~ Chapter Thirty Eight ~

Another day in pair-adise

"Xe...na?" The petite Bard's broken voice came out almost completely chocked by pain and disbelief, her body frozen as if she were an ice statue sculpted on the very top of Mount Etna while two salty tears made their way towards her dry, pressed together lips, and the Love Goddess couldn't fail noticing her friend's uncontrollably shaking hands, as her slender fingers automatically dropped the sais she'd been holding onto with every ounce of energy just minutes before, her legs almost giving out on her when Aphrodite placed a hand on her shoulder, forcefully snapping her out of the emotional imbroglio she was hollowing, pulling her back to a dim reality in which the Warrior Princess seemed to have turned into a mere heroic figure of the past, rudely mocked by Callisto's sick laughter which was nauseatingly spreading like a plague throughout Dahak's god damned temple.

"Gabrielle! Oh I'm so glad to see you've finally decided it was worth joining the party!" The Lunatic started her gloating routine on the most glorious and swashing tone she could come up with. "You've just missed all the fun though, but I guess we could do a little replay with you and the Bikini Girl, so that you don't feel left out in any way."

And only when no answer came and the Bard paid no attention to the Goddess' rattled-brained speech as if she wasn't even there, kneeling heavy-heartedly beside Xena's fallen body, did Callisto realise that her blabbering was actually useless, the Bard's soul being already too torn apart to still feel anything else except emptiness and loss, too saturated with suffering so that her mind could still cope with the surrounding details of life.

"What have you done?" Came almost inaudibly the Bard's semi rhetorical question, and though she was referring to Callisto's savagely executed deed, Dite, couldn't help feeling her own guilty consciousness screaming like crazy inside her head, the sight of the desperate Bard imploring her to take her back to the Warrior Princess suddenly washing over her taunted mind along with her cold blooded, repeated refusal.

"Me? Hmmm nothing much, just gave her a little well-deserved holiday, you know? I was thinking all this fighting for the Greater Good thing might be sorta' exhausting sometimes, so I actually did her a favour. No thanks needed. Just looking out for my number one pal." Callisto's blunt tone didn't fail to invade the room, hitting Gabrielle harder than a Roman chariot, causing the shockingly unnatural outburst of a very infuriated Love Goddess who couldn't help speaking her mind in a way that was totally out of her character but that would have surely made her big bro' proud.

"You heartless Bitch! You were always so quick on blaming the Warrior Babe for every single fucked up thing in your life, she did a tremendous, maybe even unpardonable mistake by killing your family but that doesn't mean she literally put a sword in your hand, forcing you to slash the throat of each soul you found in your path, does it? And yes she was a monster and yes she hurt you terribly, but she had the strength to change and leave her old ways in order to become a better person, instead of just living in darkness and vengeance for the rest of her life like you do."

"Oh sweet oblivion, I swear you and Gabrielle here do share the same brain! It shouldn't come as a surprise though since you get along so well and all! By the way, that was extremely touching coming from an air-headed bimbo like yourself, and I could even shed a tear or two, I really could, but I'm in too much of a hurry to waste my time with displays of affection and deep regret. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend."

That being said, with a discreet wave of her hand, Callisto vanished from the temple leaving but a curtain of burning fire behind her and a boiling inside Goddess of Love staring blankly at the place where her Brother's "partner" had stood, and desperately wanting to suppress the rage blazing inside her chest and mind, she powerfully threw what had to be a pink love bolt ten feet away, towards a half crumbled wall.

The irregularly shaped hole left in the still standing structure left her almost speechless though.

"Gabby... did you see that...?"

Gabrielle's spirit was too far away though to even realise that someone was talking to her, images from her travels with Xena spreading like endless sheets of parchment in front of her expressionless eyes.

"Gabby..." Aphrodite quietly insisted. "Can... can you hear me?"

Again, no answer came. Two sad, crystal tears travelling silently down her stone like face, telling the Love Goddess that while laying motionless upon Xena's lifeless body, the Bard's mind was already starting to slip away, heading imperceptibly towards that unknown nowhere where the Warrior Princess had gone.

While mourning was currently taking centre stage, located somewhere on the outskirts of an uncharted reality, things were not at all as they appeared for two heroic champions, madly thrust into a domain flourishing with tropical lush forests and running streams.

Elysium for what it seemed, looked like some amazingly impressive Garden of Eden ready to overcome fresh arrivals with it's dazzling beauty and knowledge as Xena's blurry vision finally managed to snatch a glance of the stunning view.

Raising from the ground, she exhaled on a breath of warm air.

"Gabrielle...? Joxer?..." The sound of no return became almost deafening as her voice echoed loudly in reply, perhaps this was Illusia after all?

