Chapter Eleven

"What about hypnotism?" Dawn asked Willow.

"Do you know any hypnotists?"

"There was one on TV. He could make people remember all kind of stuff."

"Oh! Was he the one who made that guy dance around like a ballerina while he was singing the Star Spangled Banner backwards?" Anya asked.

"I don't think he was the same one," Tara answered. "But that WAS funny."

"Can't we call the TV station and find out who he is and call him?"

"Those are just parlor tricks, Dawn," Giles told her. "Designed for the entertainment of the less academically inclined masses."

"It looked real enough."

"But if we COULD find a real hypnotism guy, couldn't he make Willow remember the spell?" Xander chimed in.

"Well, I'm not sure. I suppose he might, unless the memory of it was somehow connected to the spell itself."

"You guys are talking about me like I'm not even here! Maybe I don't WANT to be hypnotized. Maybe there are things in my brain I'd just as soon none of you knew anything about."

"About you and Tara, huh?" Xander asked. "Intimate, sexy things!"

"Can it, Harris!" Anya said angrily. "You don't broadcast your sick fantasies in front of your girlfriend. It's just – vulgar!"

"You know, Willow, that might be our only alternative. And certainly you can trust us not to allow the hypnotist to invade your private thoughts. I'll only be searching for a very specific memory."

"I? -- YOU can hypnotize people?"

"Well, as the progeny of a line of Watchers, I have had some very thorough and very intensive schooling in connection with my duties of training and guiding my Slayer."

"Sounds to me like they were teaching you how to brainwash Buffy." Anya commented dryly.

"Oh. Well. That makes me feel a WHOLE lot better." Willow said unenthusiastically.

"Are you guys heading anywhere in particular, or just wandering around?"

From behind her, Xena asked, "Why is it you keep referring to us as guys? Do we look like men to you ?"

"Oh, it's just a thing we say where I come from. For some reason it sounds less sexist to call females 'guys' rather than 'girls'."

"Yeah, THAT makes a lot of sense!"

"What do you mean, sexist?" Gabrielle asked.

"I don't know. There's this whole thing about men not referring to women as 'girls' because it sounds condescending and chauvinistic."

"But we ARE girls – grown up girls."

"Hey, it's just a future thing. Nothing you guy—nothing either one of you will ever have to worry about."

Suddenly Xena mounted up. "I'm going to scout ahead," she said as she rode past them.

"Don't mind her," Gabrielle said. "Sometimes she gets in these moods."

Buffy nodded in understanding, but she knew she was the cause of the friction between the two of them.

"You never did say where you guys were going."

"To the Amazon camp. We're only a couple of days away."

"In one of Giles' books there was a mention of an Amazon queen in connection with the Chakram."

"That must be me! I'm an Amazon queen!"

"So why aren't you there now? Don't they need a leader?"

"It's kind of a long story, and kind of interesting, if you want to hear it."

"Sure I do. That's why I'm here – to learn all I can about you and Xena, and everything else."

"Well, I guess it starts out when Xena and I were walking through the Amazon hunting grounds. . . ."

As they walked, Gabrielle told the story as if she were putting on a play, including sound effects, the different voices of the Amazons and Xena, and acting out some of the action scenes.

Gabrielle was right, it was an interesting story. And it gave Buffy a better understanding of how these people entertained themselves. Gabrielle was a very good story teller.

". . . And since we were heading in the general direction anyway, I asked Xena if she wouldn't mind stopping off for a few days, just to see how things are going."

"And to remind them of who the REAL queen is?"

Gabrielle smiled a sly smile.

"Well, yeah, I guess so."

"Do you always have to ask Xena for permission to do something?"

"No, not all the time. But if it's something that affects both of us, then I usually do."

"And does she afford you the same courtesy?"

"Not always, but she's getting better."

"You know, I was thinking, that if I'm going to be stuck here for a while, it would be really great if I could actually see some of the great ruins of my time while they're still in one piece."

"Like what?"

"Like the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Acropolis, the Parthenon. You know, the really famous landmarks."

"Well, the Collosseum and Pantheon are in Rome, or didn't you know that?"

"Yeah, I knew that, I was just throwing out some names."

"So they're still around in your time? Even after all those years? How do they look?"

"Like ruins. Broken down, falling apart, kind of like the bleached bones of some giant monster."

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