Has sexual themes and graphic violence, and most importantly it is a dropped story, meaning it will be years and years before I even consider continuing this.
(Xena/Gabrielle, Lila/Minya) Divided into roughly ten parts due to size.
Read Conquering Liaisons pt 5
Disclaimer: Xena, Gabrielle and anything else XWP belong to RenPics and TPTB, and certainly in no way to a certain little dragon.
This is a conquerorfic and contains a fair share of violence. There is mention of sex, and at a certain point a roundabout mention of rape. While I think it should not be too disturbing for anyone’s sensibilities, a warning is only fair so that you can avoid reading if this would upset you.
The most important warning I feel is this; THIS STORY HAS BEEN DROPPED. It is unfinished and shall remain that way for the foreseeable future. I do still hope to return to it sometime, years from now, but for now – and for quite a few years – I am hopelessly stuck.
Conquering Liaisons pt 5 of 10
-------------------------------------------------------
by Carola “Ryûchan” Eriksson
Chapter 12: Captive Heart
As it turned out, a message came from satrap Cleopatra for the Lord Conqueror, saying that Cleopatra and her entourage would be delayed for a handful of days. That, and bad weather at sea for the entourage from Chin, would put the expected arrival date of both satrap Cleopatra and satrap Lao Ma to be somewhere around the same as that of satrap Glaphyra of the Africaans and satrap Boadicea of Britain.
While this news did not exactly diminish Xena's workload, it did allow for Xena to bring Gabrielle along in the preparations more. Viceron wisely kept out of sight for most part, and Jace was more at the centre of things. Xena already considered naming him Chief Chamberlain officially, but decided to give it until after the satraps' visit at least.
Xena was holding court proceedings over the more serious offenders on this particular day, and Gabrielle had instead opted to go shopping in the marketplace with Artus and two other Royal Guards.
Gabrielle was leaning in to take a closer look at the wares in one booth, thinking one item in particular would be a good gift for Xena, when she caught a motion on the edge of her field of vision. Turning in that direction, she saw nothing.
She bought her wares and chatted amiably with Artus and another of the guards as she made Artus carry her purchases for her. A stall where they had fresh nutbread then caught her eye, and she veered towards it while Artus crossed over to a stall a few paces down the other side for some drinks.
There was that movement in the corner of her eye again.
Gabrielle turned around, and this time she saw that it was Jace, standing a little behind two booths and gesturing for her to come.
Strangely enough, Jace was wearing a hooded cloak, but she and the guards could still see him clearly. Gabrielle realized that Jace must be doing something that was supposed to be a surprise for Artus, since he seemed so secretive.
He gestured again for Gabrielle to meet him on the other side of a covered stall, where Artus wouldn't see them. Gabrielle smiled and nodded, then told the other guards that she would only be a minute, and stepped in behind the booth.
Grinning and trying to come up with what kind of outrageous plan the Junior Chamberlain was enacting for their friend's benefit this time, the two guards waited patiently where they were. After all, they had seen it clearly, it was only Jace.
Artus returned, and frowning demanded to know why they were not at Gabrielle's side. After briefly explaining that she had gone over there to speak to Jace, they waited for a while longer.
But then Artus got worried and decided to see what his lover was up to, and walked over to where they assumed Lady Gabrielle and Chamberlain Jace was standing.
But there was nothing there.
Artus started a frantic search of the marketplace, while he sent one of the others to sound the warning for the other Royal Guards.
Xena sat clutching her head with both hands. Hands that not too long ago came very close to strangling Artus for failing to protect her love.
Gabrielle was missing, and no one knew where she was. Only one assumption could be made.
Xena groaned and rocked a little in her seat. Scenes ran rampant in her mind, of her beloved Gabrielle in the hands of some ruthless cutthroat or assassin, all because she, Xena, could not protect her properly. She groaned again.
"What in Tartarus where you thinking?!!" She hissed at the distressed guards. "You were supposed to be with her at all times!"
The search was still on, of course, but Xena herself had searched where the trail ended, and knew that further searching would give nothing. All she could hope for was that whoever took Gabrielle would make contact to ask for a ransom of some kind… and not prove the authenticity of his claims with a piece of Gabrielle.
"But we saw Chamberlain Jace right there, beckoning for Lady Gabrielle to come over to him. We didn't think we needed to accompany her if she was with him." One of the guards said, miserably staring at the ground.
"Me?" Jace said, surprised.
