Rule Number Three: Chapter 1
Author's Note: This story contains non-sexual F/f disciplinary spanking. If that's not your jam, go find another song.
I was struck by the simultaneous fear and the anger across the girl's face as she held on to the younger child at her side. She looked to be fifteen or sixteen years of age, but on the small side. Her brow furrowed in a mix of what I thought was genuine outrage and anger put on as a mask against her attackers. I felt a surge of protectiveness for the girl, because I knew that anger with no real power behind it would doom her to a life of enhanced misery. She would be singled out for ill-treatment because of her inherent rebellion. When the foolish child stepped up and tried to sacrifice herself for the others-she had no idea how slave traders operate-I knew that it was no longer an option to do nothing. I could not watch such courage, however misguided, meet with such an end.
When she smacked the trader's arm away, I groaned. She was liable to get herself beaten or killed before I could find a way to retrieve my buried weapons and armor. And true to prediction, the slaver called for his whip. The girl-Gabrielle she was called-backed away, and I could see the color drain from her face as she took stock of the whip in his hand. She pushed her fellow captives away, before being caught by a guard and turned around. The whip flew in the air and snapped across her back, coiling over her shoulder. She did not scream, but gasped and whimpered. Before he could land another, I sprang into action, first removing the whip from his grasp and then knocking him to the ground.
I was not my most elegant fight. Taking on a dozen armed men without the benefit of sword or chakram tested even my abilities, but I was also distracted by the girl, who had not done the sensible thing and run when she'd had the chance, but had tried to fight the men around her, despite having no apparent training or even fighting instincts. Courage without skills: a deadly combination. My inattention had left me with a deep gash at the base of my neck and wariness of this child.
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I could tell the girl was in pain as I led the group back to the village. She was sore from being manhandled during her ineffective battle with her captors, and while the whip had not torn the fabric of her blue chemise open, I could see a rusty brown line where the weal it left behind had bled and then wept underneath it. I shuddered to think how many times in the past I had laid a man's back open with my own whip for insubordination or dereliction. Such had been expected of me, but it didn't make it easier to recall. And seeing the child's shoulder made me curse my delayed reflexes. It was my fault, my hesitation, that had let him give her that weal. Yet despite her own pain, she focused her attention on who I gathered to be her younger sister. When we arrived at the hut, I sent her mother out for some clean rags and some pig fat and myrrh.
"Sit down," I ordered the girl, as her mother went to find supplies. She did so without a fuss, and I pulled the chemise down off her shoulder to inspect the stripe. It was red and raised and bruising already on both sides of the weal, bleeding slightly where the whip had made impact with the skin over her shoulder blade and where the tip had wrapped around to her collar bone, but her clothing had protected her from more serious damage.
"It doesn't hurt so bad," she lied, gasping as I dabbed the damp cloth her mother had brought back to the girl's shoulder. She was quiet as I cleaned it and spread a small amount of pig fat and myrrh oil onto the weal, gripping the edge of the bench she sat upon. When I was finished with her, she had turned to me and wrapped her arms around my middle, a gesture to which I hardly knew how to respond.
"How can I ever thank you enough? You've saved us from a most horrendous fate!" I almost laughed at her dramatic way of speaking. I quickly pried her hands from my waist, and she gazed up at me with a look of sudden horror.
"But you are injured!" she exclaimed. "Mother can help, can't you? Do you think it will need stitches? Oh I hope it isn't too dreadful. You took quite the blow, and I thought you were a goner for sure, but you…"
"Gabrielle!" her mother snapped. "That's quite enough of your chatter. Give the woman some peace. I will tend to her wound." The child, chastened, smiled winningly at me, and spent the next few minutes helping her mother as the woman cleaned the debris from the cut, determining that it would indeed need a few stitches. As the woman settled in to the task, the younger daughter became her new (and less inattentive) assistant, and Gabrielle perched on the stool in front of me, big green eyes studying me.
"Shall I tell you a story to help distract you from the pain? I know so many thrilling tales and…"
"Gabrielle, what did I say? Give us some peace. We've all been through quite the ordeal. Now is not the time for one of your silly stories." The girl's face fell and she flushed at her mother's harsh words.
"I like Gabby's stories, Mother," the younger sister contributed cheerfully.
"I don't mind," I said quickly, seeing Gabrielle's embarrassment.
