Stories this page: Musings - Musings II - Xena's Fears
Little Vignettes
Pg 1 - Musings - Musings II----Pg 2 A Lesson Learned ----Pg 3 Betrayal - Betrayal II
Pg. 4 - In Confusion -First Steps - Friends Stick by Friends - Fugitives - Gabrielle's Shock
Heart to Heart ------Pg 5 Campfire Thoughts - Childhood Remembered
Pg 6- Life Happens - Period of Adjustment - Solitude Hurts - Star Crossed Lovers
The Taste of Loss - When You Care Enough - Xena's Fears Relized
Little vignettes in episode order.
1. First Steps - a small scene I picture taking place during 'Sins of the Past'
2. A Lesson Learned - Xena's thoughts throughout and after 'Sins of the Past'
3. Solitude - Takes place after 'Chariots of War'
4. Campfire Thoughts - After 'The Dreamworker'
5. Fugitives - Xena's thoughts throughout 'Cradle of Hope'
6. Star-crossed Lovers - Gabrielle's adventure during 'The Path Not Taken'
7. Friends Stick By Friends - Takes place after 'The Reckoning'
8. Heart to Heart - Takes place after 'Death in Chains'
9. Childhood Remembered - Takes place throughout and after 'The Black Wolf'
10. The Taste of Loss - 'Athens City Academy of Performing Bards'
11. Gabrielle's Shock - Takes place after 'Altared States'
12. When You Care Enough - Gabrielle's thoughts during and after 'Ties that Bind'
13. Life Happens - This is Gabrielle's feelings and thoughts throughout 'The Greater Good.'
14. Xena's Fears Realized - Return of Callisto
15. Period of Adjustments - 'Intimate Strangers' & 'Ten Little Warlords'
16. Betrayal! - 'Debt Part 1' Xena's Feelings and thoughts.
17. Confusion - 'Debt Part 1' Gabrielle's feelings and thoughts.
18. Betrayed - Debt Part II Xena's Feelings and thoughts.
Xena's Fears, Musings I, and Musings II are the first three Xena fan fiction stories I ever wrote and don't belong to any particular episode, although I think Xena's Fears needs to be placed obviously before Xena's Fears Realized.
Musings
By Marie E Costa
Xena sat cross-legged on the ground, a blanket draped
loosely over her shoulders. The fire had faded to coals, yet
instead of stirring it back to life, she sat and brooded.
Gabrielle deserved so much more. Shaking her head, as though it
would knock some answers into it, she glanced at the sleeping
Bard. Why Gabrielle had chosen to stay with her was still a
mystery. It wasn't as though she'd been welcomed with open arms.
"Heck, I never even welcomed my lovers with open arms.
Emotions were to be hidden deep, buried where they could never
be used against me. Now I sit and watch. I can't eat. I
can't sleep. Sometimes I forget to breath. I, who feared no
god, no man, am so afraid of this beautiful woman."
Xena sighed heavily and stood up; cocking her head to one
side, she listened. No sign of danger. "Good thing. I'm not really in the mood to be interrupted by bandits. No, I don't
know what to call this particular feeling." Xena snorted at
herself, "I think its called a dangerous emotional mood."
Wanting to talk, but not knowing how, she was too afraid to say
what she felt, because she was afraid to feel what she felt.
"Even Gabrielle, wonderfully gifted as she is, wouldn't be able
to make sense of my thoughts if I tried to put them into words.
Would she even care? After all, she'd only tagged after me for
adventure. She sees this as some heroic quest! When in
reality," Xena wet her lips, "It's a desperate fight to regain
my humanity. God, talk about being one messed up Warrior!
Gabrielle should run as far as possible." Fear burst through
her, as though a fist had grasped her heart. She breathed in
the pain. "How can I go on if Gabrielle did leave?" Tears welled up in her icy blue eyes and threatened to spill over. "NO! I will
not give up. No one can control me. No one will ever control
me again!"
A strange gargling noise escaped from between her clenched
teeth. Taking deep breaths, Xena forced herself to breath
evenly. Gabrielle was not like any other. It was different;
she wouldn't... who was she kidding? Gab just didn't know the
whole Xena. "If she did, she wouldn't want anything to do with
her. Heck, I don't want anything to do with her and I am her!!!
There is so much evil in me. Darkness that would repel
Gabrielle if she ever saw it."