"Don't be silly, he has been with me at the courtyard all day." Xena snapped at the guards.
"My Lord, wait." Jace held up one hand to plead Xena to be quiet for a moment. "Did you say you saw someone that looked like me?"
"Y-yes Jace, I saw you as clear as right now, except you were wearing this ugly big cloak and acted mighty secretive." The uncomprehending guard answered.
Jace gasped and clasped both hands to his forehead.
Xena glared at him. "What in Hera's name is it, man?!"
Jace met Xena's eyes with a horrified expression in his own. "I have two identical brothers… and one is an assassin."
Xena paced, up and down the room. Pace. Turn. Pace.
"The ransom note should arrive soon." Jace spoke to no one in particular. "It has to."
Pace.
Meleager glared at the guards that had been assigned to Gabrielle that day. "You failed miserably! You realise that you will be stripped of rank and position at best, left to return to the regular army as rookies. At best!"
Turn.
"That is, if Our Lord does not choose to court-martial you for this, first."
Pace.
"But how could anyone disappear so completely?" Artus was thinking out loud.
Pacepacepacepace.
"I should drag you out to the courtyard and have you flogged myself!" Meleager continued his scolding.
"Jett doesn't usually do kidnappings though…" Jace was near tears.
"He would have to be employed by someone, wouldn't he?" Artus asked Jace quietly.
"ENOUGH!!!"
With a roar Xena grabbed the nearest chair and smashed it against the wall. The room turned deadly silent.
She stood there, shaking with anger, for quite a while before she managed to ground out between clenched teeth. "I don't care a Gryphon's hind leg who he is, or who he is related to."
"Use whatever you can think of, anything at all, just find her! And we'll have plenty of time to lay blame later… when I have Gabrielle back safe and sound!"
She turned around and fixed them all with a wild stare.
"People… The woman I love is out there."
A pause.
"Get her back."
An entire day passed with no sign of Gabrielle or her captor. Xena still believed that they were both hiding inside the castle, something in her gut just told her that Gabrielle was not that far away, and no one dared to argue with her in her current mood.
On the evening of the second day, the seamstress Myra found a sheet of parchment outside her personal chambers that was addressed to Xena. It was in Gabrielle's hand though obviously dictated by another, and it was the expected ransom note.
Xena, Jace, Meleager and Viceron all gathered in the Royal chambers to pour over the note once it reached Xena's hands.
She read it out loud, then crumpled it in her hands.
Jace and Meleager were both having strong reactions to the ransom note, and Xena had closed her eyes against the intruding images, so no one noticed how Viceron reacted… strangely to the note.
"P-preposterous My Lord, surely even this Jett would realise that you cannot…" He tittered nervously, his face a chalky white.
"SILENCE!" Xena snapped and grabbed Viceron by his throat. "Don't let me hear another word from your lips, old man." She warned him darkly. "Unless you think it worth your life."
"For Gabrielle… Anything." She reluctantly let go of Viceron. "Anything at all, the Realm, my wealth… my life."
"But My Lord…" Jace began hesitantly. A blue glare stopped him short however.
"I have to agree with Viceron on this one." Meleager cut in with confidence, having been friends with the woman for far longer than either of the other two had worked for her. "We will have to find another way."
Xena spun around, snarling at him, but Meleager was unfazed. "Be reasonable. The Realm can't afford to risk losing you, we will think of something else."
Meleager seemed to come very close to snapping Xena's already brittle control over her anger. "To Tartarus with it! This is not a committee!" She roared at them. "I. RULE!"
"And you obey! Or suffer the consequences."
Clearing his throat slightly, Jace cut in with a soft voice. "Ahem…"
"Jett is strictly speaking an assassin, taking someone hostage would be against his pride as a professional, he simply would not do it. His employers have no more say in the matter once he gets the name of the target, and his pay."
Jace lifted his teary eyes from the crumpled parchment he was staring at, and met Xena's narrowed gaze.
"Something has made him leave his professionalism behind… this has to be personal somehow."
Meleager and Xena exchanged thoughtful looks, but neither could think of a reason for this Jett person to have a personal vendetta against Xena. She shrugged slightly. "It's possible he has reasons to hate me, a lot of people do. But I have no idea what it could be."
"He would have to realize that doing this is suicide, wouldn't he?" Meleager asked Jace. "Even if we agree to his terms, he would have the entire joined armies of Corinth on his heels within minutes. And eventually, the world."