"Well, I do," her mother replied. "We're all in this mess because Gabrielle was daydreaming, thinking on her blasted stories instead of coming home with her sister when she was told. She's lucky they weren't killed!" I hissed as the woman jabbed the needle into my skin with a little more enthusiasm than was needed. The girl was looking at her feet, and wiped at a rogue tear.
"I'm sorry, Mother."
"You're to be married soon, Gabrielle. No man likes a woman with her head in the clouds."
"Those were Draco's men," I said, grimacing, disliking having to mediate this family argument. "They would have come for the girls regardless."
"You see, Mother? It wasn't my stories," she said triumphantly, standing up.
"Don't contradict me, young lady," the woman said, stabbing me overly hard again. "Don't think you're too old for a good thrashing." I looked up to see the girl go bright red and sit down immediately. I fought a smile. I didn't appreciate the mother's beration of the child, though I also did not envy her the task of managing this strong-willed and long-winded daughter either. The girl's silence lasted only until the last stitch had been sewn. If her mother would not allow her to tell a "thrilling tale," she settled on giving her mother a blow-by-blow of the afternoon's events. She praised my skills ad nauseum and asked a million questions, not waiting for any answers. I couldn't decide whether to laugh or throw her bodily from the room.
"And that thing you did with the hoop. That was simply amazing. Where did you get that? Did you make it yourself? And that kick you do, you've got to teach me that! I've never…" The child's chatter was thankfully cut off by the sudden entrance of several villagers into the hut. "Father!"
"Xena, we'd like you to move on," the man said, bluntly. He was a tall, humorless man with an edge of anger less endearing than his daughter's. Before I could assure him that I had no intention of sticking around, his daughter had spun around.
"Move on? Father! She must rest here until her terrible wound has healed."
"Gabrielle, hush," he said, pushing her aside by the shoulder, heedless of the girl's injury. I watched the child wince and met the man's scowl with my own.
"We don't want any trouble with you, Xena," he said, and I sighed, knowing what was coming next. "We know your reputation. We just want you to leave."
"But, Father," Gabrielle interrupted again, "she saved all of our…"
"It's all right," I said, not caring to hear another recitation of my good deeds or see the child be humiliated again by her mother, who I could feel was ready to intervene. "I plan to move on anyway."
"Don't take too long," he said. I was not accustomed to gratitude, so it did not bother me, but I could tell the girl was about to explode. The young man standing beside her father stayed behind, taking Gabrielle by the arm.
"Come on, Gabrielle, you shouldn't be in here either." She wrenched her arm away, despite the pain the movement likely caused her shoulder. She pushed him and retreated to stand in front of me.
"Just because we're betrothed doesn't mean that you can tell me what to do," she told him, her voice petulant. "I want to stay and talk to Xena." The young man frowned, but did not reach for her again, only sighed and turned to walk away with her mother and sister. When he left, the girl sat back down on the stool in front of me, and put her face in her hands. I felt for her. This family should have been rejoicing at her safe return after such an ordeal, but instead they had dismissed her. I thought with dread of my own impending homecoming.
"I'm sorry, Xena," she said, softly. "I guess they just don't understand who you are." I looked up sharply to meet her sincere eyes, leaning over to re-lace my boots.
"Neither do you," I said. This girl was far too trusting.
"I know that you are good and kind."
"You don't know that either."
"Oh, but I do know it!" she exclaimed, leaning forward, smiling. I shook my head at her naivete.
"Take me with you, Xena," she said, and I saw that she had stopped smiling, her face now solemn.
"What?"
"Take me with you," she repeated, and I could see the ideas swarming in her head. She stood up. "Teach me everything you know. I'll be your apprentice and I can cook and take care of your horse and wash your…"
"Listen, kid," I started, but she cut me off.
"Don't leave me here. You CAN'T leave me here." The pleading look on her face did not move me, but when she looked down at her feet, whispering "You don't understand," I narrowed my eyes. Was she afraid of something or someone?
"Why?" I asked, standing up. I wouldn't be taking the girl with me, but I would relish the opportunity to knock a few more heads together if she told me she was being harmed in some way. She looked up with a pout.
"Didn't you see the man they want me to marry?"
"He doesn't strike me as a ruffian," I said, which was true enough, and I went to retrieve my saddle bags from the corner.
