Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or locations herein, I just like to write about them. All feedback appreciated and responded to at jonut56@aol.com

Summary: After a particularly painful battle, where there are no winners and Xena has to watch a city consumed by fire, Gabrielle wishes there were some way she could erase all the mistakes in her friend’s youth. When her wishes come true, Gabrielle has the chance to get to know a young Xena and to attempt to steer her away from her bloody destiny. Learning that fate will not be cheated, Xena finds herself with a familiar blonde child in her arms. Does she choose the future that most benefits her, or her soulmate?

No choice at all

Nut56

Back home on the farm, there used to be days for work and days for leisure. Admittedly, with cows to milk and eggs to gather and sheep to move, there were far more working days than resting days. As a travelling warrior, things are much the same. There are days when villages need protecting, or warlords have to be defeated, or long journeys are made, and there are days when there’s nothing particular to do, and you can please yourself how you wish.

This is one of those sorts of days. It seems like Xena and I have spent weeks travelling and fighting, planning and negotiating. Now, the industrial town to the North of here, and its agricultural neighbour to the West are at peace and reasonably safe from each other, so long as no one does anything rash and foolish. That can’t be guaranteed, by any means, but at least Xena and I - well, mostly Xena - have done all we can. Today, there’s time for more pleasurable, mundane activities. Like shopping.

I wander along the mud street, letting my eyes trace over the colourful market stalls as I pass them. My belly is full, my staff has been mended, and I feel relaxed and rested. These moments are rare, and all the more precious for it. Xena has taken most of our money for supplies - and Argo needs a new shoe - but my empty hands don’t dampen my spirits: you don’t need to actually buy things to enjoy shopping. The market doesn’t hold anything unusual or desirable, in any case. It’s small and functional, but it’s nice to mingle amongst the townsfolk and watch them bartering for their shoes and cloth.

I pass an old woman, wrinkled but rotund, leaning her weight on the edge of a crumbling well and fanning herself with a tattered straw hat. She has the right idea: it’s hot. Glancing upward, I see that the sun, bright in a clear blue sky, is almost directly overhead. Midday. I remember my promise to meet Xena, and increase my pace: she doesn’t like waiting around. As arranged, I find her waiting by a horse trough, one boot up on the wooden frame as she re-laces the brass eyelets.

"Xena!" I approach her eagerly, using my staff as a convenient cane as I walk. I always try to tell her that a sword only has one use while a staff has many, but I’ve never managed to convert her. She continues her lacing, although I know she would’ve been aware of my presence before I even spotted her. "Did you get all you needed?" I stop by her and peer into the linen bag propped by the trough. For someone who considers herself entirely practical, she manages to pick up little things that she thinks I’ll like with endearing frequency.

"Uh ha."

"And Argo is...?"

"At the Blacksmith, yes." She tests the snugness of her boot, pressing it experimentally into the ground.

"Did you get any nutbread?" I can only see one large, wrapped bundle in the bag, and it smells like beef jerky.

"Nutbread?" Xena straightens. She really is much taller than I am, and frowns down at me. I go to speak, but then she shakes her head and scowls. "Oh, nutbread; you asked." She remembers. "I’m sorry, Gabrielle, I didn’t see any." She’s distracted by something inconsequential happening over by the market stalls, and I have to stand and wait for her attention to come back. It’s something I’ve grown used to, of late. Ever since we got ourselves embroiled in this last conflict, she’s been distant and introspective. Wars never bring out the best in anyone.

"No problem," I say cheerfully about the nutbread, "Maybe at the next town, huh?"

At length, Xena looks back. "What’s that?" The high sun reflects off the shiny metal of her armour, highlighting the swirls and patterns there.

"Nutbread," I repeat gently, "We’ll look at the next town."

She smiles warmly at me, and for a moment I’m reassured that all is well and I’m worrying over nothing. "Sure."

Something occurs to me, and I break our eye contact to reach my fingers into my leather purse. "Xena -" After a struggle I pull out three dark coins. "I told some stories to the women out in the square. I’m working on some new prose - I think they liked it." I know my smile is somewhat bashful, and when I bob my head blonde hair falls over my shoulders. I scowl. "Need to rework the middle part, though." And I’d thought I’d got that piece just right, too. "Anyway -" I shrug that off, knowing it’s of no interest to Xena. "I earned a few dinars." I push them around in my palm to separate them, warped pieces of bronze with an off-centre stamping of a man’s head, then hold them out to show her. "The inn here has a hot tub, and it serves good food. I thought you might like to take it easy for a bit? I’m not suggesting your personal hygiene is lacking, or anything, but..."

Xena laughs with me, but it’s subdued, and she quickly sobers and pushes my hand back. "That’s your money, Gabrielle. Why don’t you buy yourself some new scrolls, or something."

"Our money," I correct her insistently. "It’s our money." I clench the coins into my palm so as to grasp Xena’s hand with a free finger. "And besides, I need a bath, even if you don’t. I smell like Argo."

Xena’s smile returns. It isn’t an easy expression to elicit, and I glow inside at my achievement. I only want to make her smile. "Well, if you insist."

Her eyes are lovely, for a moment, and I instinctively look down at my feet, bashful. Maybe it’s just a little game we play, have always played. It’s hard to tell what’s authentic and what’s habitual, sometimes, but it doesn’t really matter, so long as it cheers her up a little. I notice that my boots are in quite a state. Funny how they’ve gotten so familiar that I hadn’t realised how much they’ve changed. Maybe a hot tub is somewhat frivolous after all: I’ll be worn through at the toes soon!

I go to lean down and give them a brush, wanting to know how much is worn leather and how much is just sand dust. Before I can begin my analysis, though, something bumps into me. I know almost immediately that it must’ve been someone’s accident, or Xena would’ve had a dead body on the ground by now. I straighten.

"Sorry!" A blonde-haired village boy, of about half my age, turns back and holds up a hand in apology. I can see his leather ball bouncing off down the muddy path, and he quickly sets off after it, chased by his friends.

Xena and I both stare after him, frozen for the same reason. I go to speak, but don’t. If she isn’t thinking what I’m thinking then it’s best not to remind her. If she is, there’s nothing I can say. I glance at her, then avert my gaze, back to the safety of my boots.

"Solan would be his age now, wouldn’t he," Xena comments, falteringly but with a conversational tone. "I guess his hair would’ve grown that long too: I always think of it as shorter."

I nod. The boy didn’t look that much like Solan, really, but similar enough to make the comparison inevitable. We watch the children kicking and tossing the brown leather ball to each other, laughing and shouting, play-fighting and cheering. Full of life. I start on tidying our things, sure that Xena won’t want to linger on the subject. The sadness of not being near her child never leaves her.

"He was so good with his ball, too," Xena continues, surprising me. "Did you see him? He was good and strong, more accurate than those older boys he played with. He could throw that thing right across a field - and run to it quicker than anyone else." She’s actually smiling, full of pride as she looks back through her memories, and I pause to watch her. "You know, I think he’d be a good archer. He’d be strong enough now, wouldn’t he? He’s got the same accuracy Borias had. Good eyesight, too." This is the most she has said in one go for a long time, and I continue to listen. "I’d like to get him a little bow. One made of good, solid ash, so it gives with the string."

And I can actually see all that joy and pride melting away from her, see it replaced by the old resignation and melancholy. It’s been a long time since we saw Solan. He’s happy with Kaliepus. We travel across Greece, but we always give a wide berth to that memory-laden little village on the edge of the wood. She gazes across the market, lost within herself again.

Finally she returns to me, but her eyes are duller than before. "So, where’s the hot tub, then?"

We pack our newly acquired wares into bags for carrying and head for the two storey stone building of the inn. It looks to be one of the older properties in the settlement, and I imagine it must have seen times when there were no homes or market stalls, just the occasional passing cart.

The room containing a fair-sized tub is in a small out-building. The stone floor boasts nothing more than the tub itself and a handful of buckets for filling, but the steam keeps the place warm, and I pull the heavy iron bolt across the door so that we’ll have time alone.

I allow myself a minute to watch my warrior companion. Without any kind of joy or anticipation, she begins to unbuckle her armour and shoulder out of her leathers. She puts her sword down on an upturned tin bucket, where she can reach out and grab the hilt in a hurry if she needs to. She never switches off, never lets her guard down. Not recently, anyway.

Xena lowers herself into the water, and steam rises from her roughened skin. She stands motionless for a moment, gazing at her own reflection in the water. I wonder what she’s thinking. It’s not until her bobbing image settles and stills that she seems to notice my eyes on her, and she glances back. "You coming?" Her voice has no colour, and I sigh, privately.

"Is it warm?" I say out loud, trying to begin a conversation.

"Mmm hmm." She lifts her hands out of the water and studies the droplets that stream in circular patterns down her arms then drip from her elbows. It’s unusual for her to take an interest in such things. Her attention is so focussed that she doesn’t even notice me until I speak again.

My clothes discarded, I slide into the hot tub. The water is luxurious, closing around me and caressing me with warmth But Xena is more important right now. "Xena..." I try gently, looking into a frowning face that hides a soul caught up in something to the exclusion of all else. "Xena -" I’m more insistent this time, and move Xena’s arms aside so as to slip between them.

"Hey -" Xena smiles, as if surprised that I’ve appeared beside her. "Sorry. This is great." She puts her arms around me obligingly and holds me against her, tucking her chin onto my shoulder and giving me the loving cuddle that I wanted. At least we still have this.

"What are you thinking about?" I press my cheek to hers, which is flushed from the warmth, and gaze across the room, made hazy by water vapour. I can hear the faint sounds of village life outside.

"Thinking about?"

I draw back to look into her face. The only effective mask Xena has is that of anger: when she can’t even muster that, like now, her pain is palpable. "You did the best you could, for Nephos and Casani. Both villages asked for your help. There wasn’t an ideal solution."

"Mmm." She keeps her gaze anywhere but on me, which is rather difficult considering my proximity.

"If it weren’t for you, they’d be at war now. People would have died: you stopped that." I force her into making eye contact: I have to get through to her, enough is enough. Xena always berates herself too harshly, sometimes she needs a reminder of all the good she does.

No longer a warrior but just a woman, naked and in my arms, Xena smiles tightly. "I know." She touches my face. "Who made you so smart, huh?" Her forehead presses to mine. "I’m lucky I’ve got you with me, aren’t I. Now turn around, let me scrub your back. You do smell a little like Argo."

"Hey!" I scowl in mock offence, and do as I’m asked. Xena’s strong fingers move the piece of yellow sponge over my shoulders, and I absently watch soapy lather run down my arms. We’ve spent two weeks trying to mediate between the two villages. There was blame to be found on both sides, everyone had made mistakes. Sometimes, it seems to me, there is no innocent party to choose. There are varying degrees of innocence and blame: you just have to do the best you can. There was fighting, and people got hurt. There was even a fire, one dawn in Nephos. Even as we were struggling with the villagers to extinguish the deadly flames, I saw the haunted fear in Xena’s eyes. Nothing frightens her like fire. It brings unwelcome memories from what we both euphemistically refer to as her ‘past’, memories that she can’t wield her sword against. Xena lost a part of herself in the fire that destroyed Cirra, and every blaze since, from Higuchi to Nephos just a few days ago, brings that loss back to mock her.

Xena squeezes the sponge into my ear in her customary fashion, making me laugh and twist away from the wet tickling. "I think I’m clean enough! My turn." I wade around Xena and stand behind her. Across the yard in the kitchen, plates are being clattered together in preparation for the evening meal. "It’s a shame we couldn’t afford to stay the night." The idea of a warm, soft bed is very appealing, but our dinars won’t stretch to it, not if we want to eat tomorrow.

"Mmm." Xena is rubbing her arms with the sponge, so I massage her shoulders instead. It’s one of the many skills Xena has taught me, and now my hands are stronger and my technique more effective. "I’d rather be outside, anyway."

I nod. When we do sleep inside, it’s to please me, not Xena. She’s at home under the stars, she feels safe out in the open. She can stalk off and walk or think if she feels restless, she can drill or check on Argo without disturbing me.

I trace my fingertips over the pattern of freckles on Xena’s back. "Would... would you change things, if you could?" It comes out before I’ve given it enough thought.

"Change?" Xena turns, her expression wary, and rinses the bubbles from her arms. "Change what?"

"Your life. Do things differently." I may as well finish what I’ve started. Xena is loyal to her Way, and wouldn’t refuse to help those who are in need. Noble as this is, it inevitably reminds her of all her past mistakes. She can never escape from the suffering she once caused, no matter how repentant she is. It isn’t fair.

"I wouldn’t change you," Xena reassures, stroking soap from my cheek.

I’m not sure if her misunderstanding is actually deliberate evasion. "I don’t mean that. I mean, do you wish your past had been different? That Cortese hadn’t come to your village, that you’d never..." I trail off, embarrassed to put into words what I’d been thinking.

Xena’s hand drops and the smile and eye contact dissolves. "That’s a pointless question, Gabrielle, why are you asking that now?" It’s a reprimand rather than a query, and I watch her squeezing water savagely from her hair.

"I just... wanted to know. I just wondered." I should’ve kept it to myself. Xena steps up onto the ledge beside me to climb out of the bath, and I’m angry that I’ve pushed too far and spoilt the moment. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked one too many questions and caused Xena to retreat into silence. By now I should have learnt to control my curiosity.

Water sliding off her body, Xena turns and looks at me, more hurt than angry. "What do you think?"

Her voice is quiet, honest, and I utterly regret speaking before giving my words proper thought. "I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed it with you. I’m sorry..." I’m angry at myself, and shake my head, dampening the ends of my hair in the cooling water. I hate to see Xena hurting, and sometimes my own stupid, naive actions make it worse.

"It’s all right."

"It’s none of my business."

"It’s all right, Gabrielle. I’m not angry. Forget it." Pausing at the edge of the tub to talk to me, Xena’s tone is sympathetic but weary.

"You don’t have to go -" I reach out, wanting to bridge the sudden distance between us, to re-establish the contact that I’ve broken. My hands find Xena’s knees.

"I’m done. Besides, Argo needs collecting. I’m not really in the mood. Sorry." She puts her arms back around me briefly. She’s trying to be reassuring, and I appreciate it, but she lets go and climbs out of the water before I’m comforted.

The rest of the day is spent almost in silence. It isn’t a hostile one, but nor is it entirely comfortable. Xena eats a little of her evening meal of baked fish and flakes of vegetable, then hands the rest over to me with a meek smile. She half-heartedly cleans her armour and sword, then lies down to sleep.

I sit on a big stone by our fire and jab a stick randomly into the crackling cinders at its base. It’s an ideal vantage point: something else that Xena taught me. One can pretend to be engrossed in one’s own thoughts, or in minding the fire, while actually watching others without arousing their suspicion. It’s an indication of Xena’s distraction that she doesn’t recognise when her own trick is being used on her.

Xena is so sad.

Upset and frustrated, I shake my head. Xena’s remorse over her past is something that doesn’t ever go away, but it’s usually manageable. This last fight, though, and being caught in the fire, has obviously reminded her of things that she can’t push aside. I’m sure she will fight it, push it down, hide it, and things will go back to normal, but how long will it be before there’s another war, another reminder? The sadness won’t ever end.

I gaze at my companion, a dark lump under grey blankets. I took special care to arrange our furs, picking small rocks from the earth and tossing them aside, overlapping the skins so no damp can rise up. There’s no point in sitting here and fretting. Dropping my stick into the fire, I go over to the bedroll. Wearily, I sit and cover myself. Xena doesn’t open her eyes, but she isn’t asleep: she’s lying too neatly.

I figured out a long time ago that ground is hard when you lie on it. You can’t weed out all the rocks, you can’t stop the ground freezing, and you can’t make a blanket any thicker than it is. I learned to overcome this problem by fidgeting endlessly until I can manage to fit my body into the soft muddy bits between the rocks and the ice. Xena adapted herself to this in her turn with equal speed, and now pays no absolutely no attention to my squirming whatsoever.

Fire, I think to myself as I begin to settle, is in some ways like a person. It isn’t something that can be taken for granted. The more attention and care you give it, the more heat and light you’re rewarded with. If you neglect it, as we did tonight, it makes its disapproval known: these embers hold very little heat, and I shiver. I heave onto my side and tuck my legs up to keep a little warmer.

My toes brush Xena’s calf. She’s somehow always warm all over, but perhaps that’s because she has the good sense to sleep in her boots and leathers. I’m still too conditioned to life in a small farmhouse, I suppose, and it doesn’t seem right to me to wear your boots to bed, even if bed is a rug on the ground. Xena does have a tendency to get up at night and prowl around the camp, or do drills, or think, and I absolutely do not, so I guess she needs her boots.

It could be worse: I’ve been far colder. I congratulate myself on my foresight in using my second blanket as a covering, but then scowl at the realisation that my brilliance has left me with no pillow. There’s an easy solution to that. I lift myself up and settle back on Xena’s chest. Now I can rest. With my head on her shoulder, I’m safe. There is no more protected place than being beside Xena. It’s funny: I saw safety in Xena from the first day she came tearing into Poteidaia snarling and swinging her sword.

In the beginning, I felt more comfortable around Xena than she did with me, I know that. Whether it was down to foolishness or naivety I’m not so sure. Xena didn’t know how to react to people, back then, let alone an enthusiastic, talkative teenager. Sometimes she just didn’t know what to make of me. It took us both a long time to feel each other out, to get to where we are now.

Wordlessly, Xena reaches an arm around me and holds me. She always does, eventually. We snuggle into our regular sleeping position. Sometimes Xena will idly stroke my hair, or kiss my forehead. Tonight she’s still, but it’s nonetheless an honour and a wonder to me to be close to her like this, to move as she breathes and to listen to her heart.

Too thoughtful to be tired, I gaze out into the darkness of the jungle, my cheek on Xena’s breast. How simple life had seemed when we first met. I never would have dared to lie with her like this back then. In fact, for a long time I assumed she didn’t like to be touched. That was the impression she gave, and I went to some lengths to avoid contact, when possible, out of respect for her wishes. But some nights I’d see her, rubbing her arms in the cold, or squeezing her hands, or brushing her hair when it was already smooth, and I figured that sometimes even Xena needed to be touched, just like everyone else. One day there was a bad fight, good people died, and I saw that she was upset. She didn’t say a word - just sat sharpening her sword and gazing down at the blood-encrusted blade without really seeing it. I stood behind her for a long time, wanting to help but not daring to move. I didn’t know what to say, but I couldn’t conceive of just leaving Xena with her pain. So finally I reached out and touched her dark hair, stroked it back from the shadowed face. Xena shook her head, I remember, and half looked back - "Not now, Gabrielle, huh?" But I’d caught sight of her eyes by then, really seen them for the first time: liquid pools of blue with flecks of brown and even green. All the pain there was suddenly so unguarded, and Xena was holding onto and stroking my arms even as I reached down to put those arms around her.

It’s a nice time to remember. Like I said - things were simple. I often let my mind wander back to those early, happy days, when the present gets too difficult. Xena sighs deeply underneath me. I pat her leather-covered side softly, hoping she’s falling asleep. She wouldn’t let anyone else lay with her like this. Only Solan, of course.

My eyes were growing heavy, the red firelight blurring into a misty wash, but that last thought brings me painfully back to awareness. Solan should be here. He should be here, with his mother. But he isn’t: Xena acted as she did because of her past, to protect Solan from it. I wonder what sort of mother Xena would have made, if she’d had the chance. She would have liked to have her child with her. She would have played with him, and provided for him, and taught him to be a good person. Her sacrifice means that Solan will never know who his mother is.

Xena shifts under me, so I lazily adjust my weight, allowing her the freedom to change her position. Surprising me, she gently slides out from under me, tosses back the blanket, and goes over to the fire. I lay back and watch her silently. I don’t want Xena to know I’m awake: that would mean we have to talk, and I don’t know what to say to her. She isn’t the easiest person to comfort, not when she can’t bring her guard down.

Xena crouches and throws some more small twigs onto the fire, her body language tired and defeated. The she stands and observes the results for a while, absolutely silent and absolutely still. I wonder what she’s thinking. The air feels heavy: even the night creatures stay quiet, respecting Xena’s intensity of feeling.

At length, Xena returns, as if nothing has changed. In the darkness, I can only see her shape silhouetted against the fire. Without a word, she lies down with her head on me, tucked against my body, the top of her head warm by my cheek. Numbly, I lift an arm around her shoulders. Starring up at the starless sky, I try to remember if this has ever happened before. I can’t recall Xena ever opting to sleep like this, it’s too... vulnerable, too dependent. I’m proud and pained in equal measure. I feel Xena’s hands curled into my side, and stroke them softly, thinking that they’re chilled. Her hair tickles my face, fragrant from our bath. I wish there was something more I could do to ease the hurting Xena always carries with her. "I’m here..." Whispering in the night’s stillness, I press a kiss into the cloud of mahogany hair. Xena doesn’t react: maybe she has fallen asleep. I hope so.

Looking down at the crown of her head, I can see the vulnerable child that everyone else thinks is extinct, the innocent village girl who just did what she thought she had to to survive. I stroke her temple with the backs of my fingers, and think about the carefree girl that might have been. If I could get those times back for Xena to live again, I would.

My own life has been so simple, so uncomplicated: and I include my travels with Xena in that statement. Despite what we’ve seen, the things we’ve been through, there has never been any real dilemma for me: my place is by her side. Where Xena leads, I follow. I’m sure some would say I’m too dependent on her, that I live in her shadow. Perhaps those people are right. But it’s where I choose to be. At each step in my life, I have had choice.

Xena hasn’t had that privilege. She didn’t ask Cortese and his men to invade her village, she just had to defend it. She has told me herself that it was fighting him that set her off down the slope of being twisted into what she became. She never speaks about how it caused her mother to disown her, her kinsfolk to cast her out. Xena wanted to join Caesar, but that path led to her being betrayed, and her legs destroyed with a violence that I can’t even imagine. She lost her child, and lost the man who, in the end, loved her and wanted the best for her. Xena has always been alone. I have had luck in every respect, and she has had none.

