Disclaimers: The following story is classified as Fan Fiction. The characters of Xena, Gabrielle and others who have appeared in the series, Xena: Warrior Princess, are the property of MCA/Universal Television and Renaissance Pictures. I only borrowed them. The story itself is mine and cannot be redistributed in any form without my consent.
Timeline: In the series, consider this a standalone story near the end of season 2. It's my version of how and why Gabrielle lost her blood innocence. No Dahok, no Hope, etc.
History Cast in Amber
by LZClotho
(c) July 1997
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - BURYING DREAMS
The battlefield was strewn with bodies. Gabrielle could see Draco at the far end of the battlefield, burying someone. He was shirtless, shoveling dirt in a mound.
Xena put her hand on Gabrielle's shoulder. "Probably one of his lieutenants."
Gabrielle nodded. "Well, we'd better get to it."
Xena took the shovel and Gabrielle struggled to drag the bodies near where Xena dug their graves. By noonday, both women were aching and covered in dirt and sweat, but nearly half the bodies were now covered in the soil. Fracchus' body waited off to the side. Gabrielle unconsciously skirted around it.
Xena noticed and stepped out of the hole she was digging. "Gabrielle, get over here."
Gabrielle stopped in her task of dragging a burly soldier towards that hole and looked up. "I'm already coming. Hold on."
Xena shook her head. "No, put him down, bring Fracchus over here." Time to get this out of the way. She'll either break, or start healing.
Gabrielle looked at the bloodied body, and started walking toward it. Xena held her breath, watching with her hand above her eyes so that she could see Gabrielle despite the sun almost directly in front of her.
The bard crouched next to Fracchus and looked into his face. He wore a shocked expression, which Gabrielle wiped off with a smoothing hand over eyes, nose and mouth, slackening the rigid muscles.
Ares watched from the darkness of the trees. Xena always fascinated him, but during their burial task, he found his eyes drawn to the bard almost as often. What a puzzle she was, and yet, not a puzzle at all. She was, quite frankly, amazing. No wonder Xena likes her. If I was in a different line of work, I might like her too.
Xena waited, and watched. Gabrielle had finally raised up so that she could get some leverage to drag the body toward the grave. She pulled on the shoulder guards of Fracchus' armor, and finally the dirt beneath his body relinquished him and he slid forward abruptly. Gabrielle lost her balance and stumbled backward.
Xena jumped, but fought with herself to remain where she was. Gabrielle had to do this alone.
The bard struggled another few feet with her burden and fell onto her butt on the ground. Xena nodded, relieved the situation was going to begin to resolve itself for the younger woman, as tears poured over Gabrielle's cheeks. The bard pounded Fracchus' chest, and then stopped to stare at her fisted hands. She cried harder, realizing what she was doing. "Oh gods, no!"
Xena struggled with herself only another moment before giving in to the ache of watching her friend's suffering and ran the short distance separating herself from her friend. She gathered Gabrielle in her arms. "Shh, Gabrielle, it's all right."
Gabrielle pulled away. "How can you touch me," she screamed and started to scramble to her feet. "Oh gods, Xena, it hurts!"
Xena nodded and clasped the bard tighter.
"I really did it," Gabrielle cried. "I've killed someone!"
Ares found himself surprisingly moved by the crying bard, more than he ever expected. He regretted his crass words to her on the battlefield and wondered what he ought to do about it, if anything.
Xena and Gabrielle remained in a heap next to Fracchus' body for a long time. The bard cried; Xena cradled her friend.
Ares watched, trying to sort out his own thoughts. Suddenly, the god straightened at a voice in his head. "All right, I'm returning." With that he vanished and returned to Olympus.
He stood in the great chamber. Zeus sat enthroned, his great hands holding to the armrests. "You called?" Ares bowed and smiled ingratiatingly at Zeus.
Zeus said nothing. In another moment, Artemis entered the room, so did Hades and Persephone. "We have a problem," the King of the Gods finally said.
"Oh?"
Artemis stepped forward. "You didn't keep the girl bard safe as you promised Xena."
Ares shook his head. "I didn't promise her that. I promised I wouldn't harm her friend. And I didn't. She did it all on her own."
Zeus shook his head now. "Technicalities will get you nowhere."