"If only he had the gumption to be a ruffian. Xena, he is...well he's dull."
"There are worse things in a man," I said.
"What about dim-witted and unimaginative?" she mumbled, and I couldn't help but smile as I began to pack my things. I did not envy the girl's position, thinking of the man that I was intended to marry, before things had fallen apart. I had loved him, in a small way at least, but had been so restless for something more. But this girl would need to find her own path. I had spent the last ten years leading men into battle after battle. My solitude had been my saving grace in recent months, but it was a fragile thing. I would not bring another in to disrupt it.
"I'm not cut out for village life," she said, a tremor in her voice. "I want more, and I'll never have more here." I sighed. Damn the girl. How could she be so annoying and so endearing at the same time?
"I travel alone," I said, with finality in my voice. She was silent for a few seconds, the first I'd had in a while. Then I heard her clear her throat.
"So where are you heading?" she asked. I replied before thinking.
"Amphipolis."
"That's in Thrace, isn't it? I love to study maps and place names," she said. "So, what route do you usually take?" I rolled my eyes. The girl was no better at subterfuge than she was at self-defence.
"Don't even think about it," I said, not turning around. I would end this now.
"What?" she asked, feigning innocence. I did turn around then, and fixed her with a stare that I knew had the power to strike fear into the hearts of grown warriors.
"Following me." I watched as her eyes went wide. Good.
When she recovered, I could tell that she was trying to find another way to argue, but I'd had quite enough. I took her stubborn chin between my thumb and forefinger and leaned down closer.
"You don't want to make me mad, do you?"
She gulped and shook her head, the color rising in her cheeks, and I turned to walk away.
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I think I would have been angrier with the girl had I not had such an unenthusiastic welcome in Amphipolis. As it was, I was feeling keenly what it was like to feel like you didn't belong. My own mother could barely look at me. I had a modicum of trust that she would come around, that we could at least find an uneasy truce. My initial anger did not stem from the fact that she had followed me. I had known this to be a possibility. Gabrielle was not easily cowed, this much was clear. My anger was that she had found me in such a vulnerable position, that I had needed this child to diffuse a situation that I could not, or, rather, would not, diffuse with my sword.
She had a way with words. I'll give her that. She was quick to read the anxieties of the villagers and say what they wanted to hear. She had a flair for the dramatic, conjuring images of a warlord thirsty for revenge. As she had done in the woods of Potadeia, she had instinctively put her own body on the line in an effort to protect me. I had been willing to let these villagers beat me, or worse. But with Gabrielle between us, I knew that I would have to protect her. And this made me angry as well. When this child secured my safe passage from the inn, handing me my sword cheerfully, as if she had known this to be the outcome all along, I fixed her with a withering scowl, and watched with satisfaction as she held her breath.
She trotted along behind me as I went to retrieve Argo, and I did my best to ignore her. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, to feel the rejection I felt in private. Pretending not to care was a tiresome activity. She hovered as I strapped my bag and sword to the saddle.
"Hey, Xena," she said in a tentative tone.
"What?" I said.
"I could probably get up there behind you."
I turned my head. "What are you talking about?"
"You aren't going to just leave me here...are you?" Ignoring the hurt expression on her face, I turned back to Argo.
"I...I came all this way to find you," she said, and I sighed with exasperation, mounting.
"That is your problem," I said, cooly. "You had wits enough to get yourself here, I'm sure you have wits enough to find your way back." Her own meekness faded then, and I saw the fire of the girl who had stood up to a dozen slavers. She set her jaw tight, and I knew then that she'd be coming with me, one way or another.
"But I just saved your life back there!" she said, an edge of petulance in her voice. I studied her for a moment. She hadn't saved my life, not really, but she had awakened in me a spark of resistance, snapped me out of my intended self-destruction. And, to be truthful, the road from Amphipolis to Poteidaia was no place for an unarmed girl traveling on her own, no matter how clever. I would send her home after I'd dealt with Draco. Knowing it was a bad idea, but not having time to think of a better one, I sighed, reached down, and grabbed her elbow, pulled her up roughly onto the saddle behind me. This was a temporary solution.
