Chapter 1
Tempting the Fates
(1 year earlier)
This was not a good day for Xena. The Romans had crucified her and Gabrielle a couple months before. Yet, they were both still here to talk about it. The battle between life and death was fought with Xena and Gabrielle's bodies as the battlefield. The imminent presence of death lingered in the air for life was facing a terrible and bloody defeat. As Celesta hovered over their souls, a divine being intervened, thus bringing both Xena and Gabrielle back to the land of the living once more.
Now, Xena found herself a couple of months later feeling extremely irritable and ill. It all started when Gabrielle found the need to awaken her at the crack of dawn. There is no other evil in the world like having your peaceful slumber rudely interrupted by an irritating blonde. With the morning off to such a bad start. Now, Xena didn't hold much hope for the rest of the day. Resisting the urge to strangle Gabrielle and quiet her hopelessly cheerful voice once and for all, Xena decided to follow her other urge- to eat.
This thought gave new meaning to Xena's outlook on life for the moment because she smelled freshly cooked and killed deer nearby. She involuntarily licked her lips and headed toward the delectable scent, as a predator would track prey. "At least Gabrielle is good for something," she said, hoping Gabrielle would hear the sarcasm in her voice. All at once, she felt a wave of guilt for thinking bad things about her best friend. It wasn't the girl's fault that she was having violent mood swings. Looking at the situation with new eyes, Xena went towards the fire to enjoy her newfound and rare good mood. A ravenous hunger invaded her body and she felt she hadn't eaten for weeks, or even years. As both her and Gabrielle found out, starvation, whether real or in thought, is neither pleasant for the starvee or the cook. Xena pounced upon the pot on the fire with such speed that Gabrielle barely had time to leap out of the way. Xena then proceeded to slurp up what she thought was deer meat.
"What is this stuff?" Xena said, sputtering." Gabrielle seemed to ignore her. This simple act of defiance fueled Xena's anger. She took another look into the pot and knew of what it was composed. Much to her dismay, the source of the pleasant odor was not meat, but the clothes she herself had worn a couple of days earlier when she skinned a deer. Gabrielle was boiling the laundry to remove the odors. Bored with the unresponsive stonewall she seemed to face and her animalistic cravings, Xena went out into the woods to search out food. "Not just any food", she said to herself, "Meat." Her warrior instincts were in full force and the pent up energy made Xena feel extremely more angry, if that was even possible. This was fury over Gabrielle, their experiences, and her own unstable emotions. She stomped through the damp forest in search of a kill as her stomach did somersaults inside her body. Her stomach seemed to lead her to a young rabbit that was hopping along the path. Xena quickly killed and skinned it with a few simple swipes from her sword. She then proceeded to eat the rabbit raw, gobbling it up as if there were no tomorrow.
This was the scene that Gabrielle saw when she finally caught up with her long time friend. She was greeted with a blood soaked Xena tearing apart some sort of animal with a passion Gabrielle had never seen outside of the battlefield. Xena had not seen Gabrielle yet, and Gabby wanted to keep it that way. She didn't think this was an occasion for a confrontation. Gabby opted to go for a long walk to clear her head and hopefully erase the image of her friend ruthlessly ripping that rabbit to shreds. The walk did not help much to find an end to Xena's anger. Instead of clearing her head, the stroll seemed to complicate matters. With a new level of worry about her friend, Gabbrielle came back to camp.
Later that night, Gabrielle lay near the sleeping Xena just as she had for several years, only this time was different. Never before had they been so close, but yet so far away. Worried about her best friend's mental state, Gabrielle fell into a deep and troubled sleep. Xena and Gabrielle had very similar dreams that night. They dreamt of the adventures they had so far and the events that could occur in the not so distant future. Neither would remember these dreams clearly the next morning, but they would remember the feeling of great sorrow, isolation, and regret that they never again wanted to experience. Not known to them, they would soon experience these emotions permanently if they didn't work to change their future.