Ares closed his eyes and groaned. "What is it you want me to do?"
"You let a blood-innocent kill for the first time, Ares!" Aphrodite entered the room. "She was meant for different things, and now you've ruined her."
"She ruined herself! She loves Xena more than her blood innocence," argued Ares. "I can't take it back even if I want to."
Zeus eyed Ares. He was not telling them everything. "What's going on here? What have you done?"
Ares told Zeus about Fracchus, and wanting to give Xena back his army. He explained that the bard, he'd thought, stood in his way. So he'd stolen her. But nothing went as planned. Xena made him promise to keep her safe. He hadn't expected Gabrielle would think to jump into the middle of a battle.
"She seemed too mousy for that." He sighed, "I was wrong."
"What has tied you so tightly to the warrior woman?" demanded Zeus.
"I can't say. Even to you."
"I'll find out eventually," replied the King of the Gods.
"Not everyone knows all of your indiscretions, either, Zeus, so leave me a few secrets, too." Ares turned on his heel and started to stride out of the chamber.
Zeus' voice called him back. "I have not given you leave to depart," the King of the Gods boomed.
Ares frowned, but turned, remaining near the archway.
"Anyone else able to shed some light on this situation?" demanded Zeus.
Artemis stepped forward. "I was here when Gabrielle was a guest of Ares yesterday. We spoke."
Zeus listened as Artemis related what she had gleaned from her brief encounter with the bard. "For a bard, she wasn't very talkative at the time," the goddess offered when her information was so brief.
Zeus sat back, his eyes drifted to his amphitheater. He'd had Xena's statuette made when she broke her allegiance to Ares with Hercules' help. And the bard? He thought back to the night he'd commanded Hephaestus to render Gabrielle.
He'd almost forgotten. Unlike some of those who earned the attention of the King of the Gods, the bard seldom needed his protection and almost never called upon his name ...except in her stories.
She had absorbed a story at the Bard Academy while reading through the large library of scrolls. Around a campfire later, she'd retold it to her warrior friend. And it was as if Zeus had never heard it before.
Not a simple retelling, she'd told the story of him and Danae and their love making the hero Perseus. It wasn't about a demi-god Perseus' heroic exploits, and it wasn't about a cruelly fated Danae being cast adrift in the seas by her father-both angles every other bard in Greece would take with the story.
She told the story as if she'd been spying on him and Danae in her father's palace, witnessing their nights of love locked behind closed doors. Gabrielle the Bard from Poteidaia had found the heart of the King of the Gods and revealed it so plainly the heavens erupted that night in one of the few rainstorms caused by his own tears.
What could happen to her heart, to the inner ear she used to see that deeply into someone's soul, now that she had taken a life? He did not want to contemplate the death of the young bard's soul. He came to a decision as he studied the faces before him and finally spoke, his voice shaking the very foundations of Olympus. "Hades, you will not mark this event in the chapters of the bard's life. Understand?"
"We're just going to let it pass?" Hades asked. Zeus nodded. "She killed another person. Even as bad as Fracchus was, it deserves some mark," Hades argued, knowing he had to tread lightly. He wanted the bard off the hook too, but all the angles had to be covered, so no one could challenge the ruling later.
Ares nodded. "And balance. Zeus, you're always saying how the world needs balance. I lost Draco as a follower because of Xena's twisted sense of humor. I should at least be permitted to keep the possibility that her bard will follow me."
Hades frowned. "No. That wouldn't do. The bard is too close to Xena. If you try to corrupt her, Xena could rampage."
Ares' grin widened. "Even better. I'd get Xena back in the fold and gain her bard in the bargain."
Zeus barked. "Ares, you're heedless of my will. I will not have the talent of that bard squashed by your heavy-handedness."
Ares bowed low. "I was just thinking ..."
Zeus exploded. "Then stop thinking! Some are never meant for battle, Ares! "
Ares frowned in the face of Zeus' rage, and mentally retrenched. "So, what's the decision?"
Zeus reiterated his earlier decision. Hades nodded. "As you will it." Proper form had been satisfied after all. Hades and Persephone blinked out, returning to the Underworld. Zeus watched Ares pace around the room, waiting to be dismissed. He wanted the god to regret his actions, but so far, Ares seemed only to regret that he was going to lose a potential follower.