The girl clearly had other ideas, however. In the days that followed my defeat of Draco, Gabrielle had been at my side like a shadow. I had not minded much. She was irritating, but she was also witty and spirited, and had a way of interacting with the world that was soothing in its purity. My mother, who had finally come around to forgiving me, a forgiveness I knew I didn't really deserve, took at once to Gabrielle. Mama "mothered" Gabrielle from the start with a tenderness that took me back to my own girlhood. Gabrielle was only slightly younger than I had been when Cortese's army had descended upon our village and I had led our village to fight him, losing Lyceus in the process, and tearing our family apart. As Mama ministered to Gabrielle, it was hard not to recall the time when she had done the same to me.
I had been a difficult, headstrong child, and my mother had been a good one:. affectionate, but firm. Her efforts had not prevented me from going astray and embracing such darkness and bloodlust, but I believed that they had lain dormant inside me, allowing me to tap into a different well of emotion. Mama had always dealt with me with so much more patience than I deserved. And when her patience had run out, my hide had usually paid the price, and I had learned from that too. I owed my discipline, focus, and ability to read others to her. Perhaps she would have a good influence on the girl, whose own mother had turned so cold and sharp on her.
Gabrielle had learned quickly, however, not to get on Mama's bad side. On our first full morning, as we sat at the table eating our porridge, sweetened with currants and honey, Mama initiated a full interrogation of the girl.
"Won't your family be missing you terribly?" she asked, putting her hand on Gabrielle's knee. Gabrielle shook her head.
"Only my sister, Lilla," she said. "I told her why I had to leave, and she understood."
"And what about your mother and father? Xena tells me you are betrothed. Won't he miss you?"
"My parents will only miss not having someone to boss around. And Perdicus is not my betrothed any more," she said, staring down at her empty wooden bowl. Mama ladled another heap onto it.
"Eat up, my girl," she said. "You look like you may have missed a few meals in recent days." She looked up at me disapprovingly and I shrugged sheepishly. Mama was acting like I had taken on the girl as a kind of lost puppy and then neglected to feed it.
"He was never MY betrothed to begin with. He was just the boy my father and mother told me I must marry. There's a difference." She did not let this mournful declaration keep her from her porridge, I was amused to see.
"Was there another you would have rather married?"
"I don't want to marry at all. I want to be a woman of substance. I want to be a woman who has seen the world. Like Xena is." I rolled my eyes and stood up, taking my own bowl to the washbasin.
"But, Gabrielle, you are only a child and need your family. I know that everything seems so urgent when you are young, but surely your adventures could wait a few more years, when you…" Gabrielle stopped shoveling food in her mouth then, and sat up straight, trying unsuccessfully to look more mature than she was.
"I'm not a child," she declared. "I'm a grown woman."
I couldn't help but release a small laugh from my spot in the corner, and was amused to find the girl glaring at me.
"What? I am!"
"How old are you, Gabrielle?" Mama asked her.
"I'm 19," she declared. I harumphed.
"And I'm 90," I said. Mama ignored me and set Gabrielle with a hard stare, one that I had seen directed my way so many times that I instinctually sobered and dropped back myself.
"Tell me the truth, my girl," Mama ordered. Gabrielle may have been a masterful storyteller and little trickster, but I saw now that when confronted with a direct question, she was absolutely incapable of a convincing lie.
"I am!" she said, though she could not meet Mama's eyes when she said it. "I'm small for my age is all, but I assure you, I…" Mama put a quick stop to her efforts.
"Gabrielle, I don't tolerate falsehoods in my house. I know you are not 19. In fact I know that you are plenty young enough to take a trip over my knee, which you will find out in short order if you try to lie to me again." Gabrielle went still and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, as Mama leaned in again. "Now, give me a true answer."
For a moment, I saw a cloud form over the girl's head, and I thought she was going to stage a rebellion. I wanted to let her know, from experience, this was not a good idea. I hoped for Gabrielle's sake that the short strip of leather tack that had hung ominously behind the cellar door in my childhood, had been long discarded. Though, Mama's hand could make a powerful impression on its own.
"Right," Mama said, standing abruptly and reaching for Gabrielle's arm. Gabrielle slid away on the bench, waving her hands in surrender.
"No! Please!" she cried, and then looked down at her hands. "I'm sixteen…or rather… well, I'll be sixteen in just a few weeks."
"Otherwise known as fifteen?" Mama said, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, ma'am."