She’s quiet and still now, on the fir beside me, and I hope she’s resting. I tell myself that she’ll feel better in the morning, when it’s light, but I know really that I’m transferring my own feelings to her: the daylight cheers me up, but Xena is at her most comfortable in the dark. Nonetheless, I hope she feels better: I just don’t know what I can do to help.

I go to roll over, to give Xena a cuddle and fall asleep with her. Before I can move, I hear a crunch in the dry leaves to my left, and I freeze. Bandits, I tell myself. Damn. Bound to be easy for Xena and I to see off, but I wanted her to have a peaceful night. I let my arm flop to my side, pretending I’ve noticed nothing. I always keep my staff within reach: Xena taught me that. The first time I successfully pulled it up from the leaves and used it in the dark, I bopped Xena on the nose. She wasn’t best pleased. It made the most satisfying crack. I hope I can be as accurate now.

I inch my fingers across the grey blanket and curl them around the polished wood. Whoever has been foolish enough to creep into our camp will get a surprise. I’ll give them a wallop around the legs to stun them, then I’ll jump up, waking Xena, and we’ll take them all out. Good plan.

Feeling adrenaline surge through me and make me strong, I tense my arm and make to heave up my staff.

It doesn’t move.

Shocked, I let go, and turn my head to look. A big black boot is resting on the wood, pinning it to the forest floor. Not good. Fearful now, I move my eyes up the leather-clad leg, past silver studs that reflect the moonlight, to a very self-satisfied face.

"Best not to wake Xena," Ares grins down at me. "Why don’t you and I have a little one on one chat." He rests big hands on the hilt of his sword, slung at his waist, and waits for my reply.

I pause for a moment, trapped between my options. He must be here for a reason. It can’t do any harm to listen to him. Xena will only be a shout away. Resigned, I gently ease myself away from her, making sure her head is set down on the fur without a bump. I take my time straightening the blankets over her: Ares will have to wait for me.

By the time I rise and turn he’s pacing impatiently, and he laughs at the staff I hold. He’ll have to put up with that, too: I’m not leaving it. We go a little way into the trees: I stop when I think we’re just out of Xena’s earshot, not willing to go any further.

"I’m listening."

He holds up his finger. "Actually, I’m the one who’s been listening. I’ve been paying a lot of attention to you."

"To me?" I doubt that.

"Well," He concedes, "To both of you. But especially to what you’ve been thinking... and writing in your little drawing pads, and..."

"You read my scrolls?!" How dare he? Why am I standing here listening to this egocentric, arrogant creature? I tut and turn to go. Ares has nothing to say that I want to hear, he just plays with people for fun.

"I can make Xena happy again."

His tone has changed, but I’m too angry to really hear it. "What, by making her your Queen?" I call back mockingly as I stride. "By seducing her, bribing her, lying -" I tick off on my fingers, and almost walk into him when he sparkles into form in front of me.

"By letting her live her life again. By turning back the clock, erasing all those mistakes, all that pain. That is what you wished for her... isn’t it?"

So now he has my attention. "Why... why would you do that? Now? Why should I listen to you?"

"Because we both know how much you want what I’m offering." He glances down to my chest before turning and beginning to pace.

Outraged all over again, I instinctively cover myself with my hand. How dare he? But... I realise I’ve misunderstood. Under my fingertips, my skin is wet. I touch my knuckles to my lips, and find them salty.

Xena was crying. She was lying against me crying, and I didn’t even know, couldn’t even hold her and comfort her. After all this time together, her misery is so deep and her guilt so great that she can’t share it, can’t begin to release it.

"It’s a simple deal," Ares goes on, taking out his sword and pretending to stab invisible enemies with it. "What would you say was the perfect moment? Your choice, Gabrielle." He spins around and lunges at the air. "Although perhaps I might suggest... Ooh, just before Cortese and his men fell on Amphipolis?"

"I’m not sure..." What right do I have to play around with Xena’s life?

"You love her, don’t you? God knows, that’s what your colouring books are filled with -" He mimes flicking through sheets. "Xena this, Xena that, all hail Xena -"

"They’re scrolls!"

"Scrolls, I’m sorry." He gives a small bow and returns to me. "Imagine how much happier she’d be, without all that in her past. She could live a normal life. Imagine how much happier you’d both be."

Of course, if time goes back, then I... "I might never meet her."

Ares laughs, looking skyward, his deep voice echoing through his chest. "Now Gabrielle, I know you don’t hold me in the highest esteem, but you have to admit, even I’m not stupid enough to think you’d ever agree to that. No -" He strokes a hand thoughtfully through his beard. "I’m afraid it’s not in my job description to change the whole known world - not without Daddy onside, anyway." He scowls, then brightens again. "Just Xena. You’ll be just as you are. And you two will be free to carry on being... best friends, or...whatever it is that you are." He waves his hand dismissively. "Hmm?"

"No, no, now you listen -" I carefully set my staff down against a rock. "I know you, Ares. And I know that you don’t go around doing things out of the kindness of your heart. Not even for Xena. Now what’s the catch? What’s in it for you." How foolish does he think I am?

But he looks at me with such sudden, quiet unguardedness that I forget my hostility and just listen. "I’ll give Xena a chance at the life she wants, if you give me a chance at the life I want." It’s an intriguing proposal. "No tricks. I won’t interfere with the two of you, when Cortese comes it’s up to Xena what she does: everything will be just as it was before."

"But -?"

"But when I come to Xena, when I ask her to stand at my side - you don’t interfere. Xena is free to choose."

I’m pulled toward his proposal, finding myself imagining all the possibilities, the chance to erase all the grief that Xena carries. "And if she chooses to have nothing to do with you?"

He shrugs. "Then I’m no worse off than I am now. Equal odds, Gabrielle. Do we have a deal?" He extends his hand.

Xena would never choose him. I can make a difference to her in the time I have. I can heal, just like I always wanted. Xena will thank me, I know she will. I will never have such an opportunity again. It’s no choice at all, really. "We have a deal." And I grasp his hand.

The flash of light has rendered my eyes dumb, and I have to stand and blink for a while before I can see. Ares hasn’t been shoddy - I recognise Amphipolis instantly, and I know where Cyrene’s tavern is. As I hurry towards it I’m almost excited: I’m in my twentieth year, and if Ares really has taken Xena back a decade she’ll be the age I was when we first met, just a few years younger than I am now. How intriguing it’ll be to see her like that! She’ll be as she was before all the bad things happened. She’ll be carefree and happy and youthful. I won’t need to interfere when Cortese comes: Xena just made a mistake before, it won’t happen again. I’ll be able to give Xena what she always wanted: a life without all that guilt and sorrow. I love her, and I can give her this gift.

I run into the tavern, and beam to see Cyrene, who looks more youthful than I know her but still friendly and hardworking. "Excuse me!" I call. Of course she doesn’t recognise me, but she smiles questioningly.

"Drink of ale, Child?"

"No, no thank you -" I hold up my hands to pause her. "Where’s Xena?"

"Xena? Why, she’s working. Do we know each other...?"

"I’m Gabrielle." I smile, and she returns it. "No, I’m... I’m an old friend. I’m excited to see her again. Can you tell me where she is?"

Cyrene laughs and goes on filling a row of goblets. "Xena usually keeps to herself, I’m glad she’s got such an enthusiastic friend! She’s out working in the North Field with her brothers."

"Thanks!" I nod and run back out through the double doors. Surely Xena’s mother was wrong - Xena must have been outgoing and friendly as a youth, that’s how I always imagine her. She’s always confident, she’d have no problem making friends.

I see a figure up the hill in the distance, and run all the way. She won’t know me, of course, but I’m nothing if not good with words: I’ve won her affection once, I can do it again. When I’m near enough to see clearly, I slow down and lurk behind a scattering of trees. Xena is unmistakable. It makes me smile just to stand and look at her.

Facially, she’s the same as I’ve always known her: strong cheek bones, bright blue eyes, dark lips. Her hair is longer, curling up at the ends, and better looked after. She wears a simple linen skirt, a leather belt sitting at a slant, and a light cotton top. The boy who she’s chatting to is fair haired, and I take him to be her younger brother. I never met Lyceus - he died in Cortese’s attack - but now he and Xena are back together. They clearly enjoy each other’s company; they laugh and push playfully at each other as they walk. This is just how I expected to see Xena: carefree and happy.

The two carry buckets, and stoop down as they walk to pick fruit from low growing shrubs. Lyceus throws the berry he has collected into his pail. "Don’t smash it!" Xena chastises him. "You want a little money out of this, don’t you?"

"I’d also like not to have a broken back!" Lyceus exclaims. "I hate keep bending down like this."

"Oh, don’t complain." Xena’s tone is light hearted, and I think she’s amused, as she spots a ripe berry hiding under a dark leaf. She uses the same easy tone with me sometimes.

"You’d think Mother could’ve found us better work."

"It’s a favour to Phoebus, you know that."

"Hmm."

This seems like as good a time as any. I walk casually over to the pair, and they look up at me expectantly. I greet them and say that I’ve come to work too. Xena listens to me openly: she shows none of the suspicion or wariness that I know her older self would display. Her whole demeanour is so different, so... open, so light.

"So where’s your bucket?" Lyceus asks. He starts to nibble on a berry, and Xena rolls her eyes and goes on with her picking.

"Erm..." I look down at my empty hands. "He’d run out. Maybe I can take over from you - you look like you could use a rest."

Lyceus grins and wipes an arm over his face. He’s an appealing boy. Xena speaks about him often, always fondly, and I feel like I know him. "Sure. Good plan, thanks." He sets down his wooden bucket. "I’ll go find Toris. Put your back into it, Zee, stop slacking!"

Xena straightens to swipe at him, but he’s already off at a sprint, speeding across the field and laughing. His elder sister shakes her head a little and smiles quietly. She sits down heavily, the bucket between her feet, and begins to hull the berries, throwing away the stalks.

"Hi," I say to her. It’s an incredible opportunity, to be able to meet Xena all over again, and I’m nervous and excited.

"Hi." She looks up, gives a polite little smile, then returns to her work.

"I’m Gabrielle," I try. I love the way she says my name: I want to hear it.

She looks up again out of politeness, and nods a little awkwardly. "Xena."

It’s strange not to hear a clever comment from her. It’s strange to be meeting her as a stranger. I’ve grown so used to being greeted with a smile, a friendly hand, her enormous warmth. I sit down by her and peer into Lyceus’ abandoned pail. The first time we met I had to earn her friendship - I tricked a cyclops, saved her from a stoning, chased her across Greece, and hid in the jungle until I was frozen down to my bones - I can handle some friendly chatter, I’m sure.

I take a red berry from the bucket. Watching Xena covertly, I pull on the stalk in a deliberately heavy handed fashion and squash half the fruit. "Oh. How’d you do this?" I hold out my clumsy attempt to her, red juice winding over my wrist and dripping down my arm.

Xena looks at me with very familiar disbelief. "You don’t know how to hull a berry?"

I shrug.

Xena inhales deeply. "You twist the stalk." She demonstrates on my crushed specimen, scowling when she gets juice all over her hands. "See?"

Many skills. "Uh ha. Thanks." I grin at her.

"Sure." Another half smile. She looks me up and down. "Not from around here, are you."

There, ice broken. Well done, Gabrielle. "No, I’m from Poteidaia."

"Oh. Don’t you farm there?"

"We do," I allow, "But only animals."

"Oh. Right."

We hull our berries in companionable silence for a while.

"I’m looking for somewhere to stay," I say conversationally. "You don’t know anywhere, do you?"

"My Mother owns an inn," Xena tells me, "We have rooms. We don’t charge too much, especially if you’re looking for work in the bar. You’d be welcome," She adds, rather more out of obligation than friendliness. For the first time in my life, I am her elder, and tradition demands that she shows me courtesy.

"Sounds great." Perfect: I’ll get to stay close to her, where I can keep my eye out for Cortese. I want to get to know her some more, too, to know this part of her. She’s always kept it so carefully buried. I don’t know how long it’ll take before the army fall on the village, but going by Xena’s age - and knowing of Ares’ impatience - I don’t imagine it can be too many weeks. I need to be near Xena, to protect her from making the same mistake all over again.

I chatter to her as we finish the berries then make our way back down the hill. Unlike the first time we met, my incessant talking doesn’t seem to annoy her at all. Most of the time she looks at me as if she wonders how it’s possible to talk so much and not run out of topics or air. This isn’t an unusual reaction. When she quits eyeing me with raised eyebrows she listens quietly, not responding much but grinning at what I say from time to time.

It feels strange to part for the day with a polite nod, to not lie down next to her and talk about the day’s events, or study the stars together, or feel her fingers in mine as we fall asleep. The next day I barely see her, as she’s off doing whatever she does, and I work in the bar alongside Cyrene, who is amiable and nurturing, good hearted and hard working. In our real lives, the first time I met Cyrene was when she and Xena were still at odds, and we said little to each other. Later, when Xena returned to her village, having earned her mother’s forgiveness and with me still in tow, Cyrene seemed pleasantly surprised that I’d stuck around, and welcomed me warmly. Now, knowing what Xena and are to each other, she treats me as her child, gifting me with her good humour and wise counsel.

At the moment, though, I’m just a bar girl from out of town. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try, actually, just as at some point or another in my life I’ve wanted to try everything and anything imaginable. As a child, in my mind I would write myself into stories of every kind. A barmaid, a bard, a dancer, a travelling warrior. Back then the social nature of work in a tavern was quite appealing, I think, after years of talking only to livestock and grumpy farmers in Poteidaia. The inhabitants of Amphipolis are a largely peaceful crowd: there are no fights to break up or drunkards to control. In fact, it’s not nearly as dramatic as I’d always imagined, but it is easy money.

Cyrene seems to like me - she’s chatty too - and the next day when Xena and Lyceus go fishing she suggests I tag along. I haven’t seen Xena socialising with anyone except her brothers and a couple of her mother’s friends. That’s not how I’d always imagined Xena to be, either.

My friend’s zest for marine sport is not diminished by her youth. She and her younger brother go about their task with gusto, and it’s not until they’ve got their rods set up and bait is bobbing in the still water that Xena really notices me. I’m nowhere near as proficient a fisherwoman as she is, but I can hold my own. It doesn’t hurt to bumble a little, though, and look a bit lost; soon Xena comes over to help.

"You can catch any fish you want, Gabrielle," She tells me as she digs my rod into the sand, and glances at me with such a familiar little smile, "But if you see a blue one, ‘bout this big -" She holds her hands apart " - then he’s ours. We’ve been after him for more than a year."

"Nearly got ‘im once!" Lyceus calls out. He’s sitting messily on the sand, bare feet in the water, floppy ash hair blowing into his face. He is instantly likable, easy going and friendly. I’m so glad to have had the chance to meet him, and so sad that Xena had to lose him. "We were wrestling with that rod for ages, but he got away." Lyceus grins throughout his narration. "He’s wily. It was my bite though, wasn’t it, Xena?"

Xena returns his smile warmly, full of pride. "Yeah, it was your bite, Kid." She reaches out and touches his hair affectionately. "Better watch your rod so you don’t miss your second chance today."

"Sure." Lyceus agrees enthusiastically and turns away to tinker with his fishing rod.

Xena sits by me: quietly, shyly. "Solaris is the biggest fish I’ve ever seen in this lake," She begins awkwardly, fiddling with the cotton tie of her dress and gazing out across the vast expanse of water. The wind from across the lake is slightly chill and ruffles her dark, dark hair as it hangs longer down her back than I’m used to. The morning sun catches her eyes and makes them cool and bright under dark eyebrows. "He’s clever, he seems to have an intelligence that the others don’t. It makes him good prey." After a pause, she gives a little, self-depreciating laugh and her eyes flick to mine for a second. I don’t think she’s used to having a friend sit and listen to her as I’m doing. "Well, it keeps my brother happy to think that, anyway."

Lyceus pushes up onto his knees, wiping his hands on battered trousers, and we watch him haul in a short but reasonably plump fish. Disappointed but not defeated, he tosses it into his satchel and concentrates on fixing fresh bait to his hook.

"You two get on well, don’t you," I observe.

"Uh ha."

She’s receptive to me, and it becomes easy to chat about Amphipolis and the Inn and the lake. Xena is wary at first, but she talks more when she realises that I’m listening to her and I’m interested in what she says. We do have things in common, but our differences are apparent too. She doesn’t seem to be bored with mundane village life, as I always was, she says she’s content to take each day as it comes. She lacks the determination and focus of the Xena I know, the Xena who must have led armies and commanded nations, and I wonder when and how she found that in herself. She apparently finds me amusing even when I’m not trying to be funny, and laughs softly and bobs her head so that wild hair tumbles over her shoulders and needs pushing back from time to time.

"Are you staying in Amphipolis for a while?" She busies herself by winding the fine fishing line around her fingers.

Good question. "For a while. As long as I think I need to."

She nods. "Maybe if you do stay for a while I can introduce you to a friend of my Mother’s who trades in parchments and quills." My writing had come up in our conversation the day before yesterday, and she has apparently remembered it. "He has a little stall. You might find something there you like."

I can see that it isn’t easy for her to try to make friends. I always thought that trait had come from years of needing to mistrust others and keep your guard up to survive, but I see now that to an extent it’s just part of her character. Maybe if she hadn’t been driven into war and violence, if she’d been able to have more people to place her trust in early on, she could have grown out of her teenage apprehension.

"I’d love you to show me," I tell her, "Thanks."

She brings her head up, and we finally manage to maintain eye contact. "Sure."

"Woah!" Lyceus leaps up to his feet, clutching his fishing rod, which is bending dangerously in the middle. "I think I got him!" His feet slide in the fine sand. "Help me, Xena!"

We both rush forward and try to get a grip, me on the rod and Xena on her brother. Whatever it is that’s pulling on the line is strong, and we tug on it with our combined strength. My exertions make me hot under the Greek sun, but it’s exhilarating to be working together, and Lyceus and I laugh as we’re dragged across the sand.

"Come on!" Xena encourages, "Get him!" She grits her teeth and heaves on the wood. "Don’t let him get away! He’s ours! Get him!"

Her voice has changed, and it scares me. She’s talking as if she were issuing orders to her men. I look around and can see a violence and lust for blood in her eyes that I never dreamt existed before Cortese. Maybe I don’t understand Xena as well as I think I do. This is the most confident I’ve seen her in this world. I look into her face, and her aggression is so familiar that ironically I feel like I don’t know her at all.

I flush cold at this realisation and lose my grip on the rod. Suddenly the pull from the fish relaxes. Lyceus and Xena continue with the momentum and bump into me. Stumbling backwards, I feel my heel catch on a stone buried in the sand and lose my balance. I forget my shock over Xena and instead I’m winded as I trip and splash down onto my rear.

"Gabrielle!"

My vision clears again. Xena is by me, her arms clutched around my waist. Her hair has fallen about my neck and I can feel her breath on my cheek. All I can see is her blue eyes, for just a second.

"Get up - you okay?" She tugs at me, as does Lyceus in a concerned but ineffectual way, and we scrabble back out of the water. I’m not hurt, just wet, and I manage to laugh off the surprise and dust wet sand from my arm. "D’you hurt yourself, Gabrielle?" Xena holds me for a moment, sitting haphazardly by me, then comes over bashful and withdraws the hands that were resting about my waist.

"I’m fine," I assure her, tossing my damp hair out of my face. She doesn’t look comforted, and she’s a bit out of breath. "Just me being clumsy." Thank the Gods that anger has disappeared from her as swiftly as it descended. "Saves me a bath tonight!" I jump up and reach down for her hands, and she accepts my reassurance and smiles as she gets up. Her hands are slender and strong, but smaller and softer than I remember. Innocent hands. I squeeze them before letting go. "You lost your bite, Lyceus?"

"Yeah," He shrugs, "But I’m not sure it was him. Last time I got Solaris he dragged me right off my feet and half way up to my neck before he let go. That was a lightweight." He cheerfully winds in the loose line.

"We should be getting back." Xena turns away and packs up her kit. She’s confused by her feelings. We barely know each other - at least, she barely knows me - but her reaction when I fell shows she cares for me, and I think the feeling has come over her more swiftly than she’s used to. Does she really have so little experience of it? She’s as unsettled by this new affection as she was the first time we really met, in Poteidaia. The two versions of herself really aren’t so different.

Lyceus comes up beside me. "You’re really not hurt, Gabrielle?"

I smile at him and shake my head.

"You’re all wet, though. Let me carry your bag for you." He takes my satchel and slings it over his shoulder on top of his own. Xena has gone on ahead, but at the line of rocks which mark the edge of the beach Lyceus jumps up first then reaches a hand back for me.

I smile and grasp his hand. "Thank you, Lyceus. That’s very gentlemanly of you."

"It’s a man’s duty to look after women," He tells me, in no way flippant or boastful. "I try to help my mother, and I want to take care of my sister. Toris taught me that, he says it’s what our father would have done, if he were here." He doesn’t sound sad, and I don’t think can be old enough to have met the father that even Xena barely remembers. She only has sketchy memories of a time when her family was complete, and it’s not something she often speaks of. "It’s muddy here, Gabrielle - take care you don’t slip."

No matter how long this Lyceus lives, I think to myself that he’ll always be as playful as a child and as gentle as a man. He is completely deserving of the love Xena has always held in her heart for him, and my desire that he not die in a senseless battle doubles my determination to make this work. How long do I have before Cortese rides and history repeats itself?

Xena has stopped and is peering down at something in the path ahead. When we catch up to her I see that it’s a tiny fawn. It’s lying quite still but it’s breathing. One leg is lame and bloodied - I guess that it must have been attacked by a wolf or some other creature.

The three of us gaze down at it. It’s so small, its orange coat so fresh, that it’s somehow a powerful reminder of the fragile nature of life. At last Lyceus looks uncertainly up to Xena. "Should we hunt it? Deer meat tastes good."