"Hephaestus!" boomed Zeus.
"What are you going to do, Zeus?" asked Ares.
"I need to discuss with him a fitting prison for a god."
"All this because a bard lost her blood innocence?"
"You are defiant, unrepentant, and have done something which probably conflicts with the Immortal code. I would do more. I will call you for sentencing. You are dismissed." Zeus' voice rumbled through Olympus and brooked no argument, not even from the God of War.
Ares blanched and blinked away.
Gabrielle and Xena stood in the dying sunlight. Gabrielle handed Xena the torch to light the funeral pyre under Fracchus' body. The warrior shook her head and handed it back to the bard.
"You have to do this, Gabrielle. Fracchus' shade won't leave you alone otherwise."
Gabrielle sighed, looking over her shoulder, wondering if the man's shade hunted her even now. She stepped forward, thrusting the torch between the branches. In another moment the conflagration started.
Xena looked at Gabrielle expectantly. "No, Xena, I can't."
Xena shook her head. She sang a song of warriors, pride and death on the battlefield. It wasn't the same song she'd sang for Marcus or Perdicus, but it was an eerie tune, meant to be heard by the soul of the deceased in the Underworld.
Gabrielle withdrew her panpipe, and, from somewhere in herself found the emotion to blow three notes, each longer and lower than the last. The final note hung on the air, caught in the breeze.
Xena enveloped her in a hug as the final note finally dissipated. They turned and walked away from the burning pyre.
Gabrielle and Xena returned to Amber that night. The bard was tired, emotionally and physically from the strains of the last two days. If Xena would admit it, her own exhaustion was only partly due to her injuries. She was also emotionally a bit of a mess.
Amber was close by and was home to new friends; Xena couldn't yet travel very far, and Gabrielle needed to retrieve the bag of scrolls she'd left with Theocratus. The Amber bard and his daughter were happy to see the pair, welcoming them with open arms and a call to a healer to review the warrior's wounds.
Neither woman revealed everything that had happened over the last two days. The experience was too new. Xena only said that the women were being returned, and Fracchus had been dealt with. He would cause no more trouble.
They asked to retire early. Theocratus and Arianna agreed. Both women were covered in dirt, dried sweat and their smooth faces were deeply lined with unhappiness. Theocratus wanted to ask, but a look to Arianna, who shook her head, stayed his tongue. He kissed Gabrielle on the cheek and shook Xena's hand before waving them both to the back of the house.
Arianna accompanied the women to the room they'd shared before and promised to bring them food shortly. Both women stripped down to their shifts to be comfortable. Xena stretched out carefully on her bed. Gabrielle fell asleep practically the minute her head was lower than her shoulders as she flopped out stomach down on the other bed.
Arianna came in with the tray of food and brought it to Xena.
"Thank you."
"You've done a lot for us, too. This is nothing compared to what you've been through for us." Arianna took her leave as Xena nibbled on an apple from the well-laden platter.
Xena looked over at Gabrielle, studying the bard's face in repose. "Gods, I'm sorry, Gabrielle," she whispered at the unhearing bard. "I'd have preferred to die than have you kill for me."
That thought brought Xena's attention to her wounds. She felt the stab wound itching in her back, a sure sign it was healing. And the wound in her side pained her when she breathed too deeply. By all rights the sword wound should have killed her. It hadn't.
Xena remembered the dream she'd had the night after the battle. She hadn't thought about Mendices in ages. The man had been a new recruit in her army. Against her better judgment, she let him stay. She had wanted to turn him away from war, away from killing. But he'd sworn he was doing it for his family. He had, for a time, become her lover, the man she turned to when the battle was over. Together they made love with an abandon, a sense of awe in living, that she hadn't captured with anyone else. Marcus had been soothing, tender. Borias had been adoration. Mendices, was, well, Mendices.
He was fierce, passionate, giving and taking of her love. She'd always slept so deeply after they made love. It had been during some of her hardest campaigns, some of her darkest years on the far side of Greece.
He was her nursemaid for all the cuts, scrapes and wounds she received in battle. He let no one else near her until she was in perfect health. "To preserve your image," he'd tell her. He wasn't particularly skilled but his touch was gentle and the attention warmed her heart.