"You value me too highly, old friend." Xena muttered quietly. "But this should mean that he is desperate. Can we use that to our advantage somehow?"
Jace looked thoughtful. "Jett was always the more unstable of us three, despite everything. He has a cruel and twisted mind and he is good at what he does, but he's not strictly speaking all that smart, and if he is rattled… But that would also make him unpredictable."
"Would bringing you with me make a difference to him?" Xena asked. Jace sighed deeply in response. "Not in any positive way, he hates me. I might be able to distract him for a moment, though?"
Xena considered the facts for a moment. "Allright people, this is what we will do…"
The spot where the note said to meet was deep within the palace catacombs, specifically at a place where hallways and passages met, creating a multiple fork that gave Jett plenty of routes by which to make his escape if he wished. It was also difficult to see all the twist and turns that the many openings created, leaving Xena very vulnerable should she wait for Jett there.
However, she did not wait alone. Meleager and Jace both flanked their ruler, and hidden further down a few passages were Viceron and several members of the Royal Guard. And to Xena's advantage were the fact that Jett would have just as limited a vision as she herself had, and that Xena knew these passageways like the back of her hand. Once she saw the man, she felt confident that he would not elude her.
Her main concern was Gabrielle. She had to get Gabrielle to safety before she could concentrate on taking out Jett, and could she do that without first getting killed herself?
It seemed like they were waiting forever.
Then a voice echoed between the passages, masking the direction it came from quite cleverly. "Drop your weapons and come forward alone. The other two back off."
"We are unarmed as you told us to be." Meleager countered.
"I said drop them! Don't play me for the fool!" A sinister pause. "Or blondie here gets it."
A small gesture with Xena's hand, and Meleager reluctantly dropped a handful of hidden weapons to the ground. More surprisingly, so did Jace. She waited.
"You too, bitch!" The voice snarled, giving the echoes a curiously spitting sound as they bounced around them.
Xena calmly held her arms out at her sides. "What do you want me to do, cut my arms off? Sorry, you'll have to do that bit yourself." She slowly stepped forward.
"That's far enough for now. Order your little friends to leave, and we can make the exchange."
"Jett! Why are you doing this?" Jace called out, sounding desperate.
"Well if it isn't little sissy-boy." The voice snarled. "I shouldn't be too surprised to find you shacked up with this bacchae… you never did care about our family. Run along now and I won't hurt you Jace. This time."
Jace took several steps forward, looking quite distraught. "But why Jace? What is it that she has done?"
Xena edged forward unnoticed.
"DONE?!! She has murdered our father!" Jett raged from the darkness. "Our father Jace! If you had any decency in you at all you would join me in avenging him, but nooo, the family was never good enough for little sissy Jace, now was it? And you wouldn't be man enough to honour our father's memory anyway."
"How did she murder our father, Jett?" Jace was gesturing wildly as he spoke, clearly getting more and more upset. "And you know that is not true, I've always loved you all, even though you wanted nothing to do with me."
Jett was about to give an angry outburst, but got cut off by a scuffling sound and a yelp that came from a passageway to Xena's left.
"Xena! Loo…" Gabrielle's sudden cry was cut off with a muffled sound and a barely audible cry of pain that made Xena sprint towards her on pure instinct.
"STAY where you ARE!" Jett roared, no longer bothering to disguise where he was hiding. Xena froze in place and watched as Jett emerged from the shadows, holding a bound and loosely gagged Gabrielle tightly in front of him.
With a wickedly curved blade at her throat.
"Gabrielle!" The tortured cry tore from Xena's lips without permission at the sight of her terrified young lover. Xena let her gaze break away from Gabrielle's and take in Jett. Her eyes turned an almost electric cold blue, and she snarled silently.
"Don't do anything foolish now, bitch, or the next thing blondie here will see is Charon's boat. Just" Emphasizing his words by pricking Gabrielle's skin with the curved dagger.
"stay" In horror Xena watched a drop of blood make it's way down Gabrielle's neck.
"where you are."
"You, sissy boy…" Jett snarled contemptibly at Jace, the scar on his cheek twisting familiar features not nearly as much as the hateful expression he bore, and gestured into one of the doorways. "There are manacles over there. Bring them out."
"Now you bacchae, Jace will put those on you around your back, and I will listen for the locking noise so don't even think about trying to fool me." Jace seemed almost gleeful for a moment.
"Then he and the old man will leave and bring the rest of your people with them. When we are alone, you'll walk over here and I'll release blondie. Everybody got that?"