Xena shakes her head. "We have plenty. It’d just go to waste. Go on ahead now - go on." She nudges at his shoulder, and after a pause he accepts the instruction and jogs on down the path. Xena untangles her rod and raises up the heavy butt of it.

"Wait!" I catch her arm. "What are you doing?"

She looks at me, sombre but faintly surprised. "Killing it. A hard blow to the skull will be quick and -"

"But you said you had enough food, you said there was no need to hunt today." Almost frightened by her now, I pull the wooden rod from her hands.

"Gabrielle it’s suffering," She tells me with conviction, turning toward me. "It’s only going to die - it’s best to end it so it doesn’t feel pain. Sometimes bad things happen." She takes back her rod, impatient. "Thought you said you were a farmer."

I spent my childhood farming, and my recent years hunting for food, she’s correct. I know animals die. But Xena is too quick to welcome that death, and I can’t do it. "The wound isn’t too bad," I tell her, and crouch down by the fawn. If she wants to strike it dumb, she’ll strike me first. "If it’s looked after it’ll heal." I take a cloth and my small bottle of water from my smaller bag and start to clean the bleeding limb. "We’ll put it back on the edge of the wood and its mother will find it."

"But..." Xena squats by me and watches what I’m doing as if seeing such actions for the first time in her life. "But its mother will waste milk on it, weaken herself, and it might still die?" Her eyes move up from the animal and fix on me, incredulous and captivated.

"But it might not. I have to give it that chance, Xena." I fix a pressure bandage on the fragile limb, smiling down at the fawn and cooing gently when it turns its watery brown eyes up to me.

"How..." Xena’s boots shift beside me. "How’d you know how to do that?"

I tie a neat bow. "A good friend showed me. She taught me lots of things." I gingerly pick the creature up and set it down in the grass. It starts to call meekly for its parent.

When I brush off my hands and turn back to Xena, she’s standing alone in the middle of the path. The trees are big around her and she suddenly seems very small and lost, her dark hair curling around her shoulders. "I wouldn’t... I’ve never... known anyone quite like you."

Not quite. I smile modestly and return to her. We go on walking.

"Do you learn that philosophy, that way, at home, in... Poteidaia?"

I lean on my rod as if it were a staff. "Not really. It’s just what I feel. I believe that..." I take a moment to order my thoughts, and she walks quietly beside me, listening. "I believe that life is precious. All life. Peace is precious. I believe in the Way of Love. People should do whatever they can to help each other. Violence and hatred isn’t the way: it only leads to more violence and hatred."

Xena is silent for a while, unusually thoughtful, and I don’t push her. "I like your Way," She says at last.

We are near the village, and Lyceus stands waiting for us. I don’t have time to say any more, but at least it’s a start. I go into Cyrene’s tavern, part with Xena and her brother, and sit at one of the shiny old wooden tables. It’s cooler in here, away from the blazing Greek summer sun, and I could use a refreshing drink. My clothes and boots have just about dried out, thankfully. I trace my fingertip aimlessly over the honey-coloured swirls in the wood until Toris comes over to take my order. He’s tall like Xena, dark-haired and intent. He doesn’t have Lyceus’ easy-going charisma, but he’s sensible and polite and friendly. As the oldest male of the family he must feel the responsibility that should rightly be placed on a father’s shoulders. I place him at only a couple of years older than myself.

"What can I get you, Gabrielle?" He asks with a courteous smile.

I order a cold jug of water, and thank him. "Is there any work here tonight, Toris? I’m free if you need any extra staff."

"I’ll ask Mother for you."

"Thanks."

I’d thought that Xena had gone, disappeared upstairs with Lyceus, but now I suddenly notice her. She comes over and slides onto the bench opposite me, elbows on the table, head down to avoid eye contact with myself or Toris.

Her brother regards her. "Xena, shouldn’t you be next door helping old Tyressa? Mother asked you. She’s an old woman, you shouldn’t keep her waiting."

"I’m going, Toris," Xena tells him with slight irritation. "Her socks will still need darning whether I go now or after I’ve quenched my thirst."

"Well, don’t be long." Toris clearly knows when he’s beaten, and waits until he’s out of Xena’s view to give her an exasperated but fond little glance.

Xena’s eyes come up to mine for just a moment. "If he thinks I’m spending my afternoon knitting, he can think again. The socks would be worse than when I started. I’m building Tyressa a fence and hut to keep her hens in. She’s half blind, but if I do a good job I’ll get a fresh egg for my efforts, and she cooks them just right." Xena laughs softly at herself and it’s impossible not to share her mirth.

Toris returns with a jug of water and two glasses. I drink thirstily, my throat dry, and Xena busies herself doing the same. I wonder why she’s come back, and wait patiently for her to speak. This is something I’m quite accustomed to. Sometimes it takes her all night, or all week, so I’m relieved when she begins after only a few awkward moments.

"Lyceus likes you."

I take a sip of my water and pour out some more for us both. "I like him too."

Xena nods agreement. "He’s a good judge of character."

I take the compliment gracefully but go on speaking, not wanting the conversation to dry up before it’s even gotten started. "Your brothers are quite different, aren’t they. You look more like Toris, but your character is closer to Lyceus’. It’s interesting. My sister and I are quite dissimilar too."

Xena nods but I’m not convinced that she’s really listening. "Toris was blonder, when he was young." She offers.

"Really? Were you?"

She shakes her head. "No." I watch her tracing a finger up the side of the jug, catching a drip of condensation and breaking its perfectly round structure. As I wait patiently I think about her family, who I never got to know in real life. With his floppy hair and his easy smile, Lyceus is so like Solan. Xena’s genes are strong, and her young brother lives on in her young son. It’s not something she’s ever mentioned, but she must have seen it. I try to imagine what it would have been like for her to give away her child. She lost Lyceus, only to deliver a baby and look down into his face and see her brother there. I can almost visualise her, letting her hair tumble over him as she kissed him and knowing she would have to lose him too. I have to get this right.

"I need to go fruit picking tomorrow," Xena says, and I startle out of my imagining. "The harvests are all coming in, it’s a busy time. The apples and pairs are falling fast and they’ll spoil if they’re not collected. There’s lots of work." She inhales and straightens herself, meets my eyes. "You can come with me, if you like. It’s a nice piece of land, out across the fields." She allows herself a small smile. "We can take some food. And you could tell me more about this peaceful philosophy of yours." She looks at me expectantly, her fingers working nervously around her glass.

It sounds like a lovely day. "That’d be great, Xena. Thanks."

She grins. "Sure." She pushes up from her bench, all hurried and pleased. So there is a spark of the carefree girl that I’m searching for there. I watch her go then finish my drink slowly and contentedly. Everything here will be fine, I can pull this off. Ares and I will keep our deal - I won’t need to interfere when he decides to show up, Xena will do the right thing.

The next day is beautiful: warm and bright and fresh and sunny. Xena and I walk out across the hills behind the town, big apple baskets on our arms. Xena carries a rolled blanket and a small satchel for lunch. It really is idyllic. The ground levels off - for which my knees are grateful - and we come across rows and rows of small, stout trees bearing shiny, plump apples. We pick them as we go, eating one or two when we get thirsty, and talk. It’s just like it’s always been.

"So you want to follow your parents into farming, Gabrielle?" She asks me.

I turn up my nose. "No." There’s no way you’d get me into a dull life as a farmer’s wife: it seemed unlikely enough when I was a child, and now, after all I’ve seen and done, it’s unimaginable. "That wouldn’t suit me." I pick another apple and drop it into my already heavy basket. "What I’d like to do - what I’ve always wanted, really - is to set up a hospital. Somewhere that sick, poor people could be cared for. I want to help people who haven’t been as lucky as I have."

She nods. "That’s very noble." She takes a bite of her fruit. "But not everyone deserves to be helped. What if someone has done something bad? Something unforgivable? How would you know who was worthy of your care? How would you judge?"

"Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness, and forgiveness. Even people who have made mistakes or done something bad." I look up at her as we walk side by side, and see the Warrior who hasn’t ever forgiven herself for the things she’s done. "It’s the only way, Xena. Love can make a difference, I believe that."

She laughs softly, gently. "You want to change the world, huh Gabrielle?"

I shrug. "I guess I want to try."

"Then I think you probably can." She steps closer to me and her arm goes around my shoulders. It’s as warm and familiar as ever, and her hair brushes across my shoulder as she turns her head to give me an uncertain little smile. Only a little younger than me, she’s closer to my height and my arm fits properly around her waist rather than her hips. I close my eyes for a moment and know everything about the way she walks, the way our sides touch as we step through the grass.

We walk in silence but the apple picking is forgotten. We wander through into a clearer, uncultivated field where the grass is longer. Amphipolis is small down on the horizon: there’s no one up here but us, and the summer birds are flitting from tree to tree. Wild flowers grow in the grass, small and delicate. Most are yellow, but some are pale pink, with perfectly symmetrical magenta lines at the heart of their three petals. I stoop down to pick one of the dainty pink blooms, rolling the hairy stem between my fingers.

When I straighten, Xena takes my hand, and we go on walking. Her skin feels softer and smoother than the hand of a warrior, and her grip is light. We walk along holding hands like two school children on an outing, fearful of letting go lest we should lose each other in this wonderful place. I hold the flower to my nose and inhale the mild scent. Pleased with it, I offer it to Xena. She shrugs and declines, and smiles when that makes me laugh. Not even Ares could change Xena enough to get her interested in flowers and perfume and fine clothes.

More at ease, I gaze out across the perfectly blue sky, the fluffy streaks of cloud sailing across it, and down to the horizon, where the ocean is a deep green far in the distance. This is how Xena and I should have been. We should have spent time learning about each other, becoming friends, walking across meadows shyly holding hands. I imagine our first kiss, our first gentle touches, our first words of love to each other. That’s the sort of romance my parents would have wanted for me. They certainly hadn’t planned for me to follow an untamed warrior woman out of Poteidaia and sleep the first night in her discarded furs on the ground. Although that does have a kind of romance to it too, in hindsight, and I smile inside. Probably wouldn’t change a thing, but it’s nice to experience it this way too.

In the middle of the field we stop and spread out the blanket, and sit and eat our food. We talk about little things. Xena talks a little more than I’m used to, and I find myself having to hold my tongue to allow her the time to speak, not fill the silences as I’ve grown accustomed to. The sun is warming me right through and I feel giddy with the beauty of the day and the perfume of the flowers. Xena leans over and touches my cheek.

"Do I have juice around my mouth?" I’ve never been a tidy eater.

"No. Just worrying that you’d get burnt, that’s all. You’re so fair."

I shrug. "Hasn’t happened yet. I’m quite dark compared to people from the colder lands in the North: like Britannia, or Gaul." I study the freckles on my arms, then offer them as proof. Xena takes to rubbing my forearms softly, and soon my hands fall into hers again.

"Have you been to those places? In the North?"

"No -" I correct myself quickly, not being careful enough about what I say. "I’ve just read about them. I like to read, and study maps."

"You know so much." She lets her fingers glide between mine. "You’re very wise." She shrugs softly. "I want to be like you." Her eyes come up to mine. "I want you to teach me everything you know."

Hearing my own words echoed back to me is jarring, and my voice is gone. All I know is the heat of the sun on my back and Xena’s blue eyes in front of me. She’s so close, and it only takes the smallest movement to kiss her. I hold her head gently in my hand, stroking the wild hair that tumbles down her neck, and nestle her face against mine. I’m dizzy with the heat and joy of it all, and let myself fall backward into the grass, pastel flowers brushing my arms and my face as I grin up at her.

I reach up to pull her gently down with me. Her weight on her arms and on me, Xena laughs and takes in the moment. She’s gone weak, too, giddy with sensory overload, and our arms go around each other, stroking and hugging, and she lets her head rest comfortingly on my chest. I don’t ever want to let go, and I curl my legs around hers, tangle us together.

The sun is so dazzling, directly above, that I’m blinded by its white rays. My body is burning up with the heat - from the sun and from Xena. She shifts on top of me and the weight of a leg goes between mine, putting exquisite pressure on me. "Oh Gods -!" I clutch at her to make her move, but when I’ve gotten hold of her I realise I just want more of it, and tug her mouth down onto mine.

"Gabrielle -?" She speaks breathlessly against my cheek. "Gabrielle? You want the two of us to...?"

"Don’t talk about it right now, Xena: just do it." I couldn’t give a damn about my usual endless analysis, I just need to be in her arms. Her mouth is hot and moist, and as demanding as mine. I scrape my fingers over her and find the edges of her shirt, pulling the ties apart. Underneath the material her flesh is warm from the midday sun, flushed with excitement, and I nuzzle my face against it. She smells so good: so much like my Xena. I know I’m arching m whole body up in my desperation to get close to her, to the extent that it’s making my muscles ache, but the need for her consumes everything. "I’ve got to touch you -"

"Yeah -" Xena nods enthusiastically, tugging my dress up with only a little more self-restraint. The material bunches up around my ribs. "You all right -?"

"Uh ha -" I kick off my boots. Somehow, I need to be naked. "Lie down -?" I beckon frantically for her to lie back over me: I can’t bear for her not to be touching me.

The damp grass is cool and tickly against the bare tops of my legs, arousing me all the more. Xena’s slender hands go under my top, tracing up over stomach muscles that tighten at her touch. When her fingers find my breasts I groan, helplessly, and arch up again to fill her hands. I’m barely aware of what I’m doing, I’m mindless with this hunger, and fumble until my hands finally find the warm, swollen flesh under her blouse. "Oh, Xena -"

"Here, I’m here." She’s kissing my neck, holding me to her, loving me.

"Don’t let go of me -" I try to hook my legs around her.

"No," She agrees breathlessly.

"Please, please Xena -" I grope for her hand, catch it, and pull it brazenly down between my legs. I sincerely hope she knows what to do, I don’t have the presence of mind to explain right now.

Oh, Gods, she knows. She knows exactly. I lay my hand on hers, just to guide her, but it’s her fingers that go inside me, and it’s all I need. There’s nothing except her presence, the blue familiarity of her eyes, the hot taste of her skin. "Don’t... don’t stop..."

Either she grows a little bolder, or she just alters her position, but suddenly she’s deeper, and it’s too much. For a mindless moment I growl and claw at her uselessly, forcing breath out and giving myself over to the pulses that go all over me.

When the frenzy passes I flop back on the grass, panting, my hands running caressingly about her face and neck. "Xena -"

"It’s all right?" She swallows, captivated by my face, my pleasure. Uncertain but hopeful, she gently gathers my fingers into her palm.

"It is, it is -" Everything is all right when I’m with her: the world seems so simple, so easy. I push myself up on trembling arms and roll on top of her, letting her catch and guide me. Her eyes close. I know all about Xena, about what she likes, and I kiss her nose and just do what she’ll enjoy. Her pleasure is complete, and intense, and I love to watch it.

"Gods!" At the end she sits up abruptly, and I laugh and settle messily into her lap, my legs astride hers, my skirt bundled around my thighs. "Gods!!" Her eyes aren’t focussed as she stares out across the hill, and she keeps swallowing.

She’s dishevelled, so I stroke back a lock of hair as dark as coal. "Xena?" I press a kiss to her forehead, take my time over it.

"I’ve never... I haven’t..." She puts an arms around me, her shirt undone and creased. "I mean... only some of my older brother’s friends." She shakes her head: she doesn’t know what to say. Her eyes come up to mine, and we smile. We understand each other. I rest my forehead against hers, and feel her free hand stroking softly along my thigh, nudging up the thick cotton material resting there. "Never like that," She says finally, "Like it feels with you."

"I know." I smooth down her hair and love her in my arms. A soft breeze has gotten up and it cools me pleasantly as it brushes through my hair. It ripples across the lush green grass and makes it tickle my toes. Xena feels sweaty against me: she could use a dip in a lake, that’s what we often do afterwards. I don’t see one around here, though, we’re too high up. It’d be nice to bathe her; she sometimes lets me. I know she thinks it silly, but I enjoy it and she indulges me. I wish we could stay up here all night, just to look at the stars and tend a fire.

"Do it again -" She says to me.

"Hmm?" I pull my head up from her shoulder, finding it heavy, and cup her youthful face in my hands.

"Do it again, Gabrielle: once isn’t enough with you. Do it again?" She’s found my hands and has our fingers interlocked. When she closes her eyes, her eyelashes are dark and long, strikingly so, as if she’s yet to quite grow into them.

I kneel up, and she lets go of my fingers and slips her hands under me. "I care about you, Xena, you know that -?"

She lifts her chin and lets me untie her top properly and lean down to enjoy the flesh there. "I know."

"It’s important, that you know." I’m not just another brief, meaningless contact, like those older boys she mentioned, I want her to feel certain of that. Perhaps when Cortese rides it’ll be all she needs to know.

"I know, Gabrielle. You too, huh? Now, follow your own advice -" She smiles into my face. "Don’t talk about it: just do it. Like this: just like this..." She kisses my neck, and at the same time her hand goes back to me. That’s the end of my rational thought. Even though I’m the elder, it’s as though my old Xena were here: she’s the one in control. It’s what I’m used to, and it’s how I like it best, if I’m truthful.

I want to be sure to join her. It’s strong, and at that moment we’re right together, and I love her more than she could possibly understand right now. We fall onto the grass and flop onto our sides, curled up and resting messily against each other. My arm falls amongst the cool blades and I fiddle idly with a milky white flower, rolling it on its purplish stem between my fingers. I’m exhausted. With Xena’s weight across my back I drift in and out of sleep.

I lose track of how long we lie on our sides in the wild grass, kissing and smiling, holding hands and cuddling. I’m oblivious to the pretty butterflies that flutter overhead, the busy winged creatures that buzz past: there is only Xena and I. It’s beautifully innocent, apart from the kissing, and Xena is uncharacteristically hesitant, happy to stroke my arms and face and lay her hands gently about my waist. Her eyes frequently flick up to mine, and she smiles. Briefly her fingers come to my chest and settle over my heart, pause to feel the minute throbbing there, then move back to my face or my hair.

After what could be hours of just being together, sleepy and satisfied, Xena sits up. "We should be going, Gabrielle...." A pause for a smile and a kiss on my hand. "The clouds are coming in, it’ll get dark early tonight."

Of course... I hadn’t even given thought to that, I’m so used to simply moving a bit closer to the fire when night comes. This is a different life, though, and we need to go back to the town. We head back down the craggy hill holding hands, unable to be away from each other for very long, until we get within sight of the buildings, and silently but consensually let go. There isn’t a great deal of money to be made from our measly clutch of apples, but neither of us cares much. It’s been the perfect day. I’m warm and still tingling from Xena, pleasantly tired, completely relaxed.

"A drink?" Xena offers as we near the tavern. "Come have a drink? With me?" Her fingers touch at mine again, fleetingly, and I feel my cheeks flush up childishly, and nod and follow her.

Inside, we pause when we see that dozens of people - most of the village, I imagine - are gathered around one of the larger tables, arguing heatedly and talking over each other. Ice goes down my spine and all the relaxation is gone: I know this is the moment, this is the crux of why I’m here.

Toris speaks up. "We should just give them what they want! Anything else is suicide! They’ll leave us alone then." Half the listeners nod agreement, others grumble dissent.

Xena finds her mother. "What’s going on?"

As Cyrene talks, I feel myself chill. "Mael saw riders out to the East. A whole army. They’ve been pillaging the other villages and now they’re headed for us."

"Well we have to fight -" Xena responds instantly, as if she cannot understand what the disagreement is about.

"We can’t," An older man dismisses, "We’re too few. Toris is right."

"No!" Xena is in their midst now, before I can catch her and pull her back. She’s always been at her most powerful like this. In my stupidity I had almost forgotten about Cortese, about Ares and his deal, had allowed myself to believe that this bliss would go on for as long as I chose. "We can’t let them walk all over us! They’d take everything we’ve worked all year for. If they take the harvest there’ll be nothing left for us to eat."

People begin to agree. Xena has a point. Others nod and abandon their conversations to listen to her. She is leaning on the heavy table now, the muscles in her shoulders knotted. A young man turns to her and asks, in a semi-rhetorical tone, what the alternative is. Xena answers him. She’s angry and indignant and empowered. This is Xena at her strongest. She traces the outline of the village onto the table with her finger and points out where Amphipolis is weak and where it’s defensible. I’m sure her words aren’t pre-meditated, she never had this all planned out: it just comes easily to her. It’s part of her. I watch as the villagers fall into her way of thinking, see the energy return to their eyes as they hear her enthusing about makeshift weapons and enlisting help and sticking together. She makes them feel strong, and they’re all on her side. Xena no longer appears to be seventeen, and her flowing village dress may as well be her toughened leathers. I think that Xena is a victim of circumstance. I think that her characteristics and her life’s events led her blindly into the path she walked for so long. She’s an innocent girl who has just been the victim of a cycle of abuse - from Ares to Caesar to Alti - in many ways not dissimilar to Callisto. I can’t let this happen all over again.

"I’m not sure," Cyrene is saying, "People will get hurt, Xena, people will die!"

"Not if we’re careful, Mother!"

I push into the crowd. "No! Xena, Cyrene’s right, there’s always bloodshed in war, no matter how careful you are."

Xena respects me here: she thinks I’m older and wiser. She sees my life as desirable and enviable and doesn’t think I can do any wrong. Now I know how she felt when I was idolizing her from the boots upwards. First impressions can be misleading. Nonetheless, she’s listening to me. As is everyone else.

Well, it’s never been said that I can’t work an audience. "Even if you do just about manage to bloody their noses - and your own - it’ll be a close thing and they’ll know it. You’ll hurt their pride and they’ll be back the next day with twice as many men." Aside from being common sense, I’ve seen it happen.

Xena gives a helpless little shake of her head. "But... we can’t just give up, Gabrielle. What do we do?"

Good question. What do I want her to do? I don’t want her to fight and I can’t ask her to lie down and let everything be taken from her. Shame I hadn’t given this some thought before. What would Xena do, my Xena, with all her knowledge and wisdom and experience? "Well, you could try talking to their leader, reasoning with him..."

