Chapter 26- Final Chapter
"Dreamt I saw you by my side. Face was framed by candlelight...A chance for me to set you free...In our new romance...A chance for me to set you free...This love will torment your mind for all eternity...Go gently because you hold my dreams...Love me for eternity...A chance for me to set you free."Brigid Boden
Callisto paced around the perimeter of the camp. Any guards foolish enough to challenge her once were not allowed a second chance. Memories of the previous days swept through her mind like a tidal wave. Images of Ankh beneath her, over her, beside her. And even tonight, sweet feather gentle caresses. "To know how much I love you." echoed in her brain. The only time she ever remembered the sensation of her dagger piercing flesh was tonight. She could not shake the memory of Ankh's warm blood spilling over her hand. This was madness...So trapped was she in the maze of her thoughts that she did not realize her prowling led to the heart of the camp.
Inside the tent, Dhomb had cleaned Ankh's wounds, healing Sharia's bites and the blows she had suffered on the battlefield, the wound the blonde warrior had inflicted. That one was confusing and made the most sense to him. This blonde warrior had been dazed and thought she was still under attack...Or was it something else? He would make sure Ankh survived so she could explain the entire thing once and for all. There was nothing any of them could do for the fever that seemed to burn her from the inside out, covering her in a sheen of sweat. Her flesh remained oddly cold.
"What will you do now?" Xena asked as the three of them moved to outside the tent.
"Sadly, we do not belong here...We are strangers lost. There were tales in our land of doorways to other places and time. Between Ankh and I, we should be able to cast something to reveal the location of one, if such a thing exists." Dhomb sat on a large stump outside the tent door, exhaustion and sadness weighting his broad shoulders down.
Gabrielle saw the weight of the last few hours settle upon him. What would he and Ankh do? Both of them had lost so much, all they had left was the other.
"I hope you will stay and rest. We have plenty of tents." Dhomb smiled wryly at the two women.
"We'd love to." Gabrielle accepted, pulling Xena after her towards the tent that Dhomb indicated at her response.
"I think we should leave." Xena said under her breath.
"We have to see if Ankh makes it through the night. She is our friend." Gabrielle opened the tent flap and pulled the warrior in after her.
"Callisto will return tonight." Xena said darkly.
"To see Ankh I am sure. We will be fine here for the rest of this night. Come, let us clean ourselves off, lay down beside me, warrior of my heart. Let me hold you and tell you a story or two." Gabrielle smiled up at her worried lover. Xena gave a small smile back and allowed herself to be pulled down into a kiss.
"What kind of story?" She asked as she hugged the bard to her.
26bNow you're gone...The way we kissed, it broke my aching heart. You said that we would never part. My love for you will always be... My love for you will never die... Brigid Bodun
Callisto shimmered and appeared inside the tent. There she was, lying on the bed. Candlelight shimmering over the sweat slicked sheen of her body. Callisto crept closer, until she was poised right beside the bed, gazing at the still face. She gently brushed back the damp tendrils of dark hair. Ankh sighed at Callisto's touch, turning slightly towards the sensation.
Callisto traced the outline of Ankh's face, memorizing the arc of her eyebrows, the sculpted cheeks, those lips, the ones she wanted to kiss, tease open and drink from, even now. The damage done earlier fading already beneath the healing touch of the goddess that was Ankh's lover.
Ankh kept her eyes closed, wanting nothing more to look up into those mahogany eyes. She could not, she was sure the geas had been broken, but if so, then why the tremor in her heart at Callisto's touch? She could feel the healing tingle of Callisto's fingertips. Can she heal my heart?
Despite her best efforts, Ankh's eyes flew open in surprise when she felt Callisto's lips press against hers. Ankh responded to the kiss, trying to hold on to every single sensation that was created in the universe of their lips and tongues. Tears slipped out from her eyes as the shattered crystals in her chest flared and flamed anew.
Callisto drew back and wiped away a tear journeying down Ankh's face. She tasted the salty drop captured on her fingertip. She almost wished that this single drop of elixir would drown the emptiness, the rage, and the vengeance that had been reborn less than a few hours ago and was already blazing. Trying to burn away the memory of this woman who had given herself completely to her. She gazed into those fathomless eyes that reflected back her own soul to her, "We have no place in this world together. I know. Once upon a time, all my anger, all my hatred was for Xena. I never thought I had anything else. Until now, all my love is for you. I thought there was nothing else except this black rage. So dark, so strong, it scared even me. Then I found that beneath this rage was only emptiness. Instead, you found the place my heart still dwelled, showed me peace where fury lived, cast your light into my shadows. I still feel you beating beneath my flesh. What is this then? To be betrayed by my desire, tricked by lust, to fall in love with someone I could never have...Should never have had...L'ankha'chien." Callisto whispered, her voice somber. Ankh saw the struggle in the brown eyes above her. She was no longer foolish enough to think love would conquer everything, but she had wanted to hope...Callisto furrowed her brow, tears rising in her eyes. Without another word she rose from beside the bed, her eyes never leaving Ankh's, sadness and fury battling across her fine features. Finally, she slowly took off her right bracer and placed it beside the bed.