Jace sniffled and protested, but did comply after a brief nod from Xena, and then Xena was firmly shackled.
Meleager tried to reason with the now evilly snickering man. "You know you can't get away with this, the entire army will be after you. If you do this there's no way you'll survive, is that what you want?"
"You think death frightens me? I'm an assassin." Jett pressed the blade tighter again, gesturing with his head that Jace and Meleager should back down the corridor. When they were far enough away he smiled.
"As for what I want… " Jett dropped the dagger from Gabrielle's throat and slammed at something in the wall. "I want this!"
Time seemed to stand still for Xena.
On one hand she heard the twain snapping the crossbow bolts, some distant part of herself calmly assessing that she would not be able to evade or catch them all. On the other she saw Gabrielle tearing free from Jett's weakened grasp and hurl herself towards Xena.
Straight into the path of the arrows.
Xena only vaguely felt the impact as Gabrielle's body hit hers, then it seemed to take an incomprehensible amount of time for her to fall to the floor, and even the sound of Jace screaming seemed awfully disjointed somehow.
Gazing up at the dark ceiling above through strands of beautiful red-gold hair made everything seem almost unreal. That was when Xena felt the rush of warm blood on her arm.
"G-gabrielle?" Xena breathed and struggled to sit up.
Xena's shifting caused Gabrielle to roll slightly to the side, and reveal a sight that would plague Xena's nightmares for a long time to come - the pale green of Gabrielle's dress rapidly covering in red blood that had already begun pooling on the ground, coming from not one but two large crossbow bolts firmly lodged into the small form. One arrow had gone through Gabrielle's shoulder just underneath the collarbone, but the other…
The other was caught in the very centre of her chest.
Xena lifted her gaze incomprehensibly and saw Jett, ready to bolt down the dark corridor from which he came. Her entire world went red.
Over the roaring sound of her blood pounding through her veins she heard the audible snap as she tore the manacles apart by sheer force. Then there was nothing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 13: A Divine Intervention
Xena's hands. Why was she staring at her hands? Xena blinked as if waking from a long sleep, and slowly started looking around.
She was seated on a low stool next to a bed, in a rather bleak looking room. Judging by the scents that permeated the place, Xena would guess that she was in the medical wing at her castle, meaning that on the other side of the solid oak door that she could see was most likely her Chief Physician and his staff. She heard people moving about in there.
But why was she in this room, alone? Slightly confused why she could not remember, Xena went over to the door.
On the other side of the door Xena was met with what felt eerily like the calm at the centre of the storm. Everyone fell quiet when she came into the room, except for Jace who was weeping inconsolably in Artus' arms.
Shaking her head slightly, as if to clear her mind from the faint fuzziness she felt, Xena gruffly addressed the room. "What… is going on here?"
Meleager entered from another room upon hearing her voice.
"What is happening here? And why won't anybody answer me?!" Xena snapped angrily at him.
Meleager looked at her strangely. "You don't remember? Here, maybe you had better sit down first…"
"YOU bloody sit down! Just talk to me Meleager!" A sense of panic was creeping over Xena, and she didn't like it, not one bit. Meleager closed his eyes and nodded slowly.
"Allright… Do you remember that Lady Gabrielle got kidnapped by an assassin named Jett, and that we got a ransom note demanding to exchange her for you down in the catacombs?"
Xena started, then slowly, reluctantly nodded as the memories resurfaced. She swallowed hard and sat down. "Go on."
"Jace was doing his best to distract Jett as we had agreed on, but it backfired at the last minute. Jett had Jace put you in shackles, and Jace slipped a small dirk into your hands before we were ordered away from you, hoping that you'd be able to free yourself."
"Jett seemed to snap. There was some kind of trap, catching you right in the middle of six crossbows that he had rigged up beforehand, and with your hands bound behind your back."
Xena went pale as a sheet.
"Lady Gabrielle, she… tore lose somehow and…she…"
"GABRIELLE!" The room started going dark again, and Xena struggled to get to her feet.
But suddenly there were pairs of arms holding her down, and she fought wildly to break free.
"XENA!" Meleager roared in her face. "If you go into another rage here, you'll kill Gabrielle for sure!"
Xena's movement stopped.
"G-Gabrielle?” She asked in a small voice. "She's still…?"