Her next announcement appropriately summoned the poetic title of her son's name, somehow hoping he'd graciously present himself in the light to cast away the shadows of doubt swiftly invade her mind.

"Solan...?"

Nothing, not even the welcoming tone of "Mother," just the frozen fear of disappointment as burning tears languidly started rolling down her cheeks until the hurt gradually faded away and she was once again left standing in solitude.

Was this what Hell felt like, the alarming thought that leaving life on Earth could have ever set her mind and body free made Xena want to laugh, no she figured, not even in this lifetime could one catch a break.

Gently sighing, she allowed herself to enjoy an inspiring memory that abruptly flashed before her eyes, letting a small smile of delight escape as dancing images of Gabrielle showing her the error of her ways, learning to accept that forgiveness and love could be encountered no matter how bad the punishment for those heinous actions were going to be.

It was something Xena held near and dear to heart because it was the exact moment someone had gathered the guts to defend a known murderer, bravely standing up against her stubborn attitude and for the first time in a long time, truly believed in and saw past the monstrosity of what she'd become, introducing her to a way beyond the pain and suffering.

She was positive that event in history had been well documented in one of the Bard's scrolls, for all of time to see the legendary fable of the Warrior Princess' beginning and the grand finale of her end.

"I should have left you in Poteidaia." Perhaps Gabrielle would surely be on her way to becoming a proclaimed writer at the Academy of the Performing Bards now. Coming out of the reverie and desperately wanting to shroud the broken feeling of being alone, she gingerly embraced her arms for support, the fine lines of a particular laceration reminding her of a certain War God whose presence seemed to be lacking.

"Aresss?" Fell the harmonious tone of her voice, breaking the barrier of silence before casually melting into the fog, along with the ludicrous notion she'd begun to shape in imagining he might have by some unknown means been lucky enough to have landed himself in the exact same location.

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His head heavy as if he'd been drinking full barrows of Dionysus' potent liqueur three days in a row, and barely succeeding in opening his eyes for a second or two, enough to check out his surroundings, Ares somehow lamely managed to crawl two or three feet before finally falling face down on the reddish sand stretching all around him like an infinite sea of blood, and broken as he was, every inch of his body hurting like Tartarus, unable to feel but partially his arms and legs, for some unknown reason, the God couldn't help but frown at the idea of his wise rival sister or his mongrel brother seeing him like that.

"Those damn bastards would laugh for the rest of their scummy lives, that's for sure." He grumbled lowly, while clumsily trying to wipe the tasteless sand off his lips with the back of his already gritty hand, but instantly stopped the moment he realised that he hadn't done anything else besides filling his mouth with even more sand.

"Gods damn it!" He broke out, completely blown away by the unprecedented, humiliating situation he had wound up in.

And, under the adrenaline rush that had invaded his nervous system along with his every cell, fiber and organ, spearing throughout his exhausted body like a river flood on the driest of lands, he abruptly jumped to his feet, blustering ferociously at the top of his lungs the beastliest sound that his chest and throat were able to produce, the result of that inhuman breakdown surprising even his usually unsurprisable, narcissitic self.

Progressively, as his mind began to clear and his memories started to gather around a more central hard core, his eyes suddenly narrowed as he frantically started to scout the large area around him, as if something were missing from that definitely incomplete picture. Something or someone. To his much dismay though, he just couldn't put his finger on it and the throbbing inside his head sounded worse than a thousand crazy Amazons dancing under the summer moonlight on the noisy rythms of the ceremonial drums, chasing away any decent atom of clear thought.

"What in Zeus's sacred name is this red inferno?" He asked rhetorically as he finally noticed the cherry red clouds passively floating on the sky's vast ocean, and the brilliant mandarin sun burning like Hades' flames everything in its deadly path. Only then did the War God realise that he was fully covered in sweat and that he was most likely suffering of some kind of heatstroke, since one could literally fry eggs on his forehead and he was getting weaker and dizzier by the minute.

"Great! Just great!" He mumbled lowly under his breath, inhaling deeply as if that were the last breath he was about to take before crumbling on the ground again, and though his lungs were saturated with air, he still had the strange sensation that no oxygen what so ever had gone beyond his throat, the inner space of his ribcage feeling like a foundry where the temperature had reached maximum levels and was threatening to progressively turn everything into a liquid substance.

He had to get away from the sun's deadly rays and he knew it, and another bird's eye view along with some twenty dragged steps in the right direction, made him wanna' smile again.

Just one kilometre or so, right there, in front of him, an endless God blessed landscape of tropical forest with leaves as green as the oriental emerald, was unfolding like a painted canvas, and, surprise, surprise, an aquamarine sky resting on top of the infinite high blocks, propping it up just like black marble pillars held the roof of the Greek Deities' temples.