Callisto slipped out of the tent, already her mind fragmenting again, bitterness, hate that had been her companions for so long flooded in and clamored for her undivided attention. The emptiness she had recently discovered settling over everything in a mind-numbing cloak. Yet beneath the damaged psyche a small precarious island that now lay beneath the surface. A small sanctuary when the endless tide of a life long path ebbed.
Ankh wrapped her fingers around the bracer. She was still clutching it when the fugue reappeared and she drifted off into sleep.
Dhomb had felt Callisto arrive and waited for her to leave. He finally went back in, taking in the healed state of Ankh's sleeping form, her fingers wrapped tightly around a black bracer.
Xena and Gabrielle sat in the stillness of the early morning. Xena was holding the young bard leaning against her, they both saw Callisto's silhouette kneeling beside Ankh. Xena squeezed Gabrielle tightly. She would do anything for Gabrielle. Even leave her if that is what it took. She understood Widgie's words now. Ankh kept sacrificing things for the greater good, even the things that she valued most. That was the lesson that Xena had not wanted to recognize, the one that she should have heeded when she came storming down off the mountain and into the Amazon village.
"By the Gods. Thank you Solan. Thank you." Xena thought as she nuzzled into the softness of Gabrielle's hair.
The dawn came and Ankh still slept. Xena, Gabrielle and Dhomb spoke more of what Dhomb and Ankh would do. No one mentioned Callisto's visit. The day passed without Ankh stirring from her deep slumber.
"Should she sleep this long?" Gabrielle asked as they sat by the fire, eating the fabulous meal that Dhomb had prepared. The things that man could do with game and some herbs.
"She is recovering as she should. I think. She still shakes with a fever although I can find no source of infection. She'll awaken soon enough." Dhomb said, after swallowing a mouthful of roasted venison.
Xena nodded in agreement. She believed that the fever came more from the breaking of the geas than anything else.
"I don't know that I got to thank you, for helping Ankh. She is a good warrior, but not always the most prudent at patience." Dhomb said as he looked across the flickering fire at the warrior and the bard.
Xena thought for a moment, then asked what she had wondered about since the evening before.
"Dhomb, Ankh did not want to pick up a sword, but did because she had no other choice. Yet when she fought..."
"She fought like a woman possessed. I know. Her bloodrage is frightening but it has always been as such. When she gave up carrying a sword and concentrating on meditation and hand to hand it no longer seemed to happen as much. She is my dearest friend but there were times when I was relieved when the battle was over." Dhomb answered somberly. He said not a word about his realization in the temple, although he suspected that both the warrior and the bard knew.
Xena began to understand why Widgie had advised her to watch Ankh. Sometimes the best lessons to learn were when they involved other pupils.
Gabrielle saw the pensive expression on Xena's face as Dhomb told more stories of the woman they had come to know these last few days. Many of them threaded with a deep love and affection as he recounted their foibles. Finally, the fire burned low and they each said their goodnights.
On the way back to their tent, Gabrielle wrapped her fingers through Xena's. Xena glanced down, her eyebrow arched.
"I feel sad for both of them. It cannot be easy to be strangers in a land that is like your own but so different." Gabrielle said softly.
Xena squeezed the younger woman's hand. Many of the men that had been assembled for the army had gone home, laden with the spoils of the treasure that had just been there. Dhomb kept enough for the travels he expected Ankh and he would undertake soon enough.
Dhomb ducked into his tent to check on Ankh, he glanced at the empty bed and was about to call after Xena and Gabrielle. His eyes found the scroll in the center of the bed. He sighed to himself as he made his way over and picked it up.
"Dhomb-I am not prepared to let her go. I have to go to her. Her absence destroy me. I suspect that I will return, heavier in heart, but satisfied in what I had to do. If I do not return by dawn, then seek me if you must. I am sorry for all the troubles that simple act of compassion so long ago has wrought." Dhomb could almost hear the pain and sadness in his dearest friend's voice.
"Ankh, why must you always try to assume the responsibility for everyone else's actions." He asked softly as he settled on the bed.
Ankh stopped to catch her breath. She felt more bruised and battered by the events of the last few days than she did when she was a rookie in the guard. She wasn't sure where she was going, only that she had awoken with an ache in her chest that weakened her entire body. She leaned heavily against a rock, before her, the plains rippled under the now waning moon of Artemis's light. She looked up at the stars sparkling in the night sky. What had happened to her? She had just killed her bloodbound lover and was out in the middle of the night, hoping to find the goddess that had enchanted her with the words Aillia told her to speak. She wondered sarcastically what would happen if she just prayed to Callisto.
