New chapters 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39

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The thought perspectives of Xena and Gabrielle as they go through their dramatic life together.

Writing this to celebrate "Xena" and the excellent writers it started with. The writing so good, the characters have both concious and subconcious. Where there is always a ton of stuff happening beneath the surface.

The sorta thoughts I imagine them having, following the logic of their story. The view inside their heads. Their most shameless, unrestrained thoughts they have in the privacy of their minds. The examination of how a person's innermost self is different from their projected outwards behavior. in which ways they connect and in which they disconnect. Where their irrecognable differences lie and what brings them together. The story of change - of how people mutually change each other through sharing a life together.

Plus an extra of how I imagine the universe works in setting them for who they are and what they're meant to do. What dramatic and universal purpose each and every of their choices and decisions carry.

The prologue starts somewhat far away.

PROLOGUE PART 1.

Year 1994. "The Lost City Of Troy."

Age 14.

HERA

I am Hera. The queen of the gods.

This world is about power. Those who were born into power, are meant to rule.

Those who were born without power, do not have a value, other than in serving their rulers.

I am the goddess of marriage. The meaning of my life is to love my husband, and to make him happy, and to make a joint, shared happiness together with him.

My husband is everything to me. I was born just to love him.

I am the queen of the gods - the highest female being in the whole universe - the second highest being in the universe.

Yet my life is torture.

Why was my husband born to be the ultimate being in the universe, and not me.

Why do I have to obey him, but he does not have to obey me.

Why does he do things that hurt me. If only he wouldn't do that, if only he would respect me and at least restrain himself for my sake, then we could be so

happy together.

Why is the world so unfair?

If only he would love me as much as I love him.

That he does things that hurt me, means he doesn't care about me at all.

That he hurts me, means he hates me. Means he would prefer it if I didn't exist.

Means he would prefer me being dead over me being alive, if he ever had to choose.

Even though I love him so much. Even though I would never do anything to hurt him, if only he loved me.

My love for him could be my everything.

But all he does is hurt me. He has spent so much time hurting me, that not my love, but my pain is everything there is to me.

Even though my love for him could be my everything.

Instead, it is my pain that's my everything.

This world is a world of suffering.

My husband, the one who was meant to make me happy, instead has spent his entire life making me miserable.

I am the goddess of marriage. My marriage is everything to me.

Yet my unfathful, unloving husband has spent his entire life mocking the very concept of marriage.

Mocking the very concept of me.

Ruining everything I should have been had the world been perfect.

Making me into the opposite of what I should have been.

A loving wife that will dedicate her entire being to her husband, is what I should have been. Someone who attains happiness through the happiness of the one she loves. Someone who dedicates her life to making joint family effort, to attain shared happiness together.

Instead, my pain is my everything. Pain and dissatisfaction that went on for so long, that ran so deep, that it became hatred.

I cannot live anymore without hating my husband.

A husband that wrongs his wife to such an extent, should be hated. I am not wrong for hating him.

The one I should love, is the one I hate instead. As a goddess of marriage whose entire being centers on loving him. There is nothing more twisted in the universe than this.

A goddess of marriage that hates her husband. A being like that should not exist.

My suffering is my everything.

Yet I am eternal and immortal. I will continue living like this for as long as time exists, and beyond that. An eternity of suffering, caused by my very husband that should have loved me, and is twisting my whole existence into something unbearable, instead.

This world is a world of suffering, and I will continue to live in it for all eternity. Hope does not exist.

If only he would love me.

How pathetic I am, starved for his love so much, that I would jump at his every sign of affection, like a dependant addict. Always believing his every lie, always being filled with foolish joy at his every false promise.

Perhaps because I am the goddess of marriage, my being is set up in such a way that there is nothing easier for me than to be manipulated by him. Nothing easier for him than to manipulate me.

Even though I should have been his wife, because he doesn't love me, I am his slave instead.

Yet I am the second highest being in the universe, second only after him.

I was never meant to be his slave. I was always meant to be his equal.

Through his unlove for me, he makes me - the queen of the gods - a lowly slave to his whims. The entire concept of my being, is being twisted into the opposite of what it should have been, not in one way, but in two, through his unlove for me.

There is nothing more twisted than this.

I was always meant to love him, but this twisted state of things cannot even be called pain anymore.

Worthless mortals go to Tartarus as punishment for their wrongs, to be tortured for all eternity. What the unlove of my husband does to me, is making me the same thing as a mortal sent to Tartarus, for all eternity. Even though I am the second highest being in the universe, the queen of the gods.

I refuse to be made to feel like a mortal. There is no greater indignity than this.

If my love for him is giving me an eternity of torture, then he should be tortured, too.

I am the goddess of marriage that wants her husband tortured.

He has spent eternity taking away from me things that should have been mine.

So I will dedicate my eternity to taking from him things that he wants.

Even though he is the king of the gods, and I have to obey him.

That just means I will have to be someone twisted that works to find ways to hurt him in ways he won't confront me about directly.

Because he doesn't love me. Because he would prefer it if I was gone.

I refuse to be the goddess of marriage that was killed by her own husband whom she loves so much.

He wants his whores alive and happy. He wants his whelps blessed and protected.

If I can't hurt him, if I can't hurt those he loves, then at least I will hurt those they love, instead. Let them learn the worthlessness of his love, when they will demand him to avenge their loss, and he will refuse because he values his unloved, murderous, twisted wife more than he values them.

So twisted I am, I will become the goddess of marriage that kills wives and children.

So twisted he is, that he will support such a wife.

So let his loved ones learn how twisted he is, through me.

Maybe if his whores will stop loving him, then he will come back to loving me.

And I will be waiting for him with outreached arms like a pathetic, dependant addict.

Because there is nothing more twisted than me, Hera, the queen of the gods, the goddess of marriage, the unloved wife.

If I can't be love, then let me be fury instead.

This world is a world of fury.

My fury is my everything.

Let me be the goddess of fury because my husband doesn't love me.

Because if only he would love me...

Then we could be so happy together.