The disapproval of the villagers is apparent and loud. Only Xena’s eyes remain on mine. "Gabrielle, I admire your way, I do, but... that’s just not going to work."

Okay, so she’s right. Stupid suggestion, Gabrielle - you learnt that life wasn’t that simplistic the day you walked out of Poteidaia. "Okay, okay!" I raise my voice and hold up my hands to reclaim their attention. "So you need them to think you’re too mighty an enemy for them to face. Scare them - that’s the way these people think, right?" It will involve lying profusely, but I know - again from experience - that it works.

"But we’re no threat!" Someone calls.

"There aren’t enough of us!"

"And we’re not warriors -"

"So bluff!" I insist. "Trick them, find a way." The plan begins to form in my mind. I’ve always relied on Xena for this, but maybe I do have my own skills, too. "You’ve seen your animals, the wildlife around you - what do small creatures do when they’re threatened by something bigger? They puff themselves up, turn a brighter colour, make a wing look like an eye - anything to appear more threatening. And it works!"

It’s proof they can’t argue against. There are protests that we aren’t fluffy forest creatures, but the analogy holds its own. People start to calm down and make plans. We sit down and work more purposefully. I’m reluctant to contribute too much, always conscious of Ares’ warning not to meddle, not to make Xena’s choices for her. I need not be concerned: Xena is as good at planning passive resistance as she is at all out war.

By the end of the evening, everyone knows what to do. On parchment at least, it looks good. Some - notably Toris - are anxious and uncertain, but most are behind Xena and her plan to fool Cortese and his men. We’ll dress up the town hall to make it look like a fortress, post dummies along the roofs, wear savage armour and rig up a system for firing multiple arrows from each bow. By the time everyone starts to leave the tavern for their homes, I feel triumphant and self-assured.

Xena glances out the door, over the shoulders of her new faithful. "The rain is pouring!" It’s dark outside, and I can hear the wind. "Gabrielle, you’ll soak!" She turns back to me. "Stay here. Don’t go out in that, stay here." She takes my hand, squeezes it softly, then gestures to the small winding staircase at the back of the bar. "We’ve a spare room."

Away from the others, she holds my hand comfortably in hers as I follow her. I’m interested to see more of her house, and look around me. "How long do we have, do you think? Before the army comes?" The wooden steps creak under my feet.

"Two days? Two and a half? We need to get busy."

"Mmm." At the top of the stairs hangs a framed painting, and I stop and stare at it, laughing. "Is this you?!"

Xena stands beside me and regards the portrait with tired disapproval. "Supposedly." It was a silly question, really, because the young girl staring out through the dark frame is unmistakably Xena. Her features are etched in thick oil, slightly dulled by age, and the artist has captured a good likeness.

"How old were you?" I lean in to study more closely the brushstrokes that make up tanned skin and bushy hair.

Xena shrugs. "Five summers? A little more? Mother likes it. It used to hang in the tavern, but that was too humiliating." She shakes her head and I laugh at her. "At least here it’s private."

"It’s lovely, what do you mean?!" Her embarrassment is funny, and I find that my hand curls around her arm as we stand together. "You look adorable!" I’ve never seen Xena as a child, and always wanted to. She has a fuller face, brighter eyes, longer hair. Her expression suggests that she didn’t approve of the whole affair at the time any more than she does now.

"Well." Xena turns and leads us up the small, dark landing. The sounds of the last few people in the bar echo up the wooden stairs. She pauses at the first oak door. "It’s a little small," She says apologetically.

I smile appreciatively, as a well mannered guest should, and turn the brass handle. There’s a bed and an old dresser, pale linen curtains pulled across a small window at the far end. "It looks fine."

"We don’t use it much..." Xena’s eyes have wandered down the corridor and her thoughts aren’t on the room.

"I’m sure it’ll be lovely, thank you -"

"Gabrielle, do you think..." She focuses on me again, all her words muddled up in her mind, her intentions conflicting and uncertain. Xena hates feeling indecisive: it’s foolish at the head of an army and lethal in battle, and is something my Xena can never allow herself, even now. This Xena seems equally frustrated by her hesitation, and begins again with more determination. "Do you think the plan can work? Will everyone be safe? Can we pull it off?"

It’s not often that Xena looks to me for advice like this, she’s so self-reliant, so independent by character and necessity. My biggest fear is letting her down when she does need me. "We can if we work together," I promise, "All of us. It’s our best option." Really, it’s our only option. I can’t let history repeat itself.

"I don’t want to fight," Xena insists, her voice hushed, her hands reaching out for me. "I want to follow your Way."

"You will, Xena, you’ll do what’s right." I put my hands around her waist, slender and less muscular than I’m used to. I pull her closer to me, the curve of her hips reminding me of our afternoon, when everything seemed simpler.

Her head tucks beside mine and she wraps arms that have always been longer than mine tightly around me. She squeezes me boldly and kisses my cheek. "Gabrielle..." It’s the first time here that she’s said my name just for the pleasure of hearing it, and I love how it sounds, love the purring intonation she uses. Even though she’s younger than me, she’s the stronger one, and almost squeezes the breath out of me before letting go. "Don’t sleep in there. Don’t sleep by yourself." She leads the way down the hall and into the third wooden door. Inside there are two narrow beds, and Lyceus sits on one, pulling off his boots. "Lyceus -" Xena gestures for him to get up. "Go sleep with your brother tonight."

The boy gets up obediently, boots in hand. "Xena is there going to be fighting? I heard everyone talking: will people get hurt?" He approaches his sister and looks up at her uncertainly.

Xena smiles at him. "No one’s gonna get hurt. I’ll look after you." She has huge affection in her eyes for him, and touches at his shoulder.

This simple statement seems to reassure Lyceus instantly, and I can imagine it’s a promise Xena has made and kept many times before - when they were climbing trees, or scrabbling over rocks in a wide river, or being chased by some wild creature they’d startled. "Is Gabrielle staying?"

"Yes. It’s raining out."

Lyceus turns to me, always with his irrepressible grin. "You can have my bed, Gabrielle, if you like."

I laugh and thank him.

"Gabrielle can have my bed," Xena corrects, "Yours is lumpy."

"It is not lumpy!" Lyceus retorts, spinning back so that his darned socks slide on the polished floor and his fair hair flops into his eyes.

"It is lumpy," Xena insists as she reaches down to playfully tackle him, "Because you bounce on it."

"I’m practising for the day I catch Solaris. I might have to wrestle him." The boy defends himself, grappling with Xena’s arms as she alternately tries to tickle and strangle him.

Xena laughs, hauls him up messily, and drops him on his feet by the door. "Well go practice on your brother’s bed, then."

Lyceus heads out into the hall. "G’night Gabrielle!"

"Goodnight, Lyceus," I call after him. He’s a lovely boy. As Xena quietly closes the door behind him I look around the little room. This is the place where Xena grew up - I’ve always wanted to see it. "It’s not like I imagined..." I wander impulsively over to the window. The curtains are dark blue and heavy as I pull them closed, shutting out the rainy night and the rest of the world.

"Not like you imagined?" I hear Xena’s voice behind me. "I didn’t know you’d imagined. It’s pretty plain."

It is plain, exactly as the adult Xena would arrange a bedroom, if she had one. I’d kind’ve expected this young, innocent girl to have pictures on the walls and dolls on the windowsill - like I always did. Here, there is just the beds, functional furniture, and floorboards in need of a fresh polish. A candle flickers in a dish on top of a dresser. "I mean, I just thought it’d be... bigger." It’s poor lie, but I didn’t have time to think, and it would make me look foolish if I told her I thought it would be pink and frilly and feminine.

I realise that I’ve been deluding myself, all this time. Delusions at best, foolish lies at worst. I’ve blamed every bad thing Xena ever did on Cortese, on the day he entered her life and robbed her of her innocence. I imagined that in the days before he came, Xena was pure and timid and peace loving, that she had no bad traits, no negatives in her life. I saw her as an angel. But Xena is just a person. She tries to make what she can from life, but even here and now she isn’t perfect, she can be abrupt and introverted and aggressive.

Behind me, she slips her arms under mine and holds me. The smell of her flesh and the tickle of her hair is so familiar. Even when her attitude to others - or herself - leaves something to be desired, she’s kind and attentive with me: it’s always been so. I seem to bring out the best in her: she always says I do. I love her. I love her no matter what, and I want to give her this chance at her life, even if she doesn’t grow up to be some angelic, contented housewife. Turning, I squeeze her tightly to me - and don’t have to stand on tiptoe to do it!

"I’ll find you something to wear," She mumbles against me. "A shift, or something. You won’t be comfortable in your... in your..." She fingers the hem of my top. "Take this off?" When she looks up and sees my amusement she lets a smile touch her face too, and allows herself to be teased. "I wanted you to, in that apple field. I wanted to see how you’d look, with the sun on your skin and your hair." She takes a strand of blonde and curls it softly between her fingers.

Her innocent hesitation is endearing, and funny, because it’s Xena. "Go on, then." I hold my arms out helpfully and let her undress me. She’s enjoying herself, so I don’t interrupt her. As I stand and watch, an unwelcome thought intrudes. Why am I doing this, pure pleasure aside? Am I here in this girl’s bedroom for the right reasons? I love her already, all over again, but that comes as no surprise. Is sex just one last desperate attempt on the eve of battle to get her fully on my side? Am I using this most precious thing between us in such a way?

Xena leans in and cuddles me innocently. "You’re lovely. C’mon, there must be something good in here -" She holds my fingers and pulls me with her to a solid chest of drawers, which she searches in. I don’t feel in the least bit bashful with her, I never have. I don’t mind what she sees: I’ve always wanted her to know all of me. Being with her could never be wrong, in any lifetime. Xena pulls out a faded red garment. "I think this -"

"Don’t worry about that right now." I turn her around and reach my hands up to weave into her hair as I pull her to me for a kiss. I adore the feel of her arms around me when I’m naked, and I nurture it. I want to tell her I love her, but it’s not fair to put that pressure on her, not tonight. So I mumble it into her neck, holding and caressing her as I tell her, just like I always do.

"Hmm?" She softly eases me back. "What’s that?"

"I said shouldn’t you get undressed too?" I step back, aware that I’m inadvertently pinning her against the chest. "Don’t worry, I’ll make room for you in your bed, as your brother’s is so lumpy." I take the shift from her and go to the little bed against the wall. The material is thick in my hands, roughened from age, but warm from its place amongst her other clothes. I lift it and hold it to my face - it smells of her. I cuddle the precious thing against me, but I won’t put it on just yet.

I sit on the bed, and smile to myself: I’ve never slept in Xena’s bed before. Actually, Xena’s never had a bed before, just furs and blankets on the ground. She’s stunningly attractive without clothes, and completely unselfconscious. She’s deeply tanned all over, having spent her childhood years out farming the land, and her skin is dark and bronzed. I don’t see any of the scars and blemishes I’m used to: this Xena hasn’t fought in battles, hasn’t been injured in accidents, hasn’t pushed her body too hard time after time or hung on a cross. I glance down: her long legs haven’t been smashed at Caesar’s order, and there are no scars there, just a fine gold chain around her ankle.

We don’t really need words now. I slip into the bed, tugging the rough olive blankets over me, and pull her in against me, with her back pressed to my stomach. She organises herself and the covers, snuffles a bit, then is still, as if frozen with the newness of this. I can put my arms around her and hold her, looking over her shoulder, for the very first time, since she’s normally too tall and our positions are reversed.

"You have a great family," I tell her to make conversation, seeking out her hand and interweaving our fingers.

"Mmm hmm."

"Your Mother is so lovely."

"Must we talk about Mother? Right now?" She protests, making me laugh. Her longs fingers curl experimentally around mine, pressing our palms together. "Don’t want to think about anything except you."

"All right." I let her pull our clasped hands against her chest, and use my free hand to caress the long, lean lines of her back, alternately massaging and rubbing, stroking and brushing. I just want to feel her flesh and her warmth against me, feel it with my fingers and know that she’s here. She’s relaxed, but I can’t see her face, and I wonder what she’s thinking. About the battle, probably, running it over and over in her mind as she usually does. "It’ll be all right: when the army comes, it will be all right."

"Hmm? Oh, the fight, yeah." She rubs an itchy nose on my wrist.

"You weren’t thinking about that?"

"No." Noticing my hand by her face, she delicately kisses it, then squeezes it tighter and tucks it back under her chin. "I was thinking about this. I mean, with my brother’s friends, we just... well, we just... you know, and then it was done and they slept or they went." She shrugs. "Fine with me, I’d had enough by then too. It’s nicer with you. It’s nice to do this."

I agree wholeheartedly. "It is nice."

"With them it wasn’t in bed. In the hay barn, or an alley somewhere, or the back of a cart. Anywhere convenient and quick." Xena rolls herself over. "In the field today - I loved being there, but... that won’t be the only time, will it? That you and I...?"

"No Xena, it won’t be the only time," I promise her, and take the hands that are reaching for mine.

"I’d like to be here. Lyceus is next door, but when he’s not, when it’s just us..."

Words catch up in my throat and I just nod vigorously. "Yes, Xena."

Then she’s against me for a kiss. I can feel her breasts and her hips, her belly and her thighs. Her body is soft and hard all at the same time, pressing against me and reminding me of all the things I love us to do together, all the ways she makes me happy and excited and relaxed and satiated. I clutch her to me and hold her, my face in her thick hair. I don’t want to let go, not until it’s morning and we have to face everything else in this world. Xena holds my head to her shoulder and knots her limbs around mine. I sleep barely able to breathe, I’ve pulled myself to her so tightly, but it’s how I want to be tonight: it’s enough that we’re together.

In there morning there is time only for work: the army is approaching, and Amphipolis has to be ready. The threat pulls everyone together and young and old work hard. Xena gives the orders, and her people obey - they can see as clearly as I that she has a gift for battle planning. She’s clear and conscientious and focussed. She motivates the others and keeps them on track. The lookouts she sent return to tell us that the army is marching faster than expected: we’re only just ready in time: they’re here.

Xena and I squat on the roof of the town hall, watching anxiously through the hastily built gunning wall. Cortese’s men are on the horizon, dark and foreboding in their black armour, forming a snaking line that separates land from sky.

"There are so many!" Toris hisses behind us. Some of the others grumble quietly and agree. Most of the villagers have been with Xena throughout, but some remain understandably doubtful. Toris proved to be the most vocal of the group, and there have been times when I’ve feared for the morale of the rest. I can’t be completely unsympathetic, though - there are a huge number of soldiers out there. How Xena ever managed to defeat them the first time around with just a motley crew of farmers I can’t imagine, but it’s a tribute to her bravery and determination that Amphipolis didn’t fall that night.

"There are too many of them!" Toris repeats, panicked. "We’ve no chance!"

Xena turns sharply. "Will you hush up? We’ve no choice now - we face them!"

"They’ll kill us all! I told you we should just give them the food they want - now they won’t spare anyone!"

"Toris -"

Crouched on my heels, I watch this awful scene play out in front of me. The approaching army, the rest of Amphipolis, all of it becomes insignificant as Xena orders then begs her brother to stay. I see her desperation, and her anger, the kind of pain and betrayal she has probably never before experienced in this world. Others hear the conversation, and a couple fall on Toris’ side, their agreement spurring him on when he doubts himself. Our careful plan - my foolish hope - crumbles down around us and I know there’s no turning it back.

Toris hugs Xena and kisses her. "I’m sorry, Xena, I can’t do this; I’m so sorry -" And he’s up and gone, clambering down the ladder with three men following him, before Xena or I can reach out to pull him back.

On her hands and knees, silent, Xena watches as her brother flees out over the hills behind Amphipolis, and is gone. I’m laden down with guilt, and tuck myself back against the rough stone wall. I tried so hard to stop this, and it’s happening all over again...

A horse neighs, then another, then there is the clatter of moving armour, not far away. We all shrink back to the roof and peer out of our spying holes.

Cortese is here.

He rides at the head of his army, his flag draped over his dark horse. There really is no going back: no choice. Everyone turns to Xena. Everyone expects her to know what to do. By her side, I see her swallow, and her blue eyes dart back to those hills behind us, and the small, fleeing dots they carry. I reach out and grasp her, aiming for a shoulder or a hand, or anything under her garishly painted armour, anything to show her that I have faith in her.

She doesn’t look at me, but her hand squeezes mine for an instant. Then she turns back to her men and hisses "Go!"

Our plan comes into action, piece by piece, step by step. Bags of grain dropped out of sight to distract, shadows in doorways to alarm, riders picked off by arrow from behind, not enough to seriously reduce the numbers but enough to startle the men and get the horses skittish. Each of us bobs up in turn, displaying savagely painted helmets above the battlements, then we drop back down to safety and switch to a different hat. It would almost be pantomime if all our lives weren’t at stake. Cortese rants and raves, but doesn’t advance any further. Xena looks at me and grins. Her helmet, made bigger by a draping of old sack, is painted with furious eyes and a hungry mouth, and the addition of rope hair makes me think her quite creative. I return her grin: the plan is working.

Arrows and the odd knife come down on us, but they’re sporadic and expected, and each one is dodged or deflected. No one is seriously hurt. Around us, on the adjacent roofs and inside small huts, others are copying us. Some let out wild, savage shouts, or roar like beasts. A small fire is started that is cleverly contained but appears not to be, and our archers light their arrows in it. Xena picks up one of the small daggers that lands close to her and throws it, sending the blade spinning toward Cortese. It lands - as planned, I’m sure - just in front of his horse’s hooves, and he backs off a few paces, alarmed.

It’s time to finish the job. Snarling like an angry jungle cat, all confidence and power, Xena pulls on the heavy rope that should send a dozen arrows flying from each bow rigged up along the roof. The aim will be haphazard, but the blanket coverage of the arrows, and the fire they carry, will terrify the men and horses and send them running.

Xena pulls, but the rope doesn’t shift, nothing happens. "It’s caught!" She cries, pulling harder. "Damn! It must have snagged -" The mood of the people on our roof plummets from contained jubilation to barely contained horror. No one dares move. Xena traces the line of the rope, sliding it through her hands, then points to a pulley at the far end of the low, segmented wall. "There! It’s not looped right, it’s stuck there."

I can see what she’s pointing to. Have we made a mistake, in our haste to rig the design? Or was that Toris’ post? It doesn’t matter now. The rope just needs looping over the pulley. Simple enough. I glance around. All the men are too big and too slow to get across the narrow space without a dozen archers catching them.

But me... "I’ll go -"

"No! Wait!" A hand smaller than my own catches my arm and pulls me back down. "I’ll go."

I watch in horror as Lyceus darts out from between Xena and I, small and fast. Xena gasps and grabs for him, but he’s already out of reach. "Lyceus, no!"

The boy sprints past an open section of wall and dives flat onto his belly. Two arrows zip into the space behind him. He looks back and grins at Xena and I. Everyone watches in utter silence. Night has fallen. The clouds overhead are smoky and oppressive, blocking out the moon and reflecting back the laughing flames of the fire. We all watch, frozen, as Lyceus scrambles up, dodges another open section and sprints past a third. He presses himself flat against the wall and catches his breath.

On the ground below, Cortese grows tired of waiting. He raises his hand, ready to signal a charge that we are privately defenceless against. Xena stiffens, calls out in an urgent whisper, "Lyceus!" Her brother follows her gaze. There’s no time for such faltering progress. I watch him respond to another voice that I don’t hear, over on the far corner opposite us. A villager pulls off a brightly painted hood: it’s Cyrene, fighting alongside the group there. She beckons for Lyceus to come to her, then holds out her arms for him. She smiles to him, her face maternal love itself, brighter than the blazing fires around us in the inky night.

Lyceus comes away from the wall. Her runs at a sprint toward her, his arm going out for the defective pulley, his fingers tracing the rope. His image flashes between the walled sections. A dozen arrows fly up, some of them smoking, and obscure my view.

Beside me, Xena starts. "It’s free!" The rope has come loose in her hand, and she gathers it up and winds it around her wrists. "He’s done it! Good boy, Lyceus!" With a victorious cry, she yanks on the rope with all her strength.

What seems like a thousand arrows blaze out across the sky. The dark clouds are brightened by their fire, and they fall on our enemies like rain in a storm. The horses shriek and rear up. We soon drown out that sound with our own cheering and yelling and wildness: any sound that will scare them further and drive them off. We stand, brave and defiant, and wave our silly hats as if they were dancing in triumph.

Cortese and his men turn and flee. We all laugh and grasp each other, throwing up the hats. "We did it!" I grab Xena and hug her. Her arms are around me for an instant, her grip strong, her hand cradling my head against hers: then the others bundle her up onto their shoulders, cheering and exulting her as their saviour. Xena laughs in surprise and hold on until she’s steady, then raises her arms and shouts victorious insults out at the army, which is dashing away as fast as it can. Villagers are already out in the square, celebrating and swiftly dousing the flames that we were quite prepared for. I grin up at Xena and clap her as her people do. We’re making such noise that it’s all I can hear for a moment: shouts and whoops and cheers.

But then there’s another sound, an awful sound. It sounds to me like someone’s heart is ripping apart. Like a woman sobbing as if she’ll never stop. It’s coming from behind us. Above me, on the shoulders of her men, Xena has already seen, and all her colour is gone. She scrambles down and dashes past me. I hardly dare look.

Cyrene sits behind the battlement wall, hunched over her boy, who is still and cold in her lap, an arrow in his heart. Xena cries out in pain and falls by them. "Lyceus -" She calls his name desperately. "Lyceus, no!" She pats his face then slaps his chest as I kneel dumbly behind her. "Wake up, stop it!" A sob breaks through her, quieting her voice. "Please, Lyceus, don’t go -"

Broken, Cyrene gathers the small body of her son up into her arms, out of Xena’s reach. "This is your fault," She tells Xena levelly. "This is all your fault."

"No!" Xena defends herself. "Mother, we had to fight!"

"Should’ve just given them the food," Cyrene mumbles, rocking Lyceus and gazing into his waxy face. "Should’ve done as your older brother wanted."