"Alive. But barely… she took two crossbow bolts, one dangerously close to her heart. You took one to your arm, but I see that you're healing from that already…"
"Where is she?" Xena cut in, grabbing Meleager's arm. He took pity on her and guided Xena to the room where Gabrielle had been placed.
Gabrielle looked so small lying in the cot provided for her, so pale and drawn. The green dress she had worn was now only bloody rags in a basket in the corner, the only thing covering Gabrielle now was a white sheet and some bandages that was already covered with dark red stains. It was clear that they had trouble getting the bleeding to stop, but at least Gabrielle was still breathing, albeit with difficulty.
But Xena had seen enough injuries on the battlefield to tell that Gabrielle might not have much time left. She staggered to Gabrielle's side and sank to her knees beside the bed. Ever so gently Xena took one small hand into both of her larger ones, and brought it to her lips.
Behind her Meleager carefully closed the door, giving her some privacy at Gabrielle's side.
Meleager waited for quite some time before the door was opened again. The Xena that met his eyes then looked even more hollow and haunted than before, and he got the unnerving feeling that she was balancing on a precipice. She gestured for him to join her inside.
She didn't look at him when he seated himself on a stool near the bed, her eyes never left Gabrielle, as if she could will a recovery that way. Nonetheless she spoke to him in quiet tones. "What happened next Meleager? After Gabrielle got shot, what happened?"
Meleager looked surprised at the question, and took a moment to think before answering.
"At first I thought you had both died, but then you moved. Everything seemed to happen so fast… You sat up, and I think you looked at Jett, because that's when he turned and ran. Jace and I had not begun to move quite yet, but you… shrugged, it seemed, and shattered the chains on the manacles holding you."
He stopped to look at Xena with troubled eyes. She didn't react at all. "You shattered steel chains with a snap, I've never seen anything like it. And then shot off like Hades was hot on your heels."
"I ran after you and Jett, but I didn't catch up until… later. I heard that horrible sound you made echoing through the passage though." The last part came out very quietly, and Meleager shuddered in remembrance. "When I caught up to you, you were standing over Jett's body, and it took a lot to convince you move aside so I could bring him to the healers. You…"
"Are you saying he is still alive?!" Xena snapped, suddenly staring right at Meleager. He got no chance to reply before she shot to her feet angrily. "Where is he?!"
"Where IS HE!?!" She roared, tearing the door open and storming into the other room. Everyone inside froze as she swept her frantic gaze over them. She found a likely door and tore it open.
"Xena!" Meleager caught her just as she did so, and managed to stop her long enough for Xena to get a good look at the form lying on the bed. "We need him alive to tell us who else is involved in this!" Meleager hissed urgently.
She seemed to consider that. "What happened to…" A vague gesture towards the bed.
"You did." Carefully he let go of her. "The wound on his torso comes from the dirk that Jace put in your hands. Near as we can figure, you must have thrown it at his back, because it entered in the back and lodged a ways in beside his spine."
"What about his eyes?" Xena asked darkly, looking at the bloody bandages covering Jett's eyes.
"When I caught up to you… You…" Meleager sighed uncomfortably, then met Xena's eyes. "You were standing crouched over him with bloody hands. I think you gouged his eyes out with your hands."
Xena merely nodded, and turned around and went back to Gabrielle's room without saying another word.
Xena kept constant vigil at Gabrielle's side all of the night and the day that followed. The healers did what they could, but she still seemed to get only weaker instead of stronger. Nothing appeared to help.
They had staunched the bleeding at long last, by cauterizing the wound with a red-hot iron, and Xena felt the pain as if it was her own flesh under the blade. But nothing else could be done, the healers said, it was up to the Fates now.
Finally, in sheer desperation, Xena did something she had never done before.
She prayed.
She pleaded with Hera not to take her love away from her, baring the truth in her heart of how much Gabrielle meant to her. She spoke of how she feared what she would become without Gabrielle, having already tasted briefly the madness that her loss would bring, and pleaded the gods to have mercy. She swore to pay any price asked of her, do anything at all, if only Gabrielle was spared.
Xena's impassioned and teary plea went on for a long time, until exhaustion finally set in and Xena fell asleep, her head still resting by Gabrielle's hand on the cot.
She was awakened by a gently tickling sensation on her forehead.
"Ooops, did I wake you?" A gentle voice spoke barely above a whisper. Xena blinked and raised her head slightly in confusion.
"I just wanted to see what you were holding, sorry." Gabrielle smiled radiantly at her and lifted a hand to ruffle Xena's bangs a little. Xena's eyes snapped wide open.
