Meson's army came upon another village. Her men were hungry for blood. They longed to hear the cries of innocent men and women beg for their lives, to hear the terrified screams of children as their world was destroyed. She could hold them back no longer.
This one's for you! She thought before she screamed, "Kill them all!"
An hour later, Meson surveyed the damage. There was something familiar about this town, but that was probably because she had destroyed so many like it. She was about to call her men back, and move on, but then she saw one girl still alive, probably about 13 years old, standing in the burned remains of her village. She jumped off of her horse, and pointed her sword at the girl.
"Why are you still alive? You should be dead."
The girl looked at her with tears in her eyes. She blinked them back before she spoke. "Your soldiers are idiots. I can talk my way out of anything with idiots. Why don't you just kill me? Or don't you like getting your hands dirty?"
"Watch it, girl. Just because you are alive right now doesn't mean you are going to stay that way." Meson looked out at the setting sun. She called to her army. "We'll camp here tonight. Pitch the tents." She took the girl by the ear. "You'll come with me, and sleep in my tent."
The girl looked up at her. "Why? You'll just kill me as soon as I need to eat something. Why keep me alive even that long?"
A cloudy look came into Meson's eyes. "No. You'll live for a while. Unless you bother me. Then, I will kill you. Make no mistake about that."
"But why?"
"I don't know."
Meson woke the child up early in the morning. "Come on. We've got to leave."
"I was in the middle of a great dream, thank you. Wait a second. Leave? You mean you're going to take me with you?"
Meson nodded once, and took the girl outside where her horse was tied to a tree. "I'll have someone bring a horse for you."
The girl stopped. "I, uh, I don't ride horses. They're too high up. I'd fall off."
"What?"
"I don't-"
"I heard you. You'll have to ride with me."
So the two of them rode off together, at the head of the army. The girl wasn't sure why still alive. Meson kept having flashes from almost seventeen years ago. It was surprising that she still able to lead armies, even more surprising that she did. Finally, she had to ask.
"What is your name?"
The girl looked up at her, having to twist around on the saddle to gain eye contact. "You want to know my name? Oh, that's right, you didn't kill me. I have a face. I'm not just some poor innocent farmer who's already gone. You don't need my name, you the names of all people in my village, my home, that you killed. All the people that you killed. No, you don't need my name. Not until I'm dead." She turned back around, and continued watching the road.
"What's your name?" This time, Meson was more insistent.
"I was named after my aunt. But don't gloat over her death. She died sixteen years ago, or so. She died a hero. Saving the world. The elders, they used to tell me that I was a lot like her. That she could talk her way out of anything, too. They said that one time she saved our village. And then she went to travel. She was always traveling around, saving people. I had hoped one day, to be like her. But I suppose that it's too late to save my village now. "
"You're name!"
"Fine! No need to scream! It's Gabrielle."
Meson stopped her horse. "What?" She sounded almost sick.
"My name is Gabrielle. Is there a reason that I have to keep repeating myself?"
She ignored Gabrielle's remark. "What village was that?"
"You mean that you don't even know? How inconsiderate. You kill us, and you don't even know who we are? That, for your information, was my home. Everything I've ever known. It was where all my dreams for the future began. It was called Potadia."
Meson felt a part of herself that she hadn't felt for years start to resurface. She felt sick. "That was Potadia?" She thought that she heard a small voice in back of her head cry out. A small being who had died, all those years ago, along with anything humane about her. A name of a person who had since ceased to exist rose to the surface before being pushed away, perhaps forever…
"Yes." Gabrielle started to sob. "That was my home. My whole existence."
They rode in almost silence. It was only broken by the hoof beats hitting the ground, and Gabrielle's sobbing.
It's a good thing, Meson reflected, that she's crying. Some people don't cry they keep it all inside of them too explode later on.
"Do you have any friends, Meson?" The question came out of nowhere. Meson had been deep in thought about the past when she heard it.
"I have my head commanders-"
"No. They are only your friends out of fear. Do you have any real friends?"