Tears spilled over. She sat stiffly, as shudders filled
her body. "No one can ever love me - I have been too evil. If
Gabrielle looked into my soul she would see the wretched sinner
that I am. Fraud!, she'd scream, and rightly so. You see, when
I am in battle I feel whole and alive! My heart races to feel
the glory that the kill always brings. My whole being used in
its full capacity. So many skills, so well honed. Nothing has
ever compared to that or ever will. I feel so connected, even
as I destroy another being. Does it matter that now I fight to
destroy evil - I still enjoy the kill - what does that continue
to make me? Am I still the monster that created Callisto? How
can one so pure as Gabrielle accept me? How? Is she compelled
to follow me? Will it doom her as once I doomed my own brother?
I see the questions in her eyes. Questions I fear. Will she
ask me today, or tomorrow or a week from now? What if I don't
answer? Will she leave me? I can't answer. So many times I
have reached to touch her, to stop her to explain, but words,
they fail me. I have no talent with words. I've died a
thousand times over - reliving my sins, this time feeling the
pain of innocents dying at my command. But if she ever goes her separate way..." Xena bit her finger. "It'll kill me
instantly, no matter how many years my body remains alive. Without her to guide me, to be my light - my soul and my heart -
I would surely wither to dust. But, I don't deserve such
faithfulness; I don't deserve such a love as hers. She thinks I
am the strong one, but I am weak. She's the one that has a
strength I'll never understand. My biggest fear, is that when she discovers just how weak I truly am, she will pull her
strength away from me. I don't even deserve her pity. What
does she see in me? Why does she insist on staying with me?
Why does she continue to trust in me? Questions! But no
answers!!"
Xena lowered her head, and gripped her hair. The slight
pain meant she was still among the living; and dawn was not far
away. Best to put dark thoughts aside and concentrate on
preparing breakfast. Gabrielle was sure to rise hungry; for
such a little thing, she could pack the food away. With one
last loving look at her sleeping friend, Xena rose to face
another day.
Musings II
By
Marie E Costa
Reaching for the comfort of her staff, Gabrielle bit the inside of her lip. Xena was restless again. "I hate it when she doesn't sleep. She thinks I'm asleep. I'm afraid to let her know otherwise." The young Bard lay still, listening to her friend pacing -as though standing guard again. She hated it when Xena reverted to the Warrior of bygone days, to the way she was when she started traveling with her. It always happened after an encounter with someone that knew her back then. Gabrielle tightened her fist around her staff, wishing she could strike out at those that hurt her friend. She listened as Xena sat by the fire. How she longed to clasp Xena tightly, comfort her, but Xena hated mushy stuff. All she could do was wait, wait until the morning light arrived and the two of them could travel on. Judging from the light it shouldn't be long now. Gabrielle closed her eyes to lay and wait until Xena came to wake her....
**********************************
Gabrielle sighed, exasperated. Today had been hell. Xena had been in a bad mood from the time she had woken Gabrielle up - earlier then normal! The only words Xena had spoken to her the entire day had been reprimands. Normally Gabrielle could at least practice her art, but today she couldn't even talk - Xena had to be on the rag! "I mean I know she stayed up all night, but that's happened before." As if it hadn't been bad enough, Xena insisted on not stopping for lunch. "Then she decides to make an early camp! And leaves me to set up while she bathes." Her eyes filled with tears, tears for all the fear and all the love that she needed to hide from her best friend. "How am I supposed to go on? I apparently do nothing right. I'm too slow to rise in the morning, to chatty, to noisy. I suppose I should be grateful that I got to set up camp." "I know what everybody thinks - I'm some kind of penance to Xena. She takes care of me to atone for all her evil deeds, but that's not true." She muttered to herself. It didn't matter what they thought. "At least I don't think it's true." She stared longingly at her friend. Xena, oblivious to the stare continued to
bathe.
What Xena thought mattered. "And I haven't got a clue as to what she really thinks." Gabrielle was afraid... "Xena for all the training she gives me, has no faith in me." She looked at the fire and slowly rotated the roasting meat. "I can fight. I've proved it over and over and yet she always wants to leave me behind." Gabrielle thought back to her first encounter with Xena. "God she was beautiful. And I was jealous of her." She grinned. "I wanted to be her." She pictured Xena standing in the white shift, no weapons, and yet she oozed with confidence, beautiful, powerful and so in control. Gabrielle smiled as the scene that changed her life played itself out in her head. "I stood in that clearing, defying those men, then I saw her." Her thoughts trailed off. The young Bard, always brutally honest with herself, laughed in derision. "I wished with all my heart that I was her. I could have been. If she hadn't rescued us. If I had survived, - I know me - if all had been taken from me on that day - before I met her - I could have... would have killed and killed gleefully! But, she came." She shook her head and wet her lips. " I didn't know her name but I knew she was the one I had waited my whole life for."