"Well I'll be damned! One out of two, I'm either dead or dying!" Ares cried out in awe, carefully stressing every single word, unable to restrain his utter astonishment while contemplating the golden, razor fine line where the two skies; a red one and a blue one were separating, giving birth to two distinct realms, as different as day and night, or at least that's what it seemed from where he was watching the fabulous spectacle.

As he gathered all his remaining force to walk in the direction of safety and shadow, a gentle breeze reached his heated, dehydrated frame and that's when he heard it! A voice! Calling out for him! Calling his name. And as he stopped dead in his tracks, closing his eyes for a short span of time, that divine inflection, only above a murmur invaded his mind, his senses, his entire being, refueling him with such an energy that he never knew existed.

"Aresss!"

And that was all it took, for, as if awoken from a deep slumber, his every thought, hidden desire and sensation along with his flesh and bones, responded to the call that had inflamed his spirit and reinforced his debilitated body through the mere pronunciation of his name, causing such an intense vibration inside his chest, that for a minute there he genuinely felt inner earthquakes shaking his heart and soul, a powerful eruption pouring once again life inside him.

"Xenaaaaaa! Princesssssss? Where are you sweet?"

Another surprise was yet to follow though, despite the fact that his vocal cords were about to snap when he shouted her name, he could actually hear the intensity of the sound diminishing as it travelled throughout the atmosphere.

"You must be kidding me!"

Barely advancing through the thick, hot sand, literally fighting his way throughout what now suddenly seemed to be an even vaster stretch of desert, Ares' mind instantaneously drifted back to what he liked to call 'The black hole of his immortal existence,' aka those despicable days he had spent as an earthling, almost chocking on his own vomit, smelling like a dead horse, sweat and filth oozing from his skin like a drainless spring.

And though he would have never admitted it to any living breathing thing, that time was the one he had almost fully understood where his ditsy Sister's constantly growing hair obsession came from.

Not very War God like so to say, but hey, his hairdo had always been in perfect shape before that incredibly dramatic episode of losing his sword took place, and despite all appearances he did care about his looks. His sexy, bad boy hair was part of his irresistible charm. Ladies could tell.

Breathing hard, as if he had just ran twice the distance from Marathon to Athens, Ares stopped dead in his tracks for the second time that morning, while watching the most awkward phenomena he had witnessed in his life.

From the opposite side of the crimson roof of the desert, a dark mauve planet was rising, and, much to his consternation, as the colossus' image started to get bigger and bigger, the gentle breeze that was almost imperceptibly ventilating his incandescent body 'til that very moment, was gradually turning into a glacial wind that was projecting fine diamond particles of sand towards him, cutting his skin open with each blow.

"Oh joy! Could this get any worse?" He asked, a pessimistic look on his defeated face, rubbing his shivering arms with his palms while vainly attempting to prevent the previously cursed heat from his body.

"This pretty much sounds like a bad joke." He briefly concluded, while staring at the green, luxurious land unfolding before him like an ample oriental fan, silently wondering what his Xena was doing on that terrarian promise land to which he was aiming with such unprecedented vivacity, pushing his half dead body's last driblet of energy towards a final and dangerous affliction.

Ten more steps and there he was, falling down on his knees again, his hands sunk into the red sands that he was by now hating with every fibre of his being.

"I guess this means we're back to square one."

Seconds later, one last ragged breath and two failed attempts to stand, almost made him give it all up and just lay down on the cold moro and close his stinging eyes, setting his mind free for at least an hour or two.

He was smart enough to realise though that those particular hours would have certainly meant no more and no less than his lame, bitter end, and fading away like a cockroach, all by himself in a Zeus forsaken place like that one was not really his style. Plus, his pretty Princess was very likely strolling up and down that endless void too, probably in a similar shape, looking for him of course.

He didn't even get the chance to finish processing his thoughts though, when, gazing towards the virescence jungle he had wanted to grovel to, he blurrily noticed his one of a kind Chosen's gracious silhouette heading hastily his way.

Maybe there really was some almighty divinity looking out for him after all, whether it'd purposely intended to rock his world or not, but from what Xena could decipher, the oddly shaped boulder she'd spotted off in the distance now looked considerably more and more accurate to the handsome figure of the God of War.

As her urgent steps gradually got closer and closer to the exhausted body kneeling in the sand, her heart did another somersault as the appearance of Ares' form ultimately came into view; his head bent down in defeat capturing her full attention instantly.

"What are you doing here Ares?" Xena suspiciously questioned, offering the cool shade of her shadow as a pleasant shield from the tangerine fire of the burning sun beating hard upon his back, as if it'd been whipped for days on end.

For reasons well hidden, she couldn't let him detect the utter relief and pure happiness in which she had felt in finding him alive, he would have marvellously used it to gain any sort of advantage over her.