"I haven't for a long time."
"When did she die?"
The question startled Meson. Die? How had this girl known all her friends were dead? But it deserved an answer. "Sixteen years ago. She died a hero, saving the world. Don't you have any friends?"
Gabrielle turned an accusing glare on Meson. "No. You killed them all."
For hours they rode on in silence. But they couldn't forever.
"So. What do you like to do?" Meson felt that she should talk to this girl a little.
"I'm a bard. The elders say that I'm one of the best they've ever seen. They said that there was one that was a little better, but they wouldn't tell me who."
A bard? Could this possibly get any worse? Meson asked her self. "So tell me a story." Why did I say that? I don't want to hear a story. It'll probably be about people saving others' lives. Why did I say that?
"Uh, okay, I learned this from my mother. It's about her sister. Gabrielle went off with a woman named Xena. They traveled around and saved people and stuff. Not that you'd know anything about that. There was this one time when they found a basket in a river with a baby in it. They decided to bring it to a village where a woman could take care of it. On their way they came by a group of villagers who was trying to hang a woman named Pandora…" She continued to tell the story of Pandora and her box, and how the little boy- named Gabriel- became a prince. Hope for a kingdom, cradled in a basket.
She told, in elaborate detail, Meson thought, how her aunt had knocked over the box, and how it had been empty, revealing that nothing can contain hope.
And nothing can contain Hope, either, it used to seem. Meson thought ruefully.
She went on to tell of how Aphrodite had once enchanted her aunt's scroll, so that everything she wrote would come true. It had led to Aphrodite and Aries losing their powers. Telling the story was very funny. Apparently, Gabrielle told, living it had not been. For two or three days, the quill had been mightier than even Xena's sword.
The elders were right. This young bard is good. Very good. Meson had only known one better…
Don't ask Xe-Meson! Don't ask! Part of her didn't want to know that it was humans that she had killed. But part of her, the part that refused to be forgiven for before those three years, had to know.
"Is- was- Lila still there?"
"She was my mother. My sister, Lilly, was named after her. So the two of us, we were Gabrielle and Lilly. But they are gone now. I watched them die. And I hate you for it." She spat the last words, almost as if they were hard to get out.
"You shouldn't hate. Gabrielle never did." The thought came out of her mouth before she could stop it.
Grabbing the reins, Gabrielle stopped the horse that they were riding on. "You knew my aunt?"
Tears came into Meson's eyes. "Very well. We were very good friends for three years, or so."
"But the only time she was friends with anyone from out of Potadia was when she was traveling with Xena. That's what my mother said, anyway."
Don't! Her mind screamed at her. Don't tell her! Don't tell her what you have become. Of course, however, one of the most annoying parts of Meson was that she didn't take her own advice.
"I know, child. You see, I am Xena." She grabbed the reins back from this girl and kicked the horse to get it back into motion.
Once they were under way, Gabrielle turned and looked at her. "You couldn't possibly be Xena. She was good, and just, and she helped people. And—and—"
"Those stories that you told, they were about me and your aunt. She was a good person, Gabrielle was. You're more like her than you realize."
In spite of the fact that she wanted to remain apart from this monster, Gabrielle had one failing. Her curiosity. "How?"
Xena took a deep breath before she continued. "Well, for one, she hated riding Argo."
"Who's Argo?"
"Argo was my horse, sixteen years ago. But, when Gabrielle died, I rode away as fast as I could. I just kept riding. A month passed, two, the pain wasn't getting any less, but it killed Argo. She was a good horse. I've never forgiven myself for letting her die."
"The point could be made that you've kill—"
Xena, continuing, cut her off. "And Gabrielle was a bard. Those stories, like I said, they were about me. There is a good chance that the other bard that the elders were talking about was her. And she could talk her way out of anything. And she didn't let me get away with anything."
At this Xena stopped. All of this time, she had been getting back at the world for the deaths of Gabrielle and Solan. She had been making the world pay for what it did to her.