She glanced toward the shore and drew her breathe in. Xena was drying herself off. "She is truly
magnificent." Gabrielle drew her tongue slowly across suddenly parched lips, "I would die for her.
She has no idea how well we truly complement each other...but, I do." Although sitting next to a hot
fire, Gabrielle shook with cold. Her hands were like ice. "People don't know me. They can't see what
lies within. I'm not as pure and naive and innocent as they all think. How could I be! I was never
sheltered from the world. Because I choose to look for the good in people they think I'm just some
dumb, blond girl. I am what I am. I know my demons. I chose my life style. I enjoy new experiences;
meeting people, helping people, learning about different places and all types of food. There is so
much to do! And, because life is so short I must make every moment an opportunity to learn and to
grow and to spread understanding. I wanted to experience the stories. Live life in its fullest. If I can't
make Xena understand how can I expect others to understand?"
She poked at the fire, stirring the embers back to life. "Why do they all want to protect me? I'm not helpless. Xena should know that." "I followed her, not because she was my IDOL - although she was, but because I wanted to be her. I wanted to slip inside her skin. Feel what she felt. I wanted to know what it was like to have men cower in fear at my feet. I wanted to taste the fear, the glory, the pain... humph, I wanted it all, to hold a weapon, my eyes glowing as the power coursed through my body. I could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, and I wanted it. At least, I did until I saw the pain and the isolation that that
power had brought her. They call me an innocent and I wanted to be a killer! And all the killer wanted, was what I gave up to follow her." "At least Xena went berserk in battle. A piece of her died and she became a killer. Not me! Although threatened nothing happened to my people, still my mind turns to blood rage at the thought of Lila in their hands and my village destroyed. "I can't kill - but not because of my innocence. I can't kill because of her! I made her promise not to become a Berserker if anything should happen to me. She doesn't know she should have made me make the same promise."
Xena's Fears
By Marie E Costa
Xena sat with her back against a tree, watching Gabrielle. It gave the
Warrior pleasure to see her apprentice practice. She smiled.
"Gabrielle's skill with the staff is constantly increasing. Soon she'll
surpass most everybody that uses a staff." Xena's eyes hardened, "But
that won't be enough to keep her safe."
The fear was always there inside of Xena. At first, it was a fear
that the young woman would get herself killed... one more head on her
plate. Later the fear intensified, until it consumed her every thought.
"I need to keep her safe. I can not loose another love." The fear of
loosing someone so close again gripped Xena; she swore. "I'll never let
that happen." Slowly the young Bard had worn her way past every defense
the Warrior Princess had. Just when it had happened, and how, she was
unsure, but she was in as deep as any other love Xena had ever had.
A lump formed in her throat. "As we traverse the road together, my past rears its ugly head again and again. How much trouble are you willing
to put up with?" Xena watched as Gabrielle thrust and parried invisible
foes. "How much hate and danger for my sake?"
Xena grinned as Gabrielle jumped and swirled, but still her thoughts
stayed grim. "What will be the final straw? What will make you turn
away from me? To leave me -again - a broken shell. How am I to piece
myself together, if you leave me all alone?" Her eyes brightened,
partially from tears, as her thoughts got the better of her, and
partially from joy, as Gabrielle flipped and thrust.
"How will I carry on?" Xena bit her lip. "Who will ease my pain?" It
hurt to think that one day Gabrielle might leave her, but it would not
surprise her. "Who will comfort me as I sit restless by a fire, see
another village destroyed, or hear of one more fatherless child?
Fatherless because of me!" Gabrielle spun, dropped low and whipped the
staff in a circle.
A surprised smile crossed Xena's face. Just watching Gabrielle kept her
mood from darkening, despite the bleakness of her thoughts. Xena stood
to join her friend. Dark thoughts are best left for dark nights.
Gabrielle was here beside her, she wasn't going anywhere.