gets her strength from her father." Xena came all the way out of the room then, shutting the door behind her silently. "She wants to speak with you in the morning, though, if you will allow it. I'm sure that she wishes to thank you."
"That's fine. I can speak with her tomorrow." Xena was fully awake now. "She was very brave, you know."
"She get's that from her father too," the queen said with a bit of a chuckle. "That's the one thing that the two of them share the most, though, out of everything…" She paused for a moment, thinking of her daughter and her husband, the two people most precious in her life, and light tears came to her eyes. She reached out and touched Xena's hand, and it was all the brunette could do not to flinch away from the spontaneous physical contact. The queen held Xena's hands with a gentleness that the blue-eyed warrior only knew then to be maternal, and she relaxed. "Thank you," the queen said softly. "Thank you so much for bringing my daughter back to me, back to us." At this, Xena couldn't help but to smile, thinking briefly of her own mother. Her hands were released. "If there is anything that the two of you may need or desire, we will grant it to you to the best of our abilities, I swear it."
"There's nothing that I want, but I appreciate the offer. So long as Iphigenia is safe and Gabrielle may have some time to heal before we leave, there is nothing else that I could ask for." The queen nodded at this.
"Very well, then. Now why don't you head back to bed and try and get some sleep? I'd hate to keep you up much longer-"
"It's fine, don't worry about it," Xena said. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
It had been a few days since the battle with Black Pegasus just outside of Artanes, and Gabrielle was healing well. In fact, she was able to hold herself upright and even walk, although she did find that another body was required so that she didn't eat marble flooring, that other body usually being Xena's. The blonde felt bad for using her friend as much as she did, however, and decided that her fighting staff would prove to be just as effective, if not more so, for the remaining time of their stay.. The only problem was that she had absolutely no idea where the thing was. This, however, was where Xena (far more able-bodied than Gabrielle at this point) came in and one day, not too long before noon, the brunette went out to search the wing of the castle she and Gabrielle had stayed in- The only wing they had seen at all, in fact.
The day was bright and clear, beautiful through the windows in the halls as Xena passed by. She tried running that awful night through her head only in an attempt to retrace her steps and maybe figure out where Gabrielle's staff was; it was possible that it could have fallen into a corner somewhere, or even have rolled under a door and into a room seldom used by the family during all of the confusion in the dark. But with a second thought Xena realized that the staff would have been found by now, were it in the castle, by a servant and returned, what with there being so many of them constantly running around the place. That meant that the staff had to be somewhere outside of the castle, which limited its whereabouts…. Sort of.
Xena ventured outside in search of Gabrielle's fighting staff, very alert and aware of everything around her. She figured it best to have a look in the stables, knowing it was a possibility that the staff was dropped in moving Gabrielle from Argo to their chambers. The warrior was disappointed though when she was proven wrong. There was no staff in sight, but she was greeted with enthusiasm by her horse. Xena smiled, approaching Argo, and reached up to stroke the mare's nose.
"Hey, girl," she said gently. "You know, I wanted to thank you for helping me a few days ago… For helping Gabrielle." Argo blew a puff of air out of her nostrils. "I don't know what I would have done if I would have lost her." Xena paused for a long while, still petting Argo absent-mindedly. She looked down unseeingly, her mind literally going nowhere. Then, "You haven't seen her fighting staff, have you?" Argo lifted her head back and nickered, her eyes widening for just a brief moment before relaxing again. "What do you mean? She didn't even have it when I… It wasn't even there that night, was it? Gabrielle hasn't had that thing since she took the women to the woods." Argo neighed at this, rearing her head back and lifting up on her two hind legs. "Oh, stop that!" Xena scolded. Argo rebalanced her weight on all four hooves. "This isn't funny! Now I have to go on a wild goose chase for a… Stick." Argo whinnied, bobbing her head up and down. "And you know what? Just for that, you're coming with me!"
Xena went out with Argo, heading back towards Black Pegasus' ruined camp. If the staff wasn't there, she figured she would take to the surrounding woods and look within them. Since there hadn't been a rain once within the past week even, there was sure to be blood left on the trail from Gabrielle's attack and capture, and the fighting staff couldn't possibly be far from there. Xena came out into the clearing in a rush, but slowed easily to a pace good for legitimate searching. The brunette guided Argo around charred tents and broken glass with care, her eyes and ears keen. She searched the camp for nearly twenty minutes before finally deciding that the staff wasn't there. After all, even despite the camp's respectable size, if she hadn't found it yet she simple wasn't ever going to. And in this decision, Xena turned Argo around and headed for the forest.
The trail was longer than the blue-eyed woman had recalled, and she began to wonder how far Gabrielle and the other women had gotten before the ambush. Her question, though, was answered quickly when she came upon a darkened patch in the soil of the trail. There were scuff marks around it, those of both an escape and a struggle. Xena dismounted Argo, pulling her reins over her head and looping them firm in her hand. She lead the horse forward a few steps, examining further. She could tell immediately that once Gabrielle had been hit, she went down and stayed down until she was confiscated. The scene that played out in the warrior's head made her blood boil, but she tried to focus instead on the face that her companion was fine now and that everything was over. She stepped away from the bloody stain in the earth, looking around. The staff had to be there somewhere, right?
"Looking for something, Xena?"