They would be disgusted. They would hate who she had become. And it had taken a child to remind her of that.
Too late.
"I'm finding it so hard to hate you." Gabrielle, the child, admitted to Xena later that day.
"Then don't. If there is one thing that Gabrielle tried to teach me it is that you shouldn't hate anyone. Not that I learned."
"Have you ever tried not to hate someone that killed your family?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Gabrielle, your aunt and I have a checkered past. There is a lot that you don't know." Please, she begged the girl silently, please don't ask like what. Please don't make me relive that past.
"Like what? I'll listen. I need to know more about her."
So Xena reluctantly told of Solan, Dahawk, Meridian and Hope. The tale brought tears to her eyes, and she almost had to stop before she came to their adventure in Ilusia. But the child urged her on, claming that since she couldn't learn the tale from her mother…
"…So you shouldn't hate anyone. For a while, we hated each other, but we got over it. Otherwise we would have killed ourselves. We got back together, and we stayed that way until she died. Hatred was what got us in to it in the first place. So you shouldn't hate anyone. If not for yourself, then for your aunt's memory."
For the first time, the girl smiled. "Then I won't. And you, Mes- I mean Xena, remember what my mother used to say."
"What's that?"
"That it's never to late to change."
She had tried to stop her army. Xena had managed to tear them away from destroying the town where she left Gabrielle, stating that a friend lived there. It was, however, impossible to keep them from destroying the next one. In fact, she had died trying to stop them.
That is what she was reflecting over as she crossed the river to the underworld. She still remembered in vivid detail how she had screamed for them to stop. How it was totally uncalled for them to destroy every village. Maybe just steal some of their food, or something.
But they had killed her for it. She stepped off the boat, rehearsed what she was going to say to Hades once again, and walked towards the castle looming ahead. Hades' resting-place.
Fighting the guards was not as hard as she remembered it. Perhaps it was simply because she wasn't worrying about dying. She was already dead.
She walked strait up to the place where she had talked to Hades last time. There he was, in the huge wooden chair, doing something. She couldn't quite figure out what, but quickly pushed it out of her mind. She had something more important to discuss.
"Ah, Xena. Do come in." Hades seemed convinced that if she had already fought the guards, there was nothing that he could do but talk to her.
"This time, I am dead."
"I know. And I'm sorry to say, but you'll have to go to Tartorus."
"That's why I'm here. Look, I know that I have done some really awful things, but I have helped you a lot. So I have a request."
"Yes?"
"Send me to the Elision Fields." At his open mouth, she waived a hand. "Not permanently, just for a little while. There are three people that I really need to talk to. Please."
Hades seemed to be confused for a moment. "There are a lot of people that you have sent there recently. Why do you want to confront them?"
"There are just some people that I have to see. Please, I'm begging you."
"Xena, you have been a ruthless warlord for most of your life. But you saved death, and the underworld itself. If you want to talk to people that you have killed, I guess that that is up to you. I can give you one hour."
The mists cleared and a beautiful landscape met Xena's eyes. Hades had sent word ahead for Marcus and Gabrielle to meet her. He hadn't told them that she couldn't stay.
The first sight that greeted her eyes almost made her cry. Gabrielle, -the adult- her eyes shining, stood still for only a moment. Then she came running for Xena, her arms wide. In a bear hug, she greeted her friend from so long ago. Now, she was wearing white instead of her usual outfit. Tears were streaming over her face.
At first, no words came forth. But then, "Xena. I've missed you so much. It's been so long."
"Oh, Gabrielle. Life is almost not worth living when you lose everything that you care about. I barely survived when you died. Why did you do it, any way? I could have killed her."
"Xena, the world had enough bards. It needed a hero more than a sidekick."
Xena felt like she had died again. So that's why Gabrielle gave up her life. So that the world would have Xena. Little did Gabrielle know that Xena had died with her. That from that temple, Meson had emerged, angry at the world; ready to kill anything that didn't help her. The men in her army had joined because it was the only way for their lives to be spared. Not that she had spared their families, anyway.