Mama sent her out shortly after to gather eggs from the henhouse, and motioned for me to join her on the bench.
"What do you make of her?" I asked.
"She reminds me of another girl I once knew at that age, though with a few more feminine graces." I smirked and sighed.
"She seems to be quite the pebble in my sandal."
"She's just a headstrong girl who doesn't seem to fit in anywhere," Mama said sadly, and reached over to take my hand. "She's a girl with a mother too wrapped up in her own concerns and grievances to see that her child needs her." We weren't talking about Gabrielle anymore.
"Mama," I started, but she put her hands to her face and began to weep. I put my arms around her shoulders, my own eyes stinging with tears.
"Mama, please don't cry," I begged.
"It's all my fault," she cried. "I was so blinded by my rage and grief that I didn't see how much you were hurting. I couldn't bear your own rage and pain, so I pushed you away, and you...you became...what you became."
"Mama, you didn't make me a monster," I said in a low, gentle voice, but she reacted with violence, grabbing the front of my leathers.
"You were NOT a monster. You were NEVER a monster, Xena. You were my child and I should have been there for you. Instead I lost two children that day. Can you ever forgive me?"
"Please, Mama, don't talk like that. I don't blame you."
We held one another for several long moments, until Mama retrieved a handkerchief to dry both our eyes.
"So what to do about Gabrielle, then?" I asked. "She can't come with me."
"You should leave her here with me when you go. I'll look after her, and in a few weeks when she's settled down, I'll have Linus take her to Potidaea."
"And if she won't go?"
"Then she can stay here. I can always use the help, and Amphipolis is a much larger place than Potidaea. She may be happier here." This was true enough. Perhaps the change of scenery would be enough to satiate her need for adventure.
"And you don't mind?" Mama reached out to brush my hair from my eyes.
"If I can't have my own daughter with me, then I will happily care for the girl who idolizes her."
"Some idol she's picked," I said, looking down at my hands.
"Besides," she continued. "I'm already quite fond of her. She tells quite the story. You saw how she enthralled all of my patrons last night. I may put her to work in the tavern as a Bard."
I smiled at the thought. I didn't want to admit it, but the girl had started to grow on me too. She had the kind of sweetness and innocence that I had once found so insufferable, but something about the girl was different. She seemed to see things that others didn't. It didn't mean I was inclined to have her follow me around, but it made me more patient.
She accompanied me to visit Lyceus' tomb the following day, where I became quite overwhelmed with the longing to see my little brother one last time, to apologize to him for getting him killed and for what I had become afterwards.
"I wish you were here, little brother," I said, a solitary tear falling down my face. "It's hard to be alone."
"But you're not alone now," a voice said from behind me. I spun around to see Gabrielle standing there, looking small, her eyes mirroring what I knew must have been in mine. I was put in mind of Lyceus, who had been Gabrielle's age when he died, and I realized why I had been so tolerant of this imp. She reminded me of him. So sincere, so eager to please, so observant. I smiled at her sadly, not having the heart to tell her that she would not be accompanying me to my next destination, that I would indeed be alone again.
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To say that Gabrielle was not pleased to hear of the plan when Mama and I revealed it to her three days later was an understatement. But I stood firm and had not responded to her entreaties, demands, or, after Mama stepped in with a couple of well-placed swats with her wooden spoon, her sulking. On the morning I left, Gabrielle, sleepy at the early hour, put on a thin veneer of acceptance, but was, I could tell, scheming underneath it.
"Take care, Gabrielle," I said, tapping the end of her nose. "Enjoy being the new Bard of Cyrene's Tavern, and don't give the keeper any trouble."
She gave a reluctant smile, but then looked at the ground again. Mama put an arm around her shoulder and winked at me. She knew then, I suppose, that it would never work.
I rode Argo for most of the morning, but took to my feet when I realized that she was favoring her left front leg. Further inspection revealed a loose shoe. I would need to walk until we could find a blacksmith. We walked along the paths above the Western Road until l was too weary to go further. A week in a feather bed with little to do had not been good conditioning. I started my cook fire and began to cook the lentils Mama had sent with me, grateful not to have to hunt. It was a surprisingly cool night, so I built up the fire and retrieved a blanket from my pack. I gazed into the fire, my solitude feeling different now, after having been with Mama and the girl for such a long stint. I almost missed the girl's nearly constant chatter. Almost.