"I’m sorry..."

"Go away, Xena." She kisses the boy’s forehead.

"No, Mother, please, I didn’t -"

"Don’t call me that." Cyrene’s voice is flat and devoid of any feeling. "I’m not your mother. This isn’t your home. I don’t know you. Go away."

Xena staggers up and I automatically cling to her, sure she’ll collapse. She shakes under my fingers. "Xena," I try to whisper, "Xena, come on -"

She looks at what’s left of her family for a moment longer, then strides away in silence. No one dares stop her, no one dares speak. My feet dumbly follow Xena out across the courtyard. Lyceus is dead. Toris is gone. Cyrene is filled with grief and fury, and Xena is a woman on her own. I have changed nothing. Despite all my love and good intentions, I have changed nothing. Curse this world, and curse my own stupid place in it. Why couldn’t I have just left well alone?

"Xena -" I call out gently, "I’m with you, I’m -" But what comfort does that bring? What can I possibly say to mend this? I can’t assure her that everything will be all right - I’m painfully aware that it won’t be. It’s quite possible - probable, really - that Xena won’t want me following her, but after all this time, my feet don’t know what else to do but follow her. And neither does my heart.

A flash of light forms in front of Xena, causing her to stop abruptly and making me blink and look away.

Ares.

He grins at Xena, then glances back to me with an altogether more loaded smile. "Hello Xena. Hello, Gabrielle."

I jog up to them, see Xena wipe her arms over her streaming eyes then regard him intently. She frowns softly, and looks him up and down. "You’re the God of War."

Ares addresses me. "She’s smart, huh?"

Xena sniffs. "What do you want?" I’m sure this is the first time she’s seen a God, but in any life she’s hard to faze and even harder to impress with titles and fancy gimmicks.

"Want? Nothing. This is about what you want, Xena. It isn’t about anyone else." These last words are directed at me, and I understand the meaning. I’ve had my turn, had my chance with Xena, and failed utterly. Now Ares has the right to make his offer: that was our deal. I can’t interfere. I’m such a fool. Frightened for us both, I hug my arms in the suddenly cold night air and watch Xena in silence.

"Why have you come here?" Xena asks, lifting her chin defiantly.

"I’ve an offer for you." Ares gets to business. "I’ve been watching you, Xena, watching you lead your people. You’re good."

Affected, her gaze drops. "For all the good it did."

"Hey - none of that was your fault -" He touches her face, lifts her eyes back to his. His voice is gentle when he speaks to her, this young village girl in front of him. I know that he has feelings for Xena, in his own way, and I know how charismatic he can be - how can this grieving child not fall under his spell? "You won, you saved your village," He goes on. "What you did with those few people was incredible. That took guts, and brains, and I admire that. You’ve got potential, Xena."

She’s listening to him. Listening too intently. It’d be hard not to listen to praise when you’re feeling as Xena must do now. "I don’t understand what you’re getting at. My brother died. My mother -" She shakes her head. "I’ve done nothing."

"Aren’t you angry about what those men did to your brother, Xena? Don’t you feel how unfair it was?" Ares is smooth, I have to admit.

"Of course."

"So do something about it!"

"Like what?" She matches his energy now, and looks him in the eye.

"Like join me! Have your revenge! Xena, I can help you. You’ll have all the men you want, all the weapons. You’re not someone who’ll be walked all over, I can see that in you."

Xena’s confused, her hands working uselessly and her eyes darting. "Avenge Lyceus - make his death worth something -"

"Exactly! Cards on the table, Xena - I want you on my side. I can make you great. You’ll never have to feel this feeling again." He places his hand on her chest, at the base of her throat, and I can see that she feels something.

"Then..." She finds herself out of breath at his touch. Xena, don’t let him win, don’t let him do this, again! "Then Mother will forgive me..."

"That’s right." Ares pulls up her hands and clasps them between his own. "The whole world will take notice of you! You can take out your hatred on every one of those men, you can have revenge on the world for doing this to you!"

Xena is almost touching him, is so close she’s almost up against him. But something small changes, I see it cross her face, and the distance widens. "Hatred and revenge..."

"Power, Xena! Security, control!"

"No, you’re wrong -" She takes her hands from his. "There’s no control in violence, it’s just the opposite -"

Excitement sparks inside me, and pride, and I silently will Xena on.

"Hate creates more hate," She goes on. "It’d be enough to swallow me up -" Growing more confident, she beats her fingertips over her heart.

Ares is worried, I can see it about him. It gives me a perverse pleasure: he’s wrong footed and he knows it. "I’ll make you strong. I’ll make you strong," He insists.

Xena is shaking her head. "No, I don’t see it like that, not now, not since Gabrielle." Her eyes flick to mine, and I nod, encouraging her. My heart is warm, and adrenaline makes my hands tremble as I clutch them to me.

"What?!" Ares looks at me, incredulous and disgusted. I am not afraid.

"Gabrielle," Xena reiterates. "She’s shown me that negativity creates negativity. If I fight like those men I become like them. Lyceus would never want that. I am angry, you’re right, but you only end war with love."

Ares throws up his hands, rolls his eyes, and stalks up and down in little lines. "Here she goes with the love thing! I’m getting a bad case of deja vu here, I’m telling you." He taps the side of his head. "Barely out of her crib and she’s preaching love to the God of War! A little twisted, don’t you think?"

Now he’s in front of me, tall and intimidating, hand working at his sword. I shrug. "Xena can make her own decisions."

He actually laughs out loud at that, irritating me. "Her own decisions? It may as well be you talking, listen to her! ‘Way of Love’, ‘Negativity breeds negativity’, blah blah blah! She’s worse than she was before all this started!"

"That depends on your point of view." I feign disinterest, and secretly wish that he’d just end this farce.

"We had an agreement," He hisses at me. "You said that when it came to this you wouldn’t interfere. You cheated."

"I didn’t say a word!"

He dismisses that. "You broke our deal, Little Girl. I want a proper chance without your meddling."

Xena is understandably baffled, and reaches out for me. "Gabrielle...?"

I take her hand. "You’re just a bad looser, Ares. Xena’s made her choice. Now send us back."

"Oh, I’ll send you back all right. You want to play fair? Fine, we’ll play fair. If Xena has to go back, it’s only right that you go back too, don’t you think? Then let’s see how much influence you can have."

Light flashes all around us, and I lose the feel of Xena’s hand in mine. My eyes are dazzled and my ears deafened, and there is only the whiteness of the light.

Sand is digging into my face. What has Lyceus done this time? When I catch him I’ll... Why am I lying down? I startle and sit up sharply.

A long, empty beach.

Wind whips hair into my face and I angrily brush it away and dust sand from my cheek, spitting it out of my mouth. Urgh.

Must’ve fallen asleep. It’s not like me to take a nap on a beach, but like Toris is always telling me, you gotta enjoy yourself sometimes, relax a little. I must have slept too deeply, my head feels foggy. It looks like being late afternoon - my Mother’s gonna be mad that I’m not back at the tavern to help with the evening crowds. I’d better be getting home.

Not that I’m completely sure which way home is. C’mon, Xena! I always wander just that bit too far. I stand up and look around, see a path through the trees. Probably this way.

There’s a sound behind me. Shouts. Men fighting. No... I hear something more: the cries of children. Young ones, too, by the high pitch of their voices. I figure I’d better go see what’s going on. I don’t like the idea of a kid being bullied by someone bigger than them, I never have. I stride through the undergrowth, feeling vines snagging at my boots and brushing branches away from my face. Keeping in the forest, I can follow the sound along the shore without being seen.

I almost miss the little child standing up to its knees in the water, which laps gently on the sand thanks to a strong Northerly wind. I look around me to see if it’s safe, but whoever was causing the disturbance has apparently gone. The kid looks far too young to be out by itself. It also looks pretty lost. I step out of the woodland and wave to the child, calling and beckoning it over.

When she turns and comes running toward me I can see that it’s a girl, about five summers old. Long yellow hair, bleached by the sun, bounces behind her, and she splashes messily through the water until she’s standing in front of me, out of breath.

"Hello."

"Hello," She replies. She’s stark naked, sand dusted up legs and arms.

"Where are your mother and father?"

"At home," She answers promptly. She doesn’t look particularly upset, and certainly isn’t frightened by me.

"Oh. Are you by yourself?"

She looks around her, raising an arm to shield her eyes from the sun. Her belly still heaves a little from her exertion, and she digs her toe playfully into the fine sand. "I was playing with my friend. She’s bigger than me. But when the two men came and shouted she ran home."

"Why were they shouting at you?" I’d heard their voices, but hadn’t been able to make out what they were saying. The sun is low in the sky, and the wind is getting up, whipping her wavy hair about her face.

"They said, we shouldn’t fish here, because it’s their place." She frowns, putting a crease in her little nose. "We weren’t fishing: we were playing."

"Well, your friend shouldn’t have left you by yourself." Mother always tells me to look out for my younger brother, to watch what he does. He’s a boy, though, and he’s smart, he doesn’t need babysitting. The girl stands and looks up at me expectantly. "I’ll take you home." It won’t take long, and finding the nearest village might remind me which direction Amphipolis is in. "Where are your clothes?"

She hesitates, then raises her arm in a point that looks like a guess.

"Go get them, then." Lyceus also had more savvy than this, at her age. If she wanders off... "No, wait, I’ll get them." I take a few steps for the canopy of trees, then realise that I don’t know where I am, either. "No, we’ll go together. Let’s go." I stride off, hearing her panting as she runs after me.

"What’s your name?" She asks, breathlessly but cheerfully.

"Xena." I look around, trying to see where she might have piled her clothes - it couldn’t be far. The silence reminds me that I’ve forgotten to follow the first childhood rule for making friends. "What’s yours?"

"Gabrielle."

"Uh ha."

"But my uncle, he calls me Gabby."

I’m only half listening. "You want me to call you that?" Where has she hidden her damn things?

"No."

"Oh."

"I like to be called Gabrielle."

"Okay. Gabrielle." Whatever, it makes no difference to me. I think I see a flash of colour too vivid to be natural, along the shore and a little way into the trees. I hurry along. I want to get home before it’s too dark: I don’t want to miss the hot food.

"Xena?"

I stop and turn to see that she paused when I picked up the pace. Travelling with children is not a good idea. "Yes?" I try to keep my patience and smile: she’s only a little kid, it’s not her fault her legs are short.

"The stones are hurting my feet."

She doesn’t look like shifting. I’m annoyed, but in equal measure I can see that the rocks and twigs would be rather unkind to bare feet. I go back to her. "Your shirt is red?" She nods. "Guess we’ve found it, then." I pick her up and carry her, figuring it’s the only way we’re going to get anywhere. At least she sits still and holds on, doesn’t wriggle like children normally do. She does feel cold to me: not a cold that would bother someone my age, but for all my lack of maternal instinct I do think it can’t be right for her.

"Do you live in Poteidaia?" She asks, her little hands about my neck.

"Where?"

"I live in Poteidaia."

"Oh. No, I don’t." I step over a log and set her down in front of a stone on which a tiny red dress, brown shawl and pair of sandals have been laid out to dry. When she gazes at me hopefully, I roll my eyes and answer her unspoken question. "I live in Amphipolis."

"Is it far?"

"No. Get dressed."

"I’d like to go to other villages. Mine is quite small. We see the same people every day, except when the man comes with a cart to bring the cloth and linen."

She talks excitedly to me, so I take to handing her the clothes and shoving limbs into the appropriate holes so that we can at least get done by midnight. I put her down on the rock and brush dirt and sand off each foot - about half the size of my palm - before clumsily trying to get the floppy things into the sandals, which makes her laugh at me. People back home generally don’t laugh at me, I don’t take kindly to being ridiculed. But she doesn’t mean it, and I accept it and find myself smiling too, just like I do when Lyceus finds humour in something I’m studiously attempting. She does babble, this child, barely pausing to breathe, but somehow I like listening to her: she’s funny.

I take her hand to make her walk, sure that without me tugging her she’d be concentrating so hard on her chatter that her feet would forget to work. Sometimes she runs and skips to keep up, but she doesn’t seem bothered by it. Her hand is so small and soft in mine that every so often I have to look down and check that it’s still there.

Heading away from the shore I soon see the lights from a village, the townsfolk lighting their lanterns as the sun fades. It’s not one I’ve seen before, and I know the villages immediately outlying Amphipolis. Gabrielle points toward her house.

Not that dissimilar to mine, it’s a single storey dwelling made of wood and thatch, with a rickety garden gate that Gabrielle has to expertly pitch all her strength against to open. It’s about the same size as Mother’s house, except that ours is joined to the stone building of the tavern, so we can use the upstairs rooms there too. Chickens roam in the dusty street, and the small town is flanked on three of its sides by farmed fields sporting grain, cattle, and short, hardy bushes respectively.

At the door, Gabrielle is greeted by a slightly plump woman whose reddened cheeks and lined face make her look older than she probably is. She wears a blue smock and apron, and most of her hair is tucked into a scarf about her head. I think she takes less care of her appearance than my mother, who says she has to ‘look presentable for the customers’, but who really values looking decent for herself too. The woman greets Gabrielle with half insipid relief at her return and half insipid annoyance at her extended absence. She bundles the girl behind her skirts, then looks to me.

I speak politely, as I’m supposed to to an elder, and explain that I found the child and helped her find her way back. Gabrielle enthusiastically corroborates my story. A man soon comes to the door behind his wife and shoo’s Gabrielle inside to her supper. He too looks as if he has worked hard all his life, and is scrawny and somewhat suspicious looking. They thank me for helping their daughter, and ask me where I’m headed, my face not being familiar to them.

"Amphipolis," I say. "Only I’ve lost my bearings, can you tell me which path to take?"

Both adults start, and the man laughs. "Take you nine or ten days on foot, Amphipolis will. And that’s going hard all day. You’re a long way from home."

That I am. How did I get here? I’m frightened to find that I can’t even recall the last few days. Something must have happened - a fight or a fall - I must’ve bumped my head and gotten myself mixed up.

Gabrielle’s parents invite me inside to join them for their meal. They say that I can stay here for a few days until the cart comes by that will pass Amphipolis - their thanks for my helping their daughter. Passage won’t be cheap, though: spaces on carts crossing Greece are in high demand.

"You can work for a wage," The man tells me, having introduced himself as Herotodus. "The women who have no daughters will use you for mending clothes, cleaning, that sort of thing." He wipes his hand on his overalls as he leads me into the living space, much of which is filled by an old wooden table. "We’ve no spare money and no spare work, but you can earn your food by minding the children."

Children? There’s more than one? The God’s help me. I wander to the table and look around me while Herotodus washes his hands in the deep tin sink. Food bubbles on the stove, and the fragrant steam rising from the pans reminds me that I’m hungry. The house is simply decorated, but neat. Farming tools are propped on a rag in one corner, waiting to be cleaned. I hear the gurgling of a baby that certainly isn’t newborn, and watch Gabrielle’s mother, Hecuba, crossing from one side room to another, holding a swaddled child.

Gabrielle strides beside her mother, looking up hopefully. "Can I hold her, Mother?"

"I’ve told you, Gabrielle, you’re too small. When you’re bigger." She speaks matter-of-factly, showing neither great affection nor reprimand. Gabrielle stands in the doorway and watches, presumably as the baby is put down. Then she runs over to me.

"Come and see my baby sister!" She grabs my hand and tugs me over to a bedroom which sports a double bed frame and a cot. "Her name’s Lila. She sleeps lots." We lean in to look, Gabrielle gripping the wooden beams of the crib and peering between. The baby is dark haired but otherwise rather similar to her older sister. "When she’s older, we’re going to be best friends. She makes me laugh." Gabrielle reaches in and strokes the baby with a slightly chubby hand. "Don’t you?" She grins and changes to an even more musical voice than her usual one. "You make faces and make me laugh! Here." She takes a little rag doll from between the blankets and places it closer to the baby. "This used to be mine," She tells me confidentially, "But I’m too big for it now."

Hecuba’s voice calls from the kitchen. "Gabrielle! If you want your food you need to be sitting at the table."

"Coming!"

And so we go to eat. The rest of the evening is spent with Herotodus cleaning his tools and Hecuba mending a pile of clothes. I am told I can share a room with Gabrielle: she slumbers in one bed against the wall, and I use an identical one under the window which is clearly intended for the baby when she’s older. I lie in the darkness for a while, thinking about my situation. Mother won’t likely worry about me, she’s used to her children being free-spirited. I don’t much like the prospect of darning socks and minding market stalls, but I’ve been working for coins since I was old enough to fetch and carry - as do all children in these lands - and I can turn my hand to anything. I hope I’ll remember how I managed to get here, but the future is more important than the past. I sleep well.

The next day, Gabrielle is equally as talkative and gregarious as she was the night before. She’s the most animated member of her family. I spend the day sewing for dinars, and am reminded how much I loathe needlework. Nor am I very good at it. Or very fast. I don’t earn a great deal, and a cart ride will be expensive. I need to find something more profitable.

We sit down to an evening meal. The two adults don’t say a great deal, although to be fair it’s hard to fit words in around Gabrielle’s. Herotodus is clearly tired from a day harvesting, and Hecuba sits with the baby. As I look around, to the three tucking into their meals, I think that sometimes in this house there isn’t enough money and barely enough food. Gabrielle reels off a list of all the things she’s done and thought about today. I admire her energy, and the happiness she finds in every little thing, but she analyses things endlessly and ties herself up in knots.

"Gabrielle," Her mother cuts in finally, "Enough talking now, Child, eat your food."

Gabrielle nods, takes and munches a big spoonful, then carries on with her conversation. I have to laugh at her. When she’s done eating she’s allowed to get up, and she chooses to spend a few minutes playing with her sister. I feel awkward, watching a moment that I have no right to share, and busy myself with washing the dishes. I see Hecuba putting an arm around her daughter and giving her a quick squeeze - it’s the first real affection that I’ve seen, but I can see that this is a regular, loving, hardworking family that I’ve walked into. Very much like mine. I still don’t understand why I’m here. I find myself wishing that my brothers were here, to sit with me like Gabrielle is sitting with Lila.

So I go to the bedroom, not feeling particularly companionable. I forget how early little children go to bed, though, and soon Gabrielle comes in in her night things.

She stands and looks at me for a moment. "Xena, are you sad?"

I scowl and deny it. "No."

"Do you miss your mother?"

I shrug. Not my mother, so much, but home... "A little, I guess."

She looks sympathetic, but for once doesn’t say anything. She pads over to a small book case and runs her fingertips thoughtfully over the spines of half a dozen old books. That’s more books than we have in our entire household: we don’t do much reading - something else I never got very good at. "Where’s your home?" She asks. "Your village? Am.... Am...?"

"Amphipolis. I’m not sure, exactly, I think... to the North?" I can’t be certain even of that.

"Show me?"

I‘m losing my patience. "I told you, I don’t know, Gabrielle, I..." But she has pulled out a large, starchy sheet of paper and is unfolding it and trying to hold it up. I recognise the telltale green and blue behind the sepia stains. "You have a map? Let me see -" I know I sound abrupt, but she hands it over willingly. I turn it quickly, trying to get myself orientated.

Gabrielle climbs up on the bed and sits beside me. "Father gave it to me. Poteidaia is here." She leans close and points to the prettily written word, then sits patiently, swinging her legs, while I concentrate.

"Uh ha..." I scan the paper surrounding the word. "Here! Amphipolis is here, look!" I find myself excited to see just this image of home. Sharing my happiness, Gabrielle leans on my arm and gazes at the spot I point to.

"Am..." She reads the word. "...phi... po... lis. Is it a long way?"

I stretch the map to arms length and scan it for a scale. I’m not good with books, but I can read maps. And Amphipolis is a long way. I sit back, disheartened. "That’ll take weeks to walk. And even by cart..." Which will be lumbering and make stops along the way, and will have to follow the wider paths.

It takes me a moment to realise that my sadness has rubbed off on her. She swallows a bit. "Please don’t be unhappy," She tells me, "I don’t want you to be."

"I’m not." It’s not fair to make a little kid feel bad. "I’ll just have to work hard and get lots of dinars, huh?" I fold up the parchment and give it back to her. "Thank you for letting me use your map." Perhaps my brothers will come looking for me. It mightn’t be so bad. I’ll ask around tomorrow, try to find work that pays better.

"Can we play a game? It makes me feel better when I feel bad."

I shrug. "If you want."

We end up sitting on the floor with four big dice that have been roughly carved from pale wood and hand painted. I’m not into games like this: my brothers and I pass the time outside, fishing or exploring, and some of the men in the tavern taught me to bet on cards, but I don’t think that either activity would be wholly appropriate for Gabrielle. Add to my inexperience the fact that I’m not too hot at mathematics, and I feel entirely out of my depth with the dice.

I watch Gabrielle, who in some ways is more intelligent than her years warrant. She shares easily and she seems responsive to my moods. She can add the figures, slowly but - I think - accurately. She scampers across the shiny wooden floor, collecting the dice and returning them to me. I notice that the little wooden cubes have been roughly made, and not every side is even or equal. This means that each die has a tendency to fall on the same number time and time again. I wonder if I should give Gabrielle a dinar for them and take them home to the inn - I could win myself a fortune.

"Throw those two -" I point to the two palest dice clutched in Gabrielle’s hand. "You’ll get eight." She looks at me quizzically, squeezing the pieces in her palm. "Go on."

She throws them, sending them skittering across the floor, and as I expected they fall on a six and a two. Gabrielle leans forward on hands and knees to check, then turns back to me in amazement that makes me laugh. "How’d you know?"

"Magic," I shrug. "Now do the other two. I think you’ll get..." What’s four and five? C’mon Xena, don’t embarrass yourself in front of a baby. "...nine." The pause just gives my prediction added impact when it comes out right.