She rolled over, remembering she'd wondered why he'd left so abruptly about three months after joining up.
Ares appeared in the corner of the room, standing in the shadows. "Hail and well-met, Xena," he whispered. "How are you feeling?"
Xena looked from Gabrielle to Ares and slowly got out of bed. "Shh. Don't wake her. She needs her rest."
Ares replied, "So do you. Oh, I have news. Zeus has decided that Gabrielle's little incident down here against Fracchus doesn't get recorded. Hades was ordered to wipe the slate clean."
"So, you don't get her this time."
"Nope, guess not." Ares crossed his arms over his chest. "She's got spunk. I can see why you like her." Xena came closer, hearing an intimacy in Ares' voice she didn't like. She moved with stiffness. Ares' eyes grew dark and concerned. "Are you sure you're all right?"
"Concerned?" Xena met his gaze squarely. Sarcasm laced her words.
His look became closed. Ares turned his head aside, masking his face. "You're my prize. I want you to live long enough so I can claim you again." Ares vanished.
Xena looked over at the bard, whose deep breathing became suddenly hitched. Gabrielle began to moan, then whimper, then the bard cried. Xena waited not another moment, forgetting about Ares and her own dream. She went to the bard and rubbed Gabrielle's shoulder and hair, willing her to calm.
The tenor of Gabrielle's cries changed and finally disappeared. The bard rolled over and Xena wiped the tears from her pale cheeks. Gabrielle opened her eyes to find Xena's blue eyes warm on her face, edged with a deep sadness.
"Are you all right?" Gabrielle sat up and gripped the warrior's arms, looking her over critically.
Xena nodded. "I'm fine. I came over to see how you are." She made the statement an inquiry with an arch of her eyebrow.
Gabrielle shivered remembering her dream. "I was reliving yesterday. In flashes, but all the same..."
Xena hugged Gabrielle close. Neither woman spoke for the moment. When Xena relented and released the bard, she said quietly, "Tell me about Olympus."
It would take her mind off of yesterday, she guessed, so Gabrielle complied. She closed her eyes and told the story. She was halfway through describing Ares' chamber when Xena put a finger to Gabrielle's lips. "It sounds like a beautiful place. Certainly nicer than here. So how'd you come back so quickly?"
Gabrielle sighed. "You have such a bad habit of asking ahead in my stories. If you'd be patient, I was getting to that. It's a mirror Ares has in his chambers. It's shrouded most of the time, but when he wants to watch a battle unfold, he uncovers it. He showed me the beginning of your battle with Fracchus."
Xena sighed. "I'm sorry. Go on with your story."
Gabrielle nodded. "The neatest thing was Zeus' amphitheater. He had statuettes for all his favored mortals. I saw Draco, and you. Hercules was on the shelf. There were likenesses of Perseus, Achilles, Troilus, Cressida, just anyone. I tried to find out why he commissioned your likeness, but Artemis didn't seem to know."
"A likeness of me? Great. Another god wants me to play with." Xena sat back, laying her hands on her lap.
Gabrielle shook her head. "I don't think so, really. Artemis seemed to think that Zeus just watches."
Xena shook her head, unable to believe that. "Gods prefer to play with mortals, Gabrielle. Look at Ares and what his obsession with me did to you."
The bard looked up at Xena and her eyes began to brim with tears. Xena put a hand to her friend's lips and nodded. Gabrielle knew Xena understood something of what she felt.
Then she really looked in Xena's eyes. She saw a guilt there, a guilt the woman didn't deserve to claim. She put her hand on Xena's arm and started, "Xena, please, it's my fault. All of it. Ares may have been after you, and ... Oh, never mind. I killed Fracchus, you didn't." Xena frowned. "Don't blame yourself," Gabrielle translated herself succinctly. "Listen, I'm going to go for a walk. Do you want to come along?"
Xena felt like Gabrielle really wanted her to say no and was only offering out of politeness. "I think I'll stay here. Maybe have Theocratus spin me a tale."
"Don't go hiring a new bard on me, all right?"
"I won't."
Gabrielle pulled on her skirt and pulled a blouse over her head. She left quickly, closing the door to the room as she went. Xena remained on Gabrielle's bed for a long while. Then tired, she laid back down.
Sleep claimed her almost immediately.