"You should not be out here." Ankh heard Callisto's hard voice behind her. She didn't move, waiting to hear if she said anything else.
"Why did you come?" Not quite so hard this time. Ankh turned around and felt her breath catch in her throat at the sight of Callisto bathed in moonlight, her hair almost shimmering, her skin luminescent.
"To see you." Ankh whispered, her heart closing in on itself into a painful knot.
"I am not the same woman you knew." Callisto kept her distance, her stance guarded, her eyes hooded.
"That is not why I came. I am not so naive. " Ankh replied, the drive that had propelled her drained from her at Callisto's apparent disinterest. Her knees weakened and despite her determination, she collapsed to the ground.
Callisto immediately rushed to her side.
"Damn you L'ankha' chien." The blonde woman muttered as she slid her arms around Ankh.
"Not any more than I already am." Ankh tried to say jokingly. When she looked into the other woman's eyes, she saw what she had seen last night. The love and the darkness battling for control.
Callisto saw the confusion in her eyes reflected back to her. Her heart had leapt when she saw Ankh making her way through the forest to this cliff. The misery she had known before was nothing compared to the pain that had filled her like a flood when she walked away from the tent.
Ankh reached and pulled Callisto's face down to her own. "I don't care about whether this is right or wrong. I don't care if you and I can be together after tonight. The elixir I need comes from your lips my love. All I want is to hold you, woman from Cirrah one more time, knowing that the geas is broken. I just want to touch and be touched with no enchantment other than the spell of love. I know only you - my goddess of all things fiery and passionate. Our last evening together wasn't enough. Will you let me love you warrior, woman, goddess?" Her eyes filled with tears, her voice breaking.
Callisto felt her breath catch in her throat, the darkness ebbing against the light she saw in Ankh's eyes.
"Ankh." She murmured, leaning down to drink of the lips she thought she would never taste again.
Ankh sighed into the soft lips, forgetting the ache that permeated her flesh. Soft and tentative, they kissed beneath the moonlight.
Callisto pressed into Ankh, feeling the other woman's body tense slightly. The slight gasp made her pull back. Callisto saw the pain the other woman was trying to hide.
"I don't remember you being this stubborn before. Oh, wait, yes you were." Callisto smiled as she moved back and drew Ankh to lie beside her. She stroked the other woman's face, letting her fingers trail into the waves of dark hair. Ankh gazed into Callisto's dark eyes, soothed by the touch, the sight and feel of her lover.
"Did you want to sit and discuss my personality traits?" Ankh asked as she grasped Callisto's hand and brought it palm up to her lips.
"No." Callisto smiled, leaning toward Ankh's lips.
The sound of rage and grief pierced the air. Xena leapt from the bed, sword in her hand, glancing around for the source of the sound. Gabrielle was at her side, staff in hand, waiting. They stepped outside the tent and saw Dhomb with his mace, searching for the source of the shrieking sound.
Gabrielle lowered her staff slowly, "I don't think we have to worry...It is the sound of a soul rebound by shackles it never knew it had. Callisto." She said sadly. Xena turned to Gabrielle, arching an eyebrow.
"Ankh?" Gabrielle exclaimed, turning to looking at Dhomb.
"She left to see the flaxen haired one last night. She said she would return." Dhomb replied, lowering his mace and looking around.
"There." Xena could see a figure lying just outside camp and raced towards it. Dhomb and Gabrielle followed close behind.
Ankh lay in the field, staring up at the lightening sky. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She heard the sound of footsteps racing towards her. She turned her head slightly and saw Xena, then Dhomb, then Gabrielle.
When she saw the warrior, Ankh sighed.
"The geas is broken warrior, and it did not stop this ache in my heart." Her gaze traveled from Xena to Gabrielle. Gabrielle moved forward to the other side of Ankh. "I'm sorry...For both of you. All of you." She murmured, looking across at Dhomb with her final words.
Xena looked at the woman's tear streaked face. The after effects of vengeance were not pretty. Xena wondered how she would face Callisto in battle again. She had seen love illuminate those madness shadowed eyes, heard her laugh with genuine joy and she had saved Gabrielle. Xena remained silent.
"Don't sentimentalize her warrior. She will kill you the next time you meet...We had no right. The Gods have so agreed." Ankh's voice was hollow. No matter what the force of the geas, her attractions were her own. The sound of Callisto's pain would haunt her for many nights, Morpheous would not be a friend to her dreams anytime soon.
In the shelter of the forest, Callisto knelt, sobbing. Each breath drawn brought the emptiness a little closer. Each tear falling shattering her heart into one more piece.