"Gabrielle!" She shot out of her chair and leaned over the bed, taking Gabrielle's face into her hands. "Gabrielle!"
"Gabrielle?"
Gabrielle blinked a bit confused. "Umm, yes Xena?"
Xena continued to stare open-mouthed at her, then finally seemed to snap out of it. "How are you feeling, do you hurt anywhere?" Gently probing at the bandages. "Let me get the healers in here."
Xena rushed to the door and bellowed, then dashed back to Gabrielle. The healers poured in through the door, all of them shocked at seeing Gabrielle awake. They started probing and testing her to see how she was doing, with Xena hovering nervously nearby, getting in the way.
"Really, I am fine." Gabrielle tried to assure them. "I feel great, honestly I do."
The healers continued undaunted, however, until they could all say with some confidence that Gabrielle was fully recovered.
"It's amazing" The Chief healer said with reverence in his voice. "she is completely recovered! Not even a scar is left, it simply must be the work of the gods!" The healers continued to ooh and aah over Gabrielle until Xena got fed up with them being in the way when she tried to reach her lover, and ordered all of them out of the room.
The two women watched each other for a moment.
Then Gabrielle scooted over to make room for Xena on the cot next to her, and Xena sat down heavily, pulling Gabrielle into a desperate embrace.
"Oh Gabrielle…" She choked out with difficulty, and clung to Gabrielle like she had no intention of ever letting go.
They remained that way for some time, until Gabrielle finally asked what had happened. Xena told what she knew, although she did not mention her own desperate plea to the gods. Gabrielle was thoughtful.
"I know why he did it, Xena. His father was caught by your troops, and tried then executed for his crimes, and Jett blamed you for his death." She shook her head sadly. "Hatred is such a waste, isn't it?"
"Say, what was that feathery thing you were holding in your sleep anyway, Xena? It's down there by my feet by the way."
Xena looked surprised, she hadn't noticed anything before. Picking the object up it turned out to be a small scroll, with a peacock feather tied to it with a piece of pink fluff.
"It must be from Grandmother…" Xena said thoughtfully, carefully removing the feather and pink lacy thing from the scroll before unrolling it.
"Well? What does it say?" Gabrielle asked impatiently.
"I was right, it is from Grandmother. It says…"
"Dear, we heard you and decided to do what we could for your lover. Her thread was not yet at it's end though, so she would not have died anyway, we just insured that she recovered more quickly, and with no permanent marks from the ordeal. Dear, I cannot tell you how happy I and Aphrodite are for your sake, and congratulations! Aphrodite tells me to tell you that she thinks it is 'totally rad' and ask you if she does not 'so rock or what'. I assume you understand her language better than I do…"
"Wow" Gabrielle breathed "I was healed by Hera and Aphrodite!"
"You offered payment for the one that could help your woman, and this is what Aphrodite and I ask as our price… We want to be invited to the wedding ceremony! I trust it will be soon, as mortals tend to be sticklers for these sort of things." Xena read with wide eyes and a haltering voice. "Incidentally, you need to sleep more, you didn't even stir when Aphrodite and I stopped by. Love, your grandmother."
Both Xena and Gabrielle sat silent after that, neither woman daring to look at the other, and therefore not noticing that they were both blushing slightly.
"W-wow, that was quite something, right Xena?" Gabrielle said in a shaky voice.
"Y-yeah." Xena answered uncertainly, eyeing Gabrielle discreetly.
"I wonder where they got that idea from, though…" Gabrielle continued shyly. "But I guess they don't know I'm just a slave, huh?"
Xena frowned and pulled Gabrielle to her. "Gabrielle, you cannot be the only person in all of Corinth to not realise how precious you are to me?" She met Gabrielle's gaze seriously. "I would move heaven and earth for you."
"And I can't bear the thought of you ever leaving me." She crushed Gabrielle to her in a warm embrace. "Please don't ever leave me Gabrielle…" Smiling contently Gabrielle nudged Xena until they were both lying down on the cot. Xena murmured another inaudible plea into Gabrielle's hair before fatigue from the last handful of days finally lured her off into Morpheus' land.
2 comments:
*manage a deep breath* ok...thought Gab was a goner there...
nice bit, one need divine help every now and then, even mighty warrior Conquerer like Xena :P
Spikesagitta,
It doesn’t hurt that the queen of the gods is her grandma either. ;P
Post a Comment