I reacted quickly at the snap of twigs behind me. Whoever it was was not skilled at the art of sneaking around in the night...and did not weigh very much. I spun around, drawing my sword, quite unnecessarily. Gabrielle didn't even flinch. Her teeth were chattering as she approached, and I saw that her clothes were soaking wet.
"I was gonna follow you," she said, shivering violently, "until you were in some jam, but…"
"What on earth happened to you?" I said, throwing my blanket around her, and yanking her to the fallen log by the fire. I didn't have the energy to be angry, and the child looked close to collapse herself, having likely not had the benefit of a few hours on horseback. I would need to save my ire for the morning, when I would be plenty annoyed for being forced to double back to Amphipolis.
"I fell into a creek in the dark. It was so cold out there," she said, and her teeth rattled again. I sat down and could see in the firelight that she was doing her best to hold back tears. I scooted closer and rubbed her back and shoulders to warm her. "I couldn't start a fire, and the mosquitoes out here are as big as eagles."
Her voice had cracked at the end of the sentence, and I sighed.
"Let's get you out of those wet clothes so they can dry by the fire." I said, pulling the blanket off her trembling shoulders. I stood her up and helped her remove the blue flaxen jacket and sodden skirt, and saw that her linen shift was sticking to her skin with damp.
"Come on, shift too," I ordered.
"But what if…"
"Don't argue," I said, and she offered no more resistance as I peeled it off her, quickly replacing the blanket around her and sitting her back down by the fire. I arranged her wet clothes on a rock on the other side of the fire, threw another few sticks on, and checked on the lentils, which would now need to feed two.
After a few minutes, she stopped trembling, and I resumed my place on the other end of the log.
"You don't have to feed me," she said, reading my earlier thoughts. "I had some of your mother's bread and cheese not long before dark. I'm not that hungry in any case. I know I ate a lot at your mother's, but really I don't eat that much normally, and…"
"Gabrielle," I said, putting an end to her attempts to convince me that she'd be no trouble at all. "You know I'm sending you home in the morning."
I'd said it as gently as I could, given my exasperation. Her eyes flickered with energy, as if she'd been waiting for me to say it, but I could also see that they were welling.
"I won't go home."
I took a deep breath and tried a firmer tactic.
"I'm not above dragging you, kid."
"I won't stay home," she amended, her voice suddenly calm and serious. "I don't belong there. I've never belonged there, Xena. And I don't belong in Amphipolis either."
I started to dismiss her protests and tell her that she'd damn well better start doing as she was told, but the intensity of her gaze made me hold back.
"I'm not the girl my parents wanted me to be," she said, her eyes never leaving mine. "I can't ever be that girl." A tear fell, and I knew that I was very close to capitulation. Damn the girl. I stared back at the fire.
"You wouldn't understand," she said. In another, the remark would have been sarcastic, and for a moment I wondered if she was intentionally goading me. But I knew by her tone that she was not trying to manipulate. In her youth, she believed that I couldn't possibly know what she was feeling. But she was wrong. I had never been the girl my mother wanted me to be either. She had come around, but it had never been easy, and it was one of the reasons I had left in the first place. I couldn't stand to stick around and be the living monument to my mother's disappointments and grief. I knew exactly what she was feeling.
"It's not easy proving you are a different person," I said, looking up at her, and I knew that I had just made a grave error. I had let her in. She knew it too. Her eyes went wide with a mixture of hope and gratitude. I fought the urge to smile, and instead rolled my eyes. How had I been bested by this naive, irritatingly innocent 15 year old girl?
I threw her my sleeping fur.
"You can sleep over there," I said, plucking my lentils from the fire. I looked back to find her beaming wearily, and before I could stop it, a smile crossed my own face. I quickly suppressed it, pointing my small wooden spoon at her, before licking the lentils off it.
"Don't grin at me," I said. "Tomorrow we talk about the ground rules."
I ate my lentils in silence, making sure to leave some in the pot for her, before fetching my other fur from Argo's saddle.
"There's grub still in the pot," I called out from a distance, but I heard no reply. When I got back to the fire, I saw that she had collapsed in exhaustion on her fur at the foot of the log, snoring lightly. I shook my head. What had I gotten myself into?