And Gabrielle, young, inexperienced, naïve little Gabrielle, had died to save the world from her own daughter.
How sickening.
"Xena, it's been too long." Marcus walked up and shook hands with. Then they hugged. With a heavy heart, she pushed him away from her. She had been thinking about him a lot lately, she was relatively sure that he knew what kind of person she had become.
"What are you doing here?" He asked before she could tell him that Gabrielle didn't know.
"I'm dead, Marcus."
"I know, but-"
She cut him off. "Where's Solan? Please. I only have an hour."
Gabrielle gave her a questioning look, so Marcus simply said, "I'll go get him."
"Xena, I don't understand. Why do you only have an hour? If you're really dead, then we have the rest of eternity together."
"Gabrielle, don't you know what's been going on?"
"No. You don't think about me much anymore. I can only hear your thoughts when you're thinking of me. What's been going on?"
Just then, Solan came up. "Mother. I've missed you. But Gabrielle and I are good friends now. Even better than when we left you."
Xena looked at the three people assembled in front of her. They were the most important people in the world to her. And now look at what I have to tell them.
She took a deep breath, looked into two expectant faces –and one worried one—and began. "Solan, Gabrielle, I, uh, haven't been think about you on purpose. When you were both gone, well, uh, I couldn't let the world just get away with what it had done to you, to me. So I went out to avenge your deaths."
Solan, who had been raised not to distrust, wasn't quite sure what she meant by that. But Gabrielle knew. "Xena, you didn't. You couldn't. After all the time that you spent trying to get rid of your evil side, and then—tell me you didn't. Tell me that you didn't. Please."
Xena's head hung. Her eyes looked at the ground; she couldn't look at her friend. "Gabrielle, I wasn't me. I was Meson. A hate-crazed warlord who was blind to everything. I'm sorry that I betrayed you. I didn't even realize what I had done until I—" Her voice caught. She couldn't say it.
With a disgusted sound to her voice, Gabrielle finished for her. "Until you destroyed Potadia, and met Gabrielle. Lila just got here, along with the rest of my family. But Gabrielle didn't come down here with her. I was actually wondering why you didn't stop whoever it was that killed them. Meson, I mean. Now I know." She shook her head in utter disbelief. "How could you?"
"Mother, it isn't true, is it? All those people that come down here. It's not really your fault, is it? That isn't really you, is it?"
Xena's voice caught. "Solan, Gabrielle," she gulped, "Marcus. I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
"Don't apologize to us, Xena." Gabrielle interrupted. "Apologize to all the people that you killed. All the people who's potential was destroyed because you killed them. The children, who will never fall in love, never have a child, because you killed them first." She took Solan by the wrist and led him away. Xena stood gaping at them and then turned to Marcus.
"You know, she's right, Xena. I'm sorry that it is true, but she is right. When you go back to Tartorus, I'll try to get them to come and visit, because the good can go to Tartorus if they want, but I can't promise anything. It will take a while before she's ready to forgive you. I better go."
He turned to walk away, but Xena stopped him. "Marcus, please—"
"I'm sorry, Xena. See you later."
She let him go with a breaking heart, and turned to go through the mists to where she belonged. Tears ran down her face as the moisture blurred her vision, and she disappeared. She could see the blackness. She could almost make out her soul burning in fire…
She could just make out two figures being consumed by flames, but the two figures looked the same. Xena felt her hand grip a dagger, and felt herself stand up.
"No more living for you!" The words passed through her lips before she could stop them as she stabbed a very familiar person. She turned and watched Aries disappear into a cloud of smoke.
Xena blinked and realized that she had just watched her best friend die—again. It was almost as painful as the first time.
The thought, just as it had come all those times before she had destroyed a village, sprang into her mind.
This one is for you, Gabrielle, Solan, Marcus. The next time they met, she would have nothing to feel ashamed of.
This time, she would do it right.