In this way, combining the dice to give different results, I keep Gabrielle enthralled. She enthusiastically tries to catch me out, but the dice are so uneven that they rarely let me down. She stands beside me as I kneel, clutching clumsily onto my shoulder, and watches with captivation as I shake the dice in my bigger hands, blow on them for luck, call out some gambling exclamation like "Lucky fives!", and throw. She bounces up and down on her toes, waiting for the pieces to land, then shrieks with joy when they come up right yet again. I laugh at her and put an arm around her middle to steady her when she stumbles on a stray die.

The door clicks and Gabrielle’s mother comes in. I gather up the dice rather guiltily. Gabrielle shows no such emotion, and runs to the older woman. "Mother! You have to see what Xena can do, she can..."

"Isn’t it long past your bedtime, Gabrielle?" Hecuba chastises with a degree of surprise, silencing Gabrielle.

"Yes, Mother."

"Well then." Her voice softens, and she bends down to pick Gabrielle up and hold her against her hip. "To bed with you."

"But Mother, Xena can -"

"Then she’ll still be able to in the morning, won’t she!" I watch Hecuba smile and tickle Gabrielle’s chest. "Sleep now, you’ll wake your sister." She pats Gabrielle’s thigh, kisses her, then lays her in her bed. "Goodnight, Xena."

I’m learning that Gabrielle is an exhausting individual to be around.

Despite all my good intentions, I spend the next day darning socks until I’m sick of it. I go around asking people if I can mend their fences, polish their swords - anything but housework - but no one believes a girl will be any good at man’s work. It’ll take me forever to earn enough to pay for a fast ride, at this rate.

To add to the factors making this a bad day, when I get back to the cottage Hecuba says to me "Xena dear, I’m glad you’re back: be good and mind Gabrielle until dinner. She’s fractious - take her out for a walk, will you? I’ve my hands full." It’s the last thing I feel like doing, having to entertain an energetic child, but I’m being given free bed and board, I can’t refuse.

So we wander along the streets, with me barely taking any notice of Gabrielle. I notice a dusty wooden building with no windows, and interrupt her. "What’s in there?"

"Oh, horses." Gabrielle turns up her nose. "Smelly."

Horses? Now, horses are something I can do. "Let’s see if there’s someone there." I beckon for her to follow, and stride inside the barn. I pass the usual tin pails and bundles of hay, and find myself smiling at the sight of a couple of big steeds. They look well cared for. I call out until an old man appears, with a grey beard and a grimy cap covering what’s left of his white hair. "Do you have any work? I’m good with horses. I can help out, do whatever you need."

He straightens and sizes me up for a moment: fair enough, let him. "Well," He says at last, in a gruff voice, "I have boys for the raking out, the washing down... Sorry, Lassie, all I need is those horses shoeing."

I jump at that. "I can do that!" I’m being too enthusiastic. I remember that I’m not sure where Gabrielle is - if I’ve lost the kid, no amount of wages is gonna help me. I look around to see that she’s actually hiding behind my legs. She’s looking about the barn, uneasy, and one of her hands is unconsciously playing in the leather cords at the back of my skirt. Children have no respect for personal space! Does she realise she’s got her hand on my butt? I reach an arm around her shoulders and tug her round against my hip. "I can shoe horses," I repeat, more calmly. "No problem. I learned from my older brother." Now Gabrielle has her arms around my leg: this is not dignified, and I’m trying to land a job. I look down at her. "What’s wrong with you?"

"I don’t like horses."

This from a farmer’s daughter! "The horses aren’t gonna hurt you."

The stable owner doubts my abilities, and I don’t blame him, really. We talk technicalities for a while, I show off my knowledge and press the fact that I’m cheap labour, and the old man agrees. It won’t earn me much more than darning the stupid socks, but I’ll enjoy it more, and my expertise will mean that I can do twice as much work in half the time.

"How many need doing?" I ask.

"Oh, let me see..." He looks around fondly at his animals, adjusting the cap on his balding head. "The two mares, the big old boy in the corner there, and two ponies."

I follow his eyes around the dimly lit space. "What about that one?" I point to an average sized stallion that he’s missed out of his count, brown all over but with a splodge of white on its chest.

"Oh, him." The man laughs and shakes his head. "Not worth my while. Impossible to ride, that one - never taken to it. Can’t afford to shoe a horse like that." He gazes sadly at the horse, who gazes back. "Don’t know what to do with him."

"How much is he?" It’s a stupid question, but it’s out of my mouth before I can stop it. It would only take me a couple of days to ride a horse home - much quicker than a lumbering cart - and I can ride any horse, I’m sure. How hard can it be? But my work has only earned me a couple of dinars, I can feel them in my pocket, and a horse will cost more than a cart ride.

The man scoffs. "You can have him, Girlie, he’s only eating up my hay, bless him. Should’ve sent him for glue long ago, but..." I pull Gabrielle’s head tighter against my hip and clamp my hand over her other ear. She’s imaginative and sensitive as it is, I’m sure - if I take her home fretting and sobbing over the fate of a pony, I’ll be without a meal and a bed tonight. "Well, guess I’m too soft on ‘im." The man continues, smiling round at his animals. "Only you’ll have to pay for the shoes yourself - like I said, I don’t have the money to waste."

"So..." I try to ignore Gabrielle pawing at my arm in an attempt to dislodge it. "The money I earn for the work - will that be enough for a pair of shoes?"

He shrugs. "Suppose so. If you’ve got money to burn." Perfect. I can ride that horse with no bother. He grins down at Gabrielle, who has plucked my hand from her head. "Hey, Little Girl, you want to sit on a horsey?"

Gabrielle shakes her head hard. "No. Thank you."

"Oh, well." He straightens up. "You start tomorrow, first light."

So the day has ended better than it started. It’ll only take me a few days to fix up all those horses, then a couple of travelling, and I’ll be home, back to normal. Gabrielle is only too happy to leave the stables. "So you don’t like horses, huh?" I stride along, in a better mood.

"No." She skips along the dirt road toward home. "They’re too big, and..." She shivers. "Are you going home?"

"Hope so."

"I wish you could stay."

"Well, I don’t belong here, Kid."

"Hmm." She walks along beside me. "I love you, Xena."

It’s a bizarre thing for her to say, but I suppose children are always foolishly affectionate. I don’t know what to say, but she’s only a kid. "Yeah," I reply awkwardly, looking around to avoid eye contact, "You too."

Nothing can spoil my mood, and I eat and sleep well. I enjoy my work the next day, being with the horses, and I finish early. When I return from a long walk out in the forest, feeling out part of my way home, Gabrielle isn’t around. Her mother stands in the kitchen, feeding the baby from a cup, and tells me brusquely that Gabrielle gets sick sometimes and is to be left alone to rest. I shrug and accept this - all kids get ill from time to time. The mood in the little house is strange, though, with Herotodus and Hecuba giving each other tight looks and saying little, the baby hushed when it makes much noise, Hecuba going about her housework with unnatural determination and always with a corner of her lip tugged between her teeth. It doesn’t seem polite to ask questions of your host - that’s what Mother would say - so I try to keep out of the way.

Supper is eaten in silence, and when it gets dark I get tired and bored of the uncomfortable atmosphere and slip into the bedroom. Expecting to see Gabrielle in bed, I’m surprised to find her sitting up at a little makeshift desk, working intently on something. She looks around and smiles, as if she’s glad of the company. Hardly surprising, if she’s been locked up in here all day.

"You all right?" I sit on my bed and pull off my boots.

"Yes."

She looks fine to me, and I don’t understand. "Your mother said you were sick, or something. Her and your father have been funny all day."

She looks back to her desk, her head to one side. "They worry when I get sick, it makes them sad."

I can’t imagine my mother ever being so over-protective about us. "Everyone gets ill. You’re okay now, right?"

"No, I mean when I have the dreams."

She goes back to working industriously on her project, and, curious, I go over to see. On the wooden desk is spread out a roughly square scrap of parchment, on which she’s drawing with a small selection of brittle sticks of pigment in basic colours. Her arm covers her picture and I can’t see what it is.

"Dreams? But everyone dreams." I don’t remember Lyceus ever being as naive at her age. Part of me starts to lose patience with her. I was never clucky like the other girls my age, I’d rather be out climbing trees with my brothers than minding stupid children.

"No, the dreams that come true." She sounds equally frustrated with my lack of understanding as I was with hers. Intrigued, I kneel down.

"Dreams that come true?"

"Do you want to draw?" She asks suddenly. "I’m drawing a horse. You can do the sun." She uncovers her parchment and points to an empty space at the top. She has coloured a patch of green grass, and on top of it she’s drawing a long body, four sticks for legs, and a head with a large smiling face. I have never been particularly artistic, and I don’t know where to start. I almost refuse, thinking it a silly, childish activity, but I want to hear more, and it seems too unkind to rebuke her. So I select an oily, blunted piece of darkish yellow and studiously set about drawing a circle.

"Thought you didn’t like horses," I observe.

"I like this one. It was in my dream," She continues at length, pulling back to look at her work. Her face shows pride for a moment, then changes to something altogether sadder, and I pause. "I wish I didn’t have them. I never remember what happens: only the dream. I sleep when I’m not tired, and they say I shake a lot and they can’t stop me. It makes Mother and Father worry and they make me rest in here." She picks up a dark, thin stick of charcoal and continues to draw. "I’m not like the others. I’m different. And I don’t want to be." She leans over the page and draws carefully, lovingly, as if recreating a familiar, treasured image that brings comfort. "Mother says I have a gift." She inhales deeply and her eyes flick across the page. "Finish the sun?"

"Huh? Oh -" I shade in my misshapen circle. She has me intrigued, now, and I’m impatient to hear more. "Well, what are these dreams about? The ones that come true?"

"I dreamt about Lila, before she came. They said it’d be a boy, because Mother got very big, but I knew it would be a sister. And I knew when the fire was going to come and burn down the barn. And when Soris died. But I didn’t say anything because they might’ve said it was my fault."

So, Gabrielle has the Gift of Prophecy. It’s something I’ve heard about, but I’ve never known anyone with the Gift, and I wondered if it hadn’t just been made up by seers and shamanesses to give their arts more credibility. It can’t be easy growing up with a burden like that. When she looks up at me, I smile at her.

She selects a white piece of chalk and continues to draw. I see that she’s put a black figure on the horse, and is now drawing a pale one behind it. "So this was your dream today, huh?"

She nods. "Two women were riding on a big, friendly horse. One was all in black, and one was all in white."

"Oh, right."

"Then the two of them mixed together so there was only one person riding. I thought the black person and the white person would make a grey person, like when I draw." She takes the two appropriate coloured sticks in each hand and holds them as if weighing them. "But it didn’t, it made so many pretty colours, like you see in a rainbow. I wanted to look at it and look at it." She sets down her chalks. "I don’t have those colours."

This is interesting but makes absolutely no sense to me. "You’ve made the dark one look like me," I joke, wanting to lighten things up a little.

Gabrielle traces her small finger around the outline of long, wavy hair. "Think it was you." She moves to stroke her fingertips over the white figure sitting at the back of the horse. "Xena..."

I get up without even thinking about it. I don’t like this stuff: I don’t understand what this kid is talking about, and I don’t want to be involved. I don’t even know who this girl is, and now she’s dreaming about me and drawing me and telling me more than I can handle. I’ve stayed here too long, and I’m not sure why: even without a horse I could’ve walked, why have I been hanging on here?

So I wish Gabrielle goodnight and get into bed. In the darkness I watch her climb up into her bed, then I gaze out of the big window across the grey, empty path. I can’t sleep. That blasted dream swims through my head, and when I close my eyes I see the damned drawing, actually see two women merging together to make one complete, whole soul. It’s just the imaginings of a fanciful child, I tell myself.

I almost fall asleep when I hear Gabrielle move. In the semi-dark I watch her slip off her mattress and pad across the narrow room to me. "I can’t sleep by myself," She tells me, and climbs into bed beside me. I lie stock still as she curls up at my side, a little arm clutching my shift. She feels hot and I can feel her breathing. I don’t even know this child: this is too much. I’m not a cuddly person, this isn’t me.

The poor kid has gotten too attached. Not her fault, really, although only the Gods know what she sees in me. Probably just likes the attention. I don’t move, just keep still while she fidgets. It’s surprising how soft she is. Lyceus was always all elbows and knees. Guess she’ll be easy enough to ignore. I think tomorrow I’d better be getting home.

I almost doze off again when she shifts and rolls over. She presses her back against my side, keeping me warm, and snuffles a bit. Poor kid can’t sleep. She’s had a rough day. So I turn over and give her a pat, hoping she’ll be able to get some rest. Half asleep, she pushes herself back against me, her little feet on my legs, and shiny blonde hair falls against my nose.

And the smell is so startlingly familiar. My eyes open wide and I inhale deeply. Somehow, I know that smell, I’m convinced of it. I see her horse again, a sandy horse with a white patch on its nose, galloping through the grass. I see the women riding the horse. I see myself at the reigns, and I see the beautiful blonde woman sitting behind me, laughing and telling her stories and holding me up when I falter. And I absolutely understand everything that’s happened.

"Oh, Gabrielle -?" I grasp hold of her and haul her up onto my chest, turning her over. She’s floppy with sleep, so I cradle her head in the crook of my arm, letting her little body lay against me and holding her ankles in my hand. I push myself up against the pillows and gaze down at her in the moonlight. "I’ve got you -" I recognise every feature, her fair eyebrows, her fine fringe, her pretty nose and pinkish lips that are always smiling. She’s so small and delicate. I gingerly pull her in to my breast and kiss her forehead. "Shh, I’m here." I pull up the blanket and tuck it around her. "What’s happened to you, huh? What’s happened to us?" I go to stroke her cheek, and notice my fingers for the first time - they’re suddenly longer and roughened, and in my ears my voice has deepened and smoothed out. I glance over at the window, seeing my reflection - that of a grown woman - thrown back from the darkened glass.

"Well well, took you long enough to figure, Xena."

I start at the sudden deep voice and instinctively pull the sleeping child protectively toward me.

"Yet again," Ares complains as he starts to pace in the tiny space at the foot of the bed, "Your little companion manages to foil... such a darn good plan." He pauses to congratulate himself.

It doesn’t come as any surprise to me that he’s behind all this. "Will you keep your voice down," I hiss at him, "You’ll wake her."

"I send her back to a time when she can barely toddle, and still she comes between us!" The God of War gives a running commentary on his thoughts.

"Shut up!" Angry and disbelieving at what he’s done this time, I gingerly slide out of bed and lie Gabrielle back down, covering her with my blanket. She’s sleeping through it all, as usual. Typical Gabrielle. With that done I go up to Ares and whisper angrily into his face, "What have you done?!"

"Well..."

"Wait!" I grab hold of his leather collar and yank him against me. I remember exactly what happened! "This is your way of punishing Gabrielle! I’d have to be insane to hook up with you now!"

"Xena," He smiles charmingly, "Let’s not argue in front of the children."

To Hades with this man! I pull him out of the room, through the darkened house, and out into the night. I stalk until I think we’re safely out of earshot, then turn to tell him just what I think of his absurd antics. "Whatever you tricked Gabrielle into agreeing to -"

"Hey, I didn’t trick anyone!" He defends himself. "Gabrielle chose this."

"Then she would have done it because she was thinking of me. Unlike you."

"You have no idea."

"Don’t mutter! Ares you listen to me: put this mess right, now!"

"Sorry, no can do. Can’t fiddle around with time, Xena: accidents might happen."

I turn away and fume. The only way to get him to reverse all this is to do what he wants - what he’s always wanted - and the time for that has long passed. There has to be another way. A way to put things right, for myself and for Gabrielle.

I think of her, lying in her room. She’s so perfectly innocent. Because she hasn’t yet met me, I realise. She hasn’t had to fight or to kill. She hasn’t seen wars or felt terror. In this life she’s safe, and she’ll stay safe. Maybe, for Gabrielle’s sake, getting ‘back to normal’ isn’t so desirable after all. Am I being selfish?

"All right, look, let’s talk about -" But when I turn back, he’s gone. "Damn."

There’s nothing to do but go inside and go to bed. For the first time, my destiny is not in my hands.

I get up, eat, work and sleep the next day just as I did the day before. What else is there to do? I need time to think. And, if I’m honest to myself, I like being here. I like being  with Gabrielle, and I like living without the burden of a past that until now I’ve had no way to change.

"Were you working hard, all morning?" Gabrielle asks me.

"Uh ha. All morning." I smile down at her. Her hair is strawberry blonde and sits on her shoulders, and those eyes are just as bright as always.

"Do you like working? My father doesn’t like working."

"Well, I like being with the horses. And I need the money for my horse’s shoes."

Gabrielle nods, and gazes down at the faded red rug on which she stands. The old wooded dining chair that she is next to is almost taller than she is. "You miss being at home."

I shrug - there’s no honest answer to that, right now.

"If you had some shoes for your horse you could go home, and you’d be happy. Here -" She reaches into a tiny pocket in her pink and white dress and pulls out two coins. "For your shoes." She has to reach up to her full height to press the coins into my hand.

"Oh -" I crouch. "No, Sweetheart - that’s your money." I remember the last time she made the same gesture, paying for some time in an inn that I never properly thanked her for.

"We can share -"

"Ut-uh." She melts my heart, this girl. "You save your money for you and your family. Me and my horse will wait a few more days." I pick her up and sit her on the wooden chair, then tuck the two essentially worthless coins back into her pocket. I straighten her pretty little skirt over her legs, and rest my hands on her knees. "But thank you. Now, there’s a long time til dinner - want to go for a walk?"

"Okay!" She grins and swings her legs, kicking her feet gently into my stomach. I capture them in my hands, and we both laugh.

"Get your shoes on, then."

We walk through the village, with Gabrielle nattering and pointing things out. It’s so good to see her like this: I’d always wondered what she was like. She holds my hand so easily. If Solan had been... with me... I imagine we would have walked like this. Gabrielle would’ve been proud of that.

As we pass the stables I notice that my chocolate steed is grazing in the grassed pen outside. Maybe the stable boy is mucking out his hay. "Gabrielle - you want to come stroke my horse?"

"No." She shakes her head and clutches my hand tighter.

"No? Why not?"

"I don’t like horses." She repeats the safe phrase, and gazes back to the small market, the shouts of the sellers carrying on the wind.

Gabrielle never has liked horses. ‘Big, smelly things’, she calls them. It always struck me as strange that a farm girl had a mild fear of horses. I pull gently on her hand, bring it up to my belly to stroke it, forcing her to turn back to me. "Why? Why don’t you like horses?"

"One bit me," She says distractedly, her eyes still on the bustle of the market.

"One... bit you?" Gabrielle, you never told me that. I wouldn’t have teased you...

"Father said it was a sick horse. That he didn’t mean to do it."

"Well, he was probably right. Horses don’t like to bite people, they’re friendly." Maybe this is one small way I can help her, as she has me. "Why don’t you come and see my horse? He won’t bite. C’mon -" I walk slowly, so as not to startle her. Gabrielle is brave: she’ll face her fear.

The stable owner was right: the horse doesn’t like to be ridden, and threw me the first couple of times I tried. I’m an experienced rider, though, and I’m sure I’ll crack it. He seems docile enough so long as he isn’t made to carry weight.

"It’s all right." When we get to the fence I scoop Gabrielle up and stand her on the bottom beam. "Come say hello." She looks reluctant, so I wrap my arms around her and rest my chin on her shoulder. I point out things about the horse, take a piece of fruit from the trough and feed him. Gabrielle’s love of stories and information surpasses her wariness, and she is soon giggling and contributing. She draws back into my arms when the horse passes, then laughs and points after him. How easy it is to be with her! And I always thought I had no gift for childcare. I give her a piece of carrot and encourage her to hold out her arm. After a couple of timid attempts, she feeds the horse, who pauses to munch long enough for her to stroke his lean side.

"I did it, Xena! Did you see?!"

"Yeah, I saw." I laugh and squeeze her shoulders. "Good girl!" I steady her as she jumps down.

From then on she’s all excitement, describing every detail back to me and running around as if she were alternately horse and rider. We cut back through the edge of the forest, and in her joyful hurry Gabrielle doesn’t see an unearthed tree root, and trips. I see her skid down onto her knees, and she cries out softly, taken by surprise. She leans down gingerly over her legs, and I hurry to catch up to her.

"Gabrielle? Hey, let’s see." I bend down and try to untangle the little girl, who is suddenly stiffened and crying and small. "What’d you do? You hurt yourself?"

"My... leg..." She sniffs and displays the cut, looking repeatedly between it and me. My Gabrielle would look at me like that sometimes, wanting me to have all the answers, frightening me with all the trust she is giving me. Luckily, a scraped knee is a problem I feel confident to solve.

"It’s all right. It’s not bad."

But she keeps looking up at me, with tears dripping over her round cheeks. Her chest gasps with shocked little sobs, and I realise that matter-of-fact reassurance isn’t going to be enough. I’ve started to see her as I did my travelling companion, who was brave and wouldn’t cry or complain over any injury. But this is just a child, hurt and taken by surprise.

"C’mon - let’s get that leg cleaned. Shh now. I’m here." I reach out and get a hold under her arms, then lift her up and settle her against me. "Don’t cry." As I stand I take a moment to stroke away the tears and push back fine hair and kiss her face. She’s gotten herself all hot and dishevelled, and I find myself instinctively rocking her against my hip as I stride over to the waters edge. "It’s all right, Gabrielle." She’s tucked herself under my chin and her arms have knotted around my neck.

"I was running -" She tells me hurriedly, her breath catching every now and then, "And I didn’t see the root, and I fell, and I hurt my leg." Why is she telling me something I clearly saw? Typical Gabrielle to make a drama into a story.

"I know. Here, sit down." I gingerly lower her onto the bank and take her foot to guide her leg into the shallow water. As soon as I do, though, she squirms and pulls away, grasping at my clothes to pull herself back against me. "All right, all right -" Giving in, I kick off my shoes, sit down, and let her into my lap.

Gabrielle won’t be hurried. So I just sit with her for a bit, my arms around her middle where she can clutch them, her head on my chest where I can kiss her and talk to her. She fits so tidily into my embrace, her injured leg tucked up protectively, and she’s warm and soft. Her hair - as always - smells like summer and home.

"You know," I tell her as we cuddle, "I’ve got a little boy, just a little bit older than you." If I close my eyes I can imagine it’s my own child that I’m holding, comforting, my own flesh and blood. Solan’s hair would be just as soft and yellow, his cheek just as warm against my own. "You’d like playing with him. He could show you how to do lots of things. I know you’d have a great deal of fun together. You’d like him... My son..." And I get to thinking, that if this life goes on, I can have Solan all over again, and keep him. I could keep him away from anyone who would hurt him, I could raise him and have him with me.

"What’s his name?" Gabrielle asks me, reaching down to take my hands and examine them.

"His name is Solan." It feels bitter in my throat. Solan isn’t here. My little boy...

"Is he good at drawing?" She absently wipes her face with her arms as she continues to play with my hands.

"I... don’t know..."

"Are you a good drawer?" She singles out my forefinger, curling the others back, and studiously draws a line in the sand with it.

"I don’t know about that, either." I breathe in deeply. This isn’t the time to be lost in the past, or the future. "How about you? You want to draw a horse?" I carefully ease her down onto the sand and turn my attention to her leg while she makes symbolic markings in the soft white grains.

The graze isn’t bad. I gently scoop water over it to clean it, pretending to be more interested in what she’s working on. When we’re done, I carry her home. Her mother has to work through the evening collecting eggs from the hens, so I’m in charge of getting Gabrielle and her sister ready for bed. I’m not used to being so domesticated.

"You’ll have to sort yourself out," I tell Gabrielle as she climbs into the tin bath, "I’ve got my hands full." Luckily for me, Lila doesn’t cry much. She’s a chubby baby with lots of dark hair. I see Gabrielle in her: the two girls look very much alike. I’ve never had to bath a baby. I let the other women deal with Solan; I fed him grudgingly, and that was all. I would’ve loved to hold him and watch him wriggle his toes in the water.

Now is not the time to think about Solan, I tell myself sternly. Not now! Gabrielle is here and now. She kneels up and shows me how to bath Lila without dropping her or making her cry. Gabrielle is good with the baby and talks to her constantly, always watching out for her reactions, always ready to pass me something that I need.

I manage to get Lila into her crib and ask her nicely not to cry or wet her nappy or do anything else that I’m ill-equipped to handle. Gabrielle has been left to get on with dressing herself, and when I return to the bedroom she isn’t there. Cursing, I find her in the lounge room, crouched in a corner.

"Gabrielle, what are you doing? Time for bed." How odd it feels to chastise her like this!

She signals for me to be quiet and beckons me over. In the corner is a shallow wooden box containing one large ginger cat and four much smaller ones, also ginger but with splodges of white. Gabrielle lets the kittens clamber over her legs and tells me confidentially that this is the neighbour’s farm cat, usually set upon the mice but allowed inside for the duration of her pregnancy. Gabrielle clearly loves the mewing kittens, and talks to them too, stroking and petting them. She tells me that she doesn’t allow herself to grow too fond of the other young animals, like the new piglets, and leans over to whisper into my ear "because we eat them, sometimes". I say that this philosophy sounds quite reasonable and wise.

The kittens are sweet, and I find myself playing too, tickling their ears, laughing when they stumble on their tiny legs, and scooping them up when they scamper too far away. When the cats start to get dozy we leave them alone, and Gabrielle races into the bedroom, pretending to be feline.

Enjoying myself, but tired from what for me has been an emotional day, I get into my bed. "C’mon Kitty, jump into bed -" I pat my legs, and Gabrielle gleefully clambers up on all fours, pretending to scratch and claw as she makes her way over to me. It’s cool tonight, and I don’t feel like being alone. I’ve grown so used to having someone to talk to, that I feel strangely alone here. I lift up the blanket and wait for her to get into my lap before wrapping it back around her. She meow’s at me, and I laugh and reply in kind. I never knew it was this easy.

"Is my little cat going to go to sleep and have some nice dreams?" I ask, scratching her head like I would a pet.

"Meow." It sounds affirmative.

"And have a dish of milk in the morning?" And I used to command armies? I put my arms around her and let her settle in a curiously crunched up position in my lap. Wanting to calm her down, I stroke hair from her face and watch her silently.

Gabrielle’s fingers curl absently in a lock of my hair. Her flushed cheek against my breast, she lifts up the hair and notices a scratch on my arm. "You’ve got a cut."

I glance at it. Probably from when the horse threw me, or from riding in the forest. "It’s all right, my darling." She shouldn’t have to worry about anything. I take her hand, uncurl the fingers, and kiss her palm. What can this child ever be to me? I’m not her mother, or her friend, or her partner. Gabrielle is my Soulmate, and Solan is my child - this reality changes that, and I’m not so sure I want it changed.

In the darkness she stretches out and yawns - inadvertently still rather catlike, I think with amusement - then settles back with her head on my shoulder. "I love you Xena."

I tuck the blanket close to her. "Yeah, I love you too, Gabrielle." I kiss her face and wait until sleep takes her.

This situation can’t go on. I’ve stayed here too long: the horse was ready for travel days ago. To let this life continue is so tempting - Gabrielle is innocent and won’t ever have to kill. My conscience is clear and my brothers are alive and well. But what right do I have to make that choice? Gabrielle has always insisted that she chooses to be by my side, no matter what: in this life I’ve taken that pleasure away from both of us. All I can ever be to this Gabrielle is a friendly aunt figure, a surrogate parent - and we used to have so much more.

I gingerly settle Gabrielle down beside me and face the wall to try to sleep myself. This life isn’t normal and it isn’t something I wholly understand. It is also entirely out of my control. Ares could materialise and snap his fingers at any moment and throw everything into turmoil all over again.

No, tomorrow I will find a way to sort this. Despite sleeping next to her, I miss my Gabrielle. She does have the Gift of Prophecy, although she ill understands it right now. She knows that we’re destined to be together, more fully together than this. She knows it is herself that she has drawn on the back of that fair horse. Even as adults, there are aspects of Gabrielle’s gift that are private to her, that she either doesn’t wish or doesn’t know how to share with me. It frightens me, sometimes, but I trust her with it implicitly. She’s never wrong. I better understand the convulsions that take her, I know what to do. The first time, it was just like when an arrow went into her, in some Gods-forgotten part of Thessaly. Remembering that day when I’d almost lost her, I clutched at her, panic-stricken. "Please, don’t stop breathing!" I’d begged, "Don’t you dare stop breathing!"

But she hadn’t stopped breathing. She’d come out of it, and fallen asleep, and when she woke she told me about the future. It doesn’t happen often, for which I’m glad. When it does, I know now to make her lie on her side, having discovered by sheer trial and error that she’ll be less likely to wake heaving for her breath, less likely to cough and lose all her colour.

Could she ever have predicted this? That we’d come to meet each other as children, to find each other even when it seemed most unlikely? I know, in the most honest, truthful part of myself, that Gabrielle wouldn’t want this to go on. Our relationship played out just as it was supposed to: there’s no need to re-live it. I wouldn’t change a thing.

At the start, Gabrielle’s hero worship, if you will, became almost more than I could bear. Everything was "Xena did this, Xena said that". She seemed to think that I could wander through the known world effortlessly solving Man’s problems as I went. I was only too aware of how many of those problems I had single-handedly caused. In her scrolls in her stories, in her sleep, Gabrielle would sing my praises and exalt me as some kind of angelic being, brushing aside my mistakes and misjudgements as no more significant than overcooking our supper - which I also did, quite frequently.

I cared for Gabrielle and liked her, but her adoration of me was a constant and acute reminder of just how far I fell short of deserving that acclaim. One day she gave some innocent, off hand comment about how I was bound to save the day, and something inside of me gave out. I turned to yell at her, to beg or bully her into never saying such a stupid and untrue thing again. But before I could speak I found an expression on her face that was so open and unguarded that all the anger sank away. No one had looked at me with such love since... Lao Ma, probably, although her love for her student was not a naive, simple love like Gabrielle’s. Perhaps in her fair face in that moment I saw Lyceus looking up at me; love that was trusting and unconditional.

And so I reached out and held her, needing to have that love close to me. I understood why she was innocently in awe of me - although I didn’t agree with it - and I realised how important she was becoming to me. I realised it, and I couldn’t let go. I become too easily addicted - to power, to revenge, to Gabrielle’s devotion. On reflection, it was probably the first time Gabrielle had been held since she left home - I certainly didn’t make a habit of it - and after a moment of startled hesitation she nestled herself against me and curled her fingers around my arms.

After that, Gabrielle’s confidence knew no bounds. I would pretend to be irritated by her endless, chattering analysis of the world and of us both, but it was usually just a cover for my pride in watching her develop and my fear that she would one day discover something in me that she disliked. Gabrielle knew what she wanted, though, and could always rival me for stubborn perseverance. I think she wanted a relationship with me almost from the very beginning. She never pushed me - she realised long before I did that emotionally she was at least my equal - but in her own way she quietly let it be known that she was going to be a constant in my life, no matter what.

Her birthday came, and it was an important date that I felt symbolised her passage from childhood to maturity. It had been many years since I’d given anyone a gift for a birthday, and I thought hard about what I could give to someone so unique and so special. As a child in Amphipolis I had learned to carve wood from my elder brother, who felled trees for dinars from time to time and would bring home chips of wood for me to practice on. I got pretty good. But times changed and I had less time for such pursuits. I made two small toys to put in with Solan’s blankets - a horse and a dragon. I hadn’t crafted anything since.

So I made a fish for Gabrielle. She was always saying that I was obsessed with fish and I wanted to prove her right. It took me many nights to carve, when she’d gone to bed and she thought I was polishing my sword. I cut out each individual scale, made a long tail fin, and gave it a sort of smile, thinking she’d like that. She loved the gift, and sat with it in her lap, playing her fingers over the polished grain.

We talked for a bit, after our evening meal, and watched the darkness fall in on the horizon. "I’ve had a lovely birthday," She told me.

I leaned close to her, stroking the wood over the fish’s gill, which I couldn’t help thinking I’d made too big. "So, you’re grown up now, huh?" She laughed a bit and nodded. "I’m proud of you." She looked beautiful, sitting there in the flickering firelight.

"What, for surviving this long?" She laughed. "Yeah, I’m proud of me too."

I shook my head, reaching out to take her hand and squeeze it. "For being the person you are. I love you."

She clutched my hand in hers and cocked her head against my shoulder. "I love you too, Xena." She got up, then, completely missing my intentions, and wished me goodnight. I had to be amused. I tidied our camp for the night then went to her bedroll. She looked up questioningly at me, her form softened by moonlight, and it was a perfect moment I would have liked to keep alive forever.

"Happy birthday, Gabrielle -" I leaned down to her and held my lips against hers. She was every bit as soft and warm as I imagined. I kept my eyes open, wanting to see, and she immediately closed hers, her eyebrows rising a little.

"Xena?"

I made myself comfortable on the fur and let my hands go to her. "Come here -" I made our second kiss a little deeper.

She must’ve known from the movement of my hands that I didn’t just intend to sit and kiss. She slid her legs on either side of mine and sat in my lap, our bodies together. She held my face in her small hands to look at me, and I smiled for her. She felt so innocent, in my arms, so pure. It was like having a precious, untainted gift that no body has ever touched. I felt that I had waited my whole life for this moment.

"You don’t have to," She told me uncertainly, "I know I’ve been pushing you. You don’t have to do anything that... that..."

I laughed softly at her, and took time to stroke back a lock of blonde hair. "No, Gabrielle -" I held her tightly in my arms. "I was just waiting for you."

That moved something inside her, and she knelt up and pressed her lips onto mine, open mouthed, her small body hard against me. She tasted like all of nature and beauty combined. I realised how long I’d really been waiting, and returned her kiss with equal fire. When she finally sat back down on her heels she seemed to notice for the first time my hands stroking her: I hadn’t ever touched her in such a way before.

But Gabrielle was long past being an uncertain little girl - I knew she wasn’t afraid. "Take this off." I deftly untied the brown cord at her side and parted the mosaic material of her top. I had noticed that her body always felt hot, from when she would accidentally brush against me when we were bathing or sleeping, and I wanted to feel that warmth. With fingers that are always slightly cool, I reached under the material and caressed her breast. She gave a tiny moan, more feminine than I had ever heard from her, and my passion was redoubled. "You’re beautiful -" I reached under the other side, parting the chestnut material and supporting warm, heavy breasts in my hands as I leaned down to kiss them. Her arms went around my neck and I held her close to me and talked to her while we removed the rest of her clothes.

Gabrielle wasn’t shy. We were completely together that first night, and afterward we lay on our sides, holding hands and simply looking at each other. I never thought I’d find anyone like her. For a long time after that Gabrielle and I were intimate practically every day. When she develops an interest she pursues it wholeheartedly, and I was a most willing accomplice. She must’ve felt like all her solstices had come at once. I just felt like I was in love.

And I still do. I’m in love with that wise, kind woman, who understands me and understands herself better than she realises. I can’t stay with this little girl, who is breathing restfully curled against my back: this isn’t the natural order of things. I decide that in the morning I’ll get away from the busyness of the market square and I’ll summon Ares, do whatever it takes to sort this situation out.

As it turns out, my plans prove to be unnecessary. As I wake up I hear voices outside the window. One of the men talking is Gabrielle’s father, and I rise and lean out to listen.

"You heard what I have, Herotodus?" An old man asks, full of joy at the prospect of sharing his daily gossip. "Cortese and his thugs are riding again, off to pillage another town. I thought we’d heard the last of them in these parts."

Cortese!

"So long as he isn’t headed here, Friend." Herotodus sounds grave.

"No, no - riding East, so I hear. Headed across the wetlands for the town of Amphipolis - may the Gods help ‘em!"

I have to get back. This is the day: today is the keystone. What I do today will determine the future, and the past. It’s good to have some momentum back. I dress quickly, then wake Gabrielle.

She’s sleepy-eyed, and I hold her in a cuddle, amused. "Gabrielle - I’m going home today."

"You are?" She rubs at her eyes.

"Uh ha. I have to go see my mother and my brothers."

"Oh." She tests her vision, and apparently finds it clearer. "But I’ll miss you."

"I know. I’ll miss you too." I pull her in to me, and she kisses me on the lips, like a child who has not yet been told that they’re too old for that. "But you -" I bundle her up and scoop her into my arms in a wrestle hold, making her laugh infectiously and wriggle to be free, " - are beautiful. And we’re gonna see each other again real soon, I promise. No matter what, we’ll see each other again soon."

"When you come back, can we ride that horse?" Back on her feet, she points to the drawing still lying on the desk. "Your sandy one, can we ride her together like in the picture?"

"We can ride her every day if you want." I give her one last kiss and lift her up. "Now go back to bed for a bit, get some more sleep before your mother wakes you." I tuck her under the blankets and settle her.

It’s time to go.

My chocolate horse isn’t too shoddy. He has a stroppy manner about him, but I can be stubborn too, and I know how not to fall off a wild horse. At least we make good speed. The countryside between Gabrielle’s village and mine is mostly rough scrubland, a few farming fields and a tiny industrial town where I stop off for water - there are no forests to slow us down, or big rivers to cross.

Still, I can’t afford to take it easy. I have to get home before Cortese. I’ll do my best in the fight - I’ll beg Toris to stay and I’ll die in place of Lyceus, if I have to, but my priority is Gabrielle. Ares won’t win: no one controls my life but me, not anymore. Lao Ma taught me all about control, and power, and focus. I ride through the night and barely take time to eat: there’ll be enough time for luxuries later.

As I near my home village I pass a small outlying farm. My steed spies a tan filly behind a fence, and there’s no budging him. I tap at his sides with my heels and click at him and ultimately take to pointing him on like a hopeful child, but to no avail: his eye has been taken. So I jump down and leave him be: I can run from here. Who am I to stand in the way of true love? Old boy looks like he’s had a tough time in life, he deserves a break.

As I haul my few possessions in their satchel onto my back I see that the mare isn’t too interested in my chocolate steed’s equine affections. Wondering why, I peer over the sturdy fence.

A little foal face peers back. I blink, surprised. She blinks, nonplussed. She’s got beige colouring, like her momma, but there’s a white diamond on her nose. She’s cute. "Hey Kid, how you doing there?" I scratch at her miniature jaw, and she stumbles forward on gangly little legs, pressing into my hand. "Woah, careful now -" I laugh at her infant awkwardness.

Funny; she looks just like Argo. Just like... "Argo?" She bores of the scratching and looks down to snuffle the ground. "Hey, look at me -" I try to turn her nose up to me, but she’s moved just out of reach. "Damn it..." I rummage in my bag and find the apple I’m looking for. Excited by this small triumph, I drop down and reach it through the fence to her. "Here, Girl..." There, that’s got her interest. "You want this?" She sniffs at the green fruit experimentally. Oversized brown eyes level with mine, long eyelashes blinking. "Go on, it’s all right -" I laugh as she takes a bite. She’s not even big enough to eat a whole apple in one go! I stroke her head and her ears as she munches, and know this little pony is my Argo. "Hey there..." Feeling silly tears in my eyes, I pet my horse as she turns her side to me. "I missed you."

Over by the bigger mare, the brown horse startles at something I don’t feel, and looks over to the East, toward Amphipolis. He shifts on his hooves, as if he feels the ground tremble. Cortese is coming. He can feel the stampeding horses, the roar of the soldiers. I gotta go.

"Hey, listen -" I stroke Argo’s neck. "You behave yourself for your mother, okay? Don’t give her any trouble." She licks at my wrist, and I tickle her ear and stand. "And keep eating your apples - they’ll make you big and strong." I fix my makeshift weapons around me. "And I’ll be back for you. Promise." She blinks serenely, gives a soft, falsetto neigh, and goes back to sniffing the apple core.

It’s time to fight. I set off at a sprint, dashing across the fields and into Amphipolis. Gabrielle has given me this chance, and I don’t want to waste it. My mind races through all the actions I took last time, all the things I could’ve done wrong that led me into that downward spiral. What is the key mistake I need to avoid?

Inside the village square, the battle is already underway. No time for negotiations or diversion tactics now. My people are fighting for their homes and their lives, and they’re losing. We barely defended ourselves the first time: without my bloodlust and savage determination it’s hopeless. I pull out the small dagger I brought with me from Poteidaia. No choice at all: I have to help.

But... hasn’t it been violence that’s led to this, both times before? I tried to fight, and I tried to frighten - both episodes yielded the same outcomes for Toris, Lyceus, Mother, and myself. Without Gabrielle here there’s no one to save me from myself. I pause in the shelter of an archway between two shops, and watch the fighting. The more fury a villager displays, the more they hunger for power and control, the more likely they are to die.

Perhaps fighting isn’t the best way out of this. Gabrielle’s words come back to me, and I feel her spirit here inside my heart: the only way to end the cycle of violence is with love, she said. The only way to defeat war is with peace. I can’t fight.

A cluster of men blunder past me. Dodging out of the way, I see three young villagers whom I recognise from my youth, hardworking farmers sons who took up swords to help me defend our town. In the centre of them is Toris, tall and handsome as I remember. The boys are tugging at him, and he’s trying to break free.

"Let me go," My brother insists, "You can all die like fools, but I won’t! Let go!"

"Don’t be a coward!" My neighbour’s son urges, "You can’t run away from all this, we need you!"

"I’m sorry -"

"Toris stand and fight, damn you!"

I remember exactly how I felt when I learned that Toris had run away from our battle. We never got on as well as Lyceus and I did, but I looked up to him like a father, and felt so alone when he fled. I see the fear in him now, though, and know what this is costing him. One person won’t make any difference to the fight now.

I break into the struggle, pulling the boys off. "Let him go -" I tug their arms away. Taken by surprise, they release their grip on my brother and watch me. Men from Amphipolis don’t attack women, or children - it’s a value I never forgot, no matter how savage I became. "Toris -" I take hold of his strong arms and give him a little shake to get his attention above the noise of the fighting behind us.

"Xena, I’m sorry, I just can’t..."

"I know. You’ve nothing to apologise for." I quickly straighten up his clothes, fastening the ties of his shirt as Mother would when he was younger. "It’s all right, Toris, it is. Go out into the hills, you’ll be safe there." His makeshift armour will slow him down and make him a target, so I tug it off of him.

"I don’t understand... All your plans..."

"Shh..." I hold his face. None of that matters now. "This isn’t your Way, Toris, I understand that now. Do what you have to do. Just take care." I smile to see his beautiful blue eyes again, so much like my own, and stroke my hands through thick, shiny brown hair that flops into his eyes. Lyceus copied the same style and always looked equally silly.

I know he’s surprised by my reaction. He cups my hands gently to his lips and kisses them. "My beautiful sister..."

"I forgive you..." I say into his ear. I can only spare one last moment to hold him close to me and breathe in his existence, our blood bond. "Now go, to the North where it’s safe. Go!"

I watch him flee at full pelt. And my heart twists and sinks just as it did the first time. I know I won’t ever see him again. Maybe this time he’ll be safe, he’ll return to Amphipolis and not let his soul be soured by the lust for revenge.

I run out into the market square. All around me people are fighting. Simple village people in shoddy armour fight clumsily with farming implements as leather clad soldiers kill them with shining swords. I tug a rounded length of wood from a wrecked stall and use it as a staff, defending my kin where I can but killing no one. That isn’t my way anymore. I don’t know what I hope to achieve. The soldiers lose patience and sneer with me, back off only to circle around and pick on easier prey.

As my eyes dart about, trying to find a peaceful solution, I catch sight of Lyceus. He’s younger and even more handsome than I remember, and I stand and smile at the sight of him, brave and unafraid. I can almost see him racing through the fields, turning to tease me for my teenage clumsiness. I see him climbing a tree to pick the best apples for Mother’s pie, or splashing after Solaris, or bringing me a flower when I was poorly with some chill or another. I remember him when he was a baby, and I was barely big enough to hold him, when he was learning to walk, stumbling after a wooden toy I’d given him. When he was four or five, and came to see me in the night after a bad dream, just wanting to be picked up and spoken to softly about the good things we’d do the next day...

"Zee, watch out!"

I feel the movement behind me but I’m disorientated and don’t know which side to dodge to. Lyceus stoops down to grab a rock, and sends it flying over my shoulder, right into the head of a soldier. My attacker slumps to the ground, his blade falling uselessly over him. Lyceus hasn’t seriously hurt him - he’ll just wake up in a bit with a sore head - but he has protected me and saved my life.

I turn back to return his triumphant grin. He’s a clever boy! He’s full of pride at his achievement, and starts toward me.

He doesn’t see the soldier to his left, one that I spared just a few moments ago. He doesn’t see the sword that raises at him, the snarling face of the armoured man. All he sees is me, and I’m too far to reach him. I gaze into his face, knowing what’s bound to happen. I hold his eyes with mine. "I love you, Lyceus -" I only mouth the words, but I see in his face that he’s understood.

The blade goes in, and I close my eyes. The wind sweeps across the square and seems to go right through me, taking my breath with it, and its howling silences all the other sounds in the lonely, defeated village. When I open my eyes again, Lyceus is collapsing, lifeless. I catch him and crumple underneath him, bringing his head and shoulders into my lap. For the third time in my life, my heart splits at the pain of his death, and I hold his tender face against my own, kissing his hair as if he were sleeping.

I respond to nothing until there’s a taunting voice at my shoulder. "Angry now, Xena?"

I find Cortese’s ugly face in my own, his stinking breath and evil grin. "You bastard!" Setting Lyceus down I twist and grab the black leather at his throat, pulling myself up. "You’re gonna be sorry your mother didn’t drown you at birth!" I grab the dagger from my belt and hold it at his neck. This is something I want to enjoy. A long, slow death, the heat of blood on my hands, the power to control life. "This is for my brothers, you worthless piece of centaur dung -" I sneer the words into his face, and flex my fingers around the steel dagger handle. Adrenaline flushes through me. I’m strong and alive. I like this feeling.

He laughs at me, a self-satisfied, selfish laugh, which maddens me even more. "You really can’t change fate, Xena, can you see that now? No matter what you do, you can’t escape from yourself!" Laughing triumphantly, his voice deepens and he begins to change shape in front of me, his form melting under my hands. Shocked, I stumble back.

As I watch, the laughter grows more familiar, and the short man lengthens out into Ares. I gasp. "You!"

"Sorry to keep secrets from you, Xena -" He shakes his head regretfully, thumbs tucked into his belt. "I figured that you would never have gone up against me if you knew who I was - impressive as you undoubtedly were."

He reaches out to stroke my face, but I’m having none of that, and slash angrily with my knife. Lucky for him he’s wearing a gauntlet, or he’d be minus an arm. "You were Cortese all along," I seethe. "I became what I did, because of you? Lyceus died, because of you..." Furious, I aim my little dagger at his heart. Let’s test out the theory that Gods can’t be killed. If his fellow Olympians come down to help him, I’ll kill all of them, too. I’ll kill everyone alive until -

"Well, admittedly you weren’t my first choice," Ares goes on. "I wanted your mother. She had potential, Xena. Before you knew her she lived on her instincts. When she killed your father to save you I knew I wanted her. But she turned me down. So having you on my side and doing away with your siblings seemed like a suitable parting gift."

A dagger in the heart would be too quick and too noble a way to die, I decide. I trace the tip of the blade upward, in a beautifully slow dance, until it rests on his throat. "I’ll bleed you like a pig -"

"And it seems like my plan worked," He continues, threatening and dangerous. "Like I said, all of this is predestined." He gestures to take in the battlefield, Lyceus, and finally us. "You’ve become exactly what your little friend set out to avoid."

This is so true that it startles me out of my fixation. All I wanted was to kill, to get revenge. I had no control, and I would have killed anyone who dared speak to me. Scared, I drop the dagger. Ares got exactly what he wanted. "No, that’s not who I am..." I back off, shocked.

"That’s exactly who you are!" He closes the distance again and grabs my arms. "It’s inside you - it’s inside both of us! Use it, Xena, feed it!"

I make the mistake of meeting his eyes. He’s so confident, so stable in a world that’s spinning around me. If he weren’t holding me up I’d fall. He’s right: no matter what I did the outcome was always the same. I couldn’t avoid Lyceus dying, I couldn’t hold down the hatred inside of me. At least with him I wouldn’t have to feel like this, I’d have a place in the world. "I don’t know..."

"You and I together." He kisses me, and I feel his solid arms around me. He understands me.

"You and I..." I echo dumbly.

I’m spent, and he presses me against him, supporting me. "You can’t evade yourself any more than you can evade me," He whispers into my ear. "No one can alter who you are." I feel the power emanating from him, bright and fierce, the power to rule worlds and alter time. Godly power. I blink at its intensity, my chin resting on his arm, and Amphipolis flutters away. In its place forms a plain forest grove. All the dead and dying bodies of the villagers disappear, and all that remains are the men of the dark army.

And a girl.

Gabrielle stands with them.

She’s just as she should be, adult and wise, wearing her deliberately non-threatening cloth skirt and top. Occasionally I’ve tried to convince her to wear leather, or some other material that offers protection, but she always refused, saying that if you expect attack you invite it. Now her linen clothes are shabby, and she’s dirty and bloodied, an arm supported against her. She must have come to help in the fight. Ares must have put time right, or let it slip in his arrogance, and she figured out where I’d be and came to find me. She knew that this was the one fight that engulfed all that was good and innocent in me, that bred the monster she abhors, but still she came to be at my side.

"You’re wrong," I breathe to Ares, my eyes on Gabrielle.

"What?" He straightens and lets go.

"I said you’re wrong." I’m exhausted, and it’s an effort to keep on my feet. "You don’t understand, Ares, you never did. We do have choices, even me." This is over now, truly, and I remove and throw away what small amount of armour and weaponry I had. "And I choose Gabrielle."

I go to her and hold her up. I look down and touch my forehead to hers, wanting to give her this moment, not caring about another creature on Earth. "Gabrielle -?" Our faces are so close that I feel my own warm breath reflected back on my cheek. Her face tilts up and shows me that irrepressible smile. She’s all right. I press a kiss to her forehead - a promise of more to come - and turn back to Ares and his men, keeping one arm locked around Gabrielle’s waist. "It’s over." I tell him. "Leave the past as the past." I turn my attention back to the only person that matters now. "Let’s go."

I whistle. A moment’s pause, then the hoofbeats are there, coming out of the trees, as reliable as the seasons changing or the sun coming up. It’s good to see Argo again. Good that she’s been put right, too - I don’t think the two of us would fit on a pony.

Ares calls out behind us, angry and defeated. "You’ll regret this, Xena!" But I won’t, and I ignore him.

"You’re going up front," I tell Gabrielle. She isn’t fond of riding - although at least now I know why - but I don’t imagine I’ll get any arguments this time.

"Thanks -"

She’s tired. It’s not surprising. She still manages a small smile to reassure me, and in that moment I’m reminded of my mother, covering her weariness or worry with a smile to put my mind at rest. It occurs to me that sometimes Gabrielle is by far the older and wiser of the two of us. When I put her boot into the stirrup and she puts weight on it, she winces. Better check on that when we get back to camp.

I free the stirrup and use it  to pull myself up. "Hand me the reigns, will you?" She does, turning somewhat stiffly, and shows me that smile again, fond but bashful now. She’s feeling badly. Feeling guilty. Knowing Gabrielle, that means we’ll be up half the night talking it out. "Thanks." It’s not until I take the strips of worn leather, tucking my little fingers underneath and feeling for the bronze buckle, that I notice her bloody knuckles. "Got yourself into a fistfight, huh?" I tap my heels against Argo’s belly, and she starts off at a gentle walk. I don’t look back.

Gabrielle pushes her body snugly back against mine so she won’t fall. "I think I did all right," She proudly studies her small hands. Thinking she really would be wise to hold on, I put an arm securely around her waist. "It’s far too physical, though. I even got my hair pulled - where’s the honour in that?! I’ll be happy to get my staff back."

Argo knows where she’s going, so I don’t pay much attention. I keep her gentle, and keep hold of Gabrielle, who keeps lapsing into something between sleep and unconsciousness. She’s been hurt - although she’ll strenuously deny it - and we’re both going to need a few days to rest and recover. At least it’s over. It’s over now. I press my face against her hair and whisper "Don’t go to sleep. Not yet."

"Sorry -" Brave as always, she pulls her head up.

Gabrielle is the talker, but I need to find some way of keeping her awake. Payback time for all the nights she’s kept me up with her excited chattering, her story ideas, her observations. "I wish we could afford a room in that inn of yours, after all." I think about the hot tub we shared, before all of this began. "Could do with it tonight." She nods her head against my shoulder. She has the brightest imagination of anyone I know. It only takes the smallest mention of something and she’ll create it vividly in her mind. When she’s upset, or in pain, I know she likes to retreat into those worlds she makes. "There’d be little candles around the walls," I continue in a fumbling manner, "And... a big wooden table in the middle of the room, like those solid oak ones you get in taverns. You’d sit down on one of those long benches, take your boots off so they could air by the fire, and there’d be a bowl of those red berries you like." Gabrielle chuckles, appreciative of my school-girl efforts at storytelling. "The fire..." Searching for inspiration, I gaze at the milky white reflections of the moon in her hair. "The fire would make your hair as red as a sunset." Flames make her hair glow. It’s always a pretty sight, affecting me more than I let on to her, and I smile at the image that’s in my mind now, too. "It’d just be you and I."

"You and me," She echoes.

She doesn’t know how much I love her. She couldn’t. I squeeze her against me, and hold the hand that she slips into mine. I’m taking most of her weight: I can’t let her sleep, not yet. "Hang on, Gabrielle -" I whisper against her temple, getting the other arm around her as well. "Just hang on, a little longer."

"I’m here -" Her voice is soft, and her legs hang against mine, but her hands stroke over my fingers, warming them against her body. "What else is there? In the room?"

Now she’s taxing my skills. "Chicken legs, cooked just how you like ‘em. Warm rugs on the floor. A big old wooden bed, lots of blankets, as many cushions as you could want." Now I’m starting to enjoy my tale. "And when we’d eaten, you and I..." I’m not good at talking about such things, but she knows. I cuddle her close to me, and she reaches back to rub her fingertips into my hair, pressing our heads together.

Argo finds our old campsite, and we see that it’s all set up, just as we left it. It really is as if nothing has changed, as if we were never away. Gabrielle’s staff is propped against a rock, and there are glowing embers in the fire. I jump down and reach up a hand for her. "Go on, Argo, find some food -" I pat Argo to send her off. It’s night, now, but I’ll find time to take off her saddle and give her some water, although she’ll have to wait until the morning for a brush down. Gabrielle is first priority. I take her hand. "C’mon."

"Xena -" She pauses me as she kneels on the bedrolls. There’s something she wants to say.

First things first. "Shh now, save your energy. Don’t talk. I know it’s asking a lot, huh?" I tease her gently, and she chuckles and lies down, doing as she’s asked for once. I always feel easier in myself when I have something physical to do. When there’s something on my mind I keep busy. I pour water from a skin into a pan and set it over the fire to sterilize it, and take a moment to shrug out of my armour, find cloths and a bottle of salve in our bags. When there’s something on Gabrielle’s mind, she talks, which is why it’s so disarmingly incongruous to find her so silent tonight. My eyes flick up to her, sitting patiently on the fur, and she quickly masks her plaintive expression with a smile. She has something to say, all right: she’s just too tired to push it.

She doesn’t normally have such self restraint. When she wants to talk, there’s usually no escaping it. It used to drive me crazy. When we first met, I’d be blissfully engrossed in some task that kept my thoughts from the darkness that pressed in on them - just some insignificant activity, like sleeping - and I’d hear her voice: "Xena, how’d you catch that chicken so fast?", or "Xena, what’s your village like, is it bigger than Poteidaia?", or "Have you ever been to Britannia, Xena, is it cold there?". First I tried ignoring her, but she’d just paw at me and try another question. It was a miracle she never wound up with my hand around her throat. For a while I got pretty good at evading difficult or dull questions, putting her off the scent. Didn’t take her long to see past my ploy.

In truth, whatever ends up being said, I usually feel better for it. She somehow has a knack of digging down to the most painful spot and releasing it, along with all the tension bundled up with it. Shame I can’t say the same for her massage technique, which by contrast is about as effective at finding its target as a blind man with a cane.

Once, I was blinded, with Sumac oil. It splashed up into my eyes and I felt my vision burning away from me, until everything was completely dark. Somehow I managed to get Gabrielle out of marrying a corpse and out of her own cremation all in one day, and then we had to sit waiting for a new friend to harvest his prize crop of Egyptian Senna. Needing to indulge my penchant for action in the face of adversity, I had sat by our fire chopping vegetables for our supper: I told myself that life had to go on, cure or no cure. There were no guarantees. Gabrielle had worried over my proximity to the flames, making me feel angry and inadequate, blunting my focus. I could almost feel her cringing at the thought of my using the knife, but you can’t strip a warrior of her blades, I wouldn’t lose that too.

I chopped the green tuber neatly enough, but when I turned to set down the knife I didn’t realise that she was so close. I felt the blade nick her skin and heard the tiny, stifled little sound that she made. I’m sure I must’ve jumped as if it was I that had been wounded. "I’m sorry -" I’d told her, not even sure which direction to look in.

"Xena, it’s all right -"

"I cut you -" It wasn’t all right at all, I knew, and I had gotten up unsteadily.

"It’s nothing, it’s tiny -"

I can remember hearing her call my name, but the sound grew more and more distant as my legs carried me away. I’ve no idea how I managed not to trip, or stride into a tree trunk. In that moment, I’d just wanted to get away from her, to avoid having to talk about the possibility that it might be too late for the oil, to avoid hearing the pity in her voice, to escape my own uselessness.

I walked until I could feel the dampness of the forest all around me, and sat down on the floor because it was easier than searching for a log or boulder. Gabrielle found me. I was tempted to get up and run away again, but she had me at a distinct disadvantage. So I just snapped at her not to fuss.

I heard the crunch of leaves as she got down on the ground in front of me, and I felt her take my face in her hands. When I blinked I knew that it would send more tears running over her fingers, but I was beyond preventing it, "You listen to me -" She told me in the firmest voice I’d ever heard her use, "You can cry, Xena, but you do it here, with me, do you hear?" I nodded dumbly. "Not out in the woods by yourself. You don’t have to be alone now. Neither of us does. It’s all right." She kissed me then - one of the first times. Her face was warm and soft against mine, and I let myself respond to her, just briefly, tasting the salt of my own tears. In more ways than one, when Gabrielle wants something, she gets it.

Like my attention. "Xena?"

"Huh?" I look over to her. She shows me a bleeding nose. "Oh." I go back to her, crouching and setting out what I need. I can see from the dried streaks of blood up her arms that it’s been bleeding for a while, off and on, and now it’s started up again. "It’s not too bad." I examine her face, studying the scrapes and mud. Bless Gabrielle, she’s been so brave. Sometimes I feel so intensely for her that I can’t bear it. "You’ll live. Have a pretty bruise, though." Best to get on. I dip a cloth in water that has cooled, then wring it out. "Show me your face." I start to wipe grime from her pink cheeks.

"Xena -"

"Close your eyes." Her hair will need washing too, I tell myself. Maybe we’ll find a fresh stream tomorrow, and...

"Xena -" Her fingers are cool as they squeeze around my arm, pausing me. She rubs herself against my hand, then begins to talk. "I’m sorry, about what I did. All of this was my fault. I didn’t have any right to meddle with your past. It was stupid of me to listen to Ares."

"Yeah, well, Ares can be very persuasive." I of all people know that. I carry on with my work, trying to avoid looking her in the eyes.

"But I should’ve known better. You would have."

It’s idolisation that I don’t deserve. She could go on beating herself up over this for an age. "I don’t blame you, Gabrielle. I don’t." It’s important that she knows. "Listen, I know you were only doing what you thought best. You always do." I stroke her face softly, eliciting a little smile. "You always do what you do to try and help me. I know that."

She’s shaking her head. "I should’ve thought it through better, Xena."

I move a bit closer to her. Her fingers are playing in the leather strips of my skirt - just like when she was a child, I remember fondly - and I want those arms to be around me. "You know, I kind’ve enjoyed what happened. Part of it, anyway." I lean in and kiss her cheek, then continue to bathe her face, dabbing balm to her cuts. "I got to see you as a child. I always wondered what you were like as a child."

"I wish I could remember. What was I like?"

Got her interest now, got her a little less introspective. "Let me see. You were precocious, talkative, stubborn, cheeky..." She chuckles self-depreciatingly. "And happy. Helpful, brave, articulate, wise - just like you are now." I watch her smile and she plays her fingers in my hair. With her head bobbed down, her eyes averted, she looks so similar to that innocent little child. Everything that happens to us is equally my fault - I’ve learned to accept that.

"I suppose that bit wasn’t so bad." She yawns. "But reminding you of when you were young, of all that happened - that must’ve been so hard."

"No, you’re wrong," I insist. She sways a bit, tired, leaning on her arms. "Come on, take this off." I want to help her bathe so she can rest, her wounds need cleaning. "I don’t regret seeing those days again." She watches me unlacing the green cord at her chest. I pull the laces between my fingers, separate the patterned material, then ease it off her shoulders. "There were lots of good memories I’d forgotten," I confess, "They were pushed aside by all the bad ones. I think so much about losing my brothers that I forgot how much fun we had together. And my mother... After all the fighting, I sometimes wondered if she really loved me as much as she said. Seeing it as an adult, I know that she did." A smile warms me, and I share it before moving to unfasten her brown skirt and pull away the dusty cloth.

"Your family always loved you, Xena, that was clear to me." She’s so beautiful, sitting there. The moon and the fire mix their colours on her skin, highlighting all the smooth contours of her body. I can see that although she‘s got cuts and bruises all over, the wounds aren’t serious, and I relax a bit. "I enjoyed getting to know you, as you were then."

I laugh as I take her boots off. "I remember."

She smiles too, and extracts a very bruised foot from her boot. Stamping on my enemies’ feet is a favourite trick of mine - I should’ve known to warn her about it. "I don’t just mean that. I mean, I feel like I understand you better."
            She’s looking down at me with her head to one side as I bandage her bruised foot, holding it in my lap. "I understand myself better." A thought occurs, and I shake my head. "If I could go back, as I am now, and protect that girl, I would, you know? I’d..." It’s hard to put into words. "I’d hold her and make her listen, tell her that it’d be all right. Tell her about you." I feel her hold my hand. If only I had known about Gabrielle back then, about the hope and the light that she brings, I might not have fallen into such hopeless, dark times. "Thank you for being her friend."

Gabrielle reaches up for me, and I’m only too willing to oblige, leaning down so that she can put her arms around me. She tells me she loves me, and I tell her the same. She tucks my head down to kiss it, and I let my cheek rest against her breast. I know we’ll be all right, the two of us together.

My arm is starting to cramp like this so I push myself up, but that means passing her lips, and I kiss her softly, just barely tasting her mouth. "Get you washed, huh?"

"Mmm." She licks her lips then sits quietly while I bathe her. It’s not something entirely new to us, and as my eyes move over my partner my mind wanders. The darkness, fire and moonlight, and the privacy of the jungle reminds me of our first times together. Very quickly she showed herself to be bold and unselfconscious, keen to learn and full of affection for an unworthy, battle-tired warrior princess. And she was so beautiful, sitting there in my lap, so unabashed and so happy. She would chatter, and stroke my hair and kiss me, and I would sit and watch her, mostly, incredulous at the attention. I didn’t think that I deserved the soul that I was so clearly and so freely being given. Sometimes it frustrated me, made me angry, and I wanted to push her away, berate her for her foolishness. But I never could, because I knew I’d fallen in love with this woman.

"What are you thinking?" She asks me.

"That you need to get some sleep." I rub her dry with a woollen cloth. "Where’s your shift?"

"Did you make the right decision?" She presses, "To be here?"

I tut. "Gabrielle." I root around in a bag and find something old and soft to dress her in. "You know the answer to that." I gather up the material and pull it over her head and down her body. When did I become so maternal that I’m able to dress someone other than myself? My hands linger around her and I find my eyes drawn up inevitably to her face. She’s smiling. She knew the answer to her question, really, she just wanted to hear me say it. I give in and put my arms around her. "If I had to live my life a thousand times over, I’d choose to be here, with you, every single time. I love you, Gabrielle." I kiss her head.

She nestles closer to me. "Even when it rains?"

"Even when it monsoons." It’s dark, and I’m exhausted. I glance over to Argo, who’s munching serenely on a leaf even as her eyes are closing heavily. Poor girl will have to wait until morning for my attention. Sorry, Lass. "C’mon, lie down -"

"Or in the summer when you get bitten by knats? Or find spiders in your blankets?"

I let her curl her back against my stomach, and we settle for the night. "Even then." I stroke curls of hair from her shoulders and wish I could brush away the scratches on her pale arms.

Gabrielle signs indulgently. She attends to her usual habit of pressing the icy soles of her feet against my shins: shins that were just beginning to warm up. Then she idly strokes the arms that I’ve locked around her. "I feel the same way."

A moment’s silence, and my head lolls on her back. "I know."

"Or how about when -"

"Gabrielle!" I shake her softly to hush her up, and she laughs. "Even if..." What can I say that’s fanciful enough to satisfy her? "Even if Mount Olympus got hit by lightening and crumbled into sand, and that sand covered Greece, and we had to live on the grubs that we found in the sand, and sleep on windy sand dunes every night -" Will that do? I push up on an elbow to see her amused face. " - I’d still be -" I kiss her smooth cheek. Her hand comes up to my lips, so I kiss that too. " - at your side."

I flop back and fall asleep, at her side.

It was no choice at all.

The end

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