The Mother of Hope

by Ashleth (ashlee224@aol.com)

Author's Note: I'm also an obsessive editor, so please see AO3 for the latest revisions (and faster updating). This story and others linked to it can be found at: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashleth224/works Thanks again!

Summary: This is a random collection of vignettes surrounding Gabrielle’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences with Hope. Maybe it will become a proper story someday.

Chapter 1: Pernicious

 

Hope stirred in her mother’s arms. “Mommy?” she asked sweetly, weakly.

Gabrielle’s voice cracked, same as her heart did. She’d thought the girl had already gone off into eternal slumber. “Yes, baby?”

“I love you…”

Her chin fell to her chest, her face to Hope’s shoulder to hide her tears. “I love you too, so much. I’m s-”

“Mommy, my throat hurts,” her daughter rasped.

“I’m so sorry, my love. H-here. Drink more.” Gabrielle’s shaky hand touched the water skin to Hope’s pale lips.

The girl obeyed and then coughed harder, gagging too. “Mommy, it hurts!”

Tears cascaded ever faster into frazzled hair. “I’m so sorry.”

“Father’s screaming at me in my head! He says you’re trying to kill me, and that I should kill you first. But I love you, mommy! And you wouldn’t hurt me. You promised!”

“Oh, Hope!” Gabrielle tried to say more but could not. Instead, she kissed her child’s face and hugged her tighter in an effort to convey her emotions without words.

“It’s getting so dark.” Strength sapped, Hope could barely keep her eyes open. “I can’t see you! Don’t leave me, mommy! Please don’t ever leave me again! I’m so scared without you. Father-”

“I’m here. I’ll s-stay with you-” ’til the end, the teenager could not finish.

“Mommy, I didn’t mean to!” Scrabbling after the one honest defense she had, her daughter began to cry too. “I didn’t mean to hurt the man. I thought we were playing! He showed me his necklace, and I wanted it. It was so pretty and shiny, mommy. …It reminded me of your hair.” Pins and needles shot up her arm then across her chest when she tried to lift her hand to long, honey-blond locks and stroke them. “Mommy!” she whimpered.

Gabrielle rushed to grab her hand and put it in the right place. “I’m here, Hope. I’m not going anywhere!”

But the girl could barely hear her. “He always made funny faces at me, mommy! I didn’t mean to hurt him! I didn’t even know I’d done it! I was just a baby! I’m still a baby! …Please, you have to believe me!”

“I-”

“I’m not stupid! What could I gain from killing him? And why would I do it when no one else was there to take the blame?” Feeling her mother shiver from the insight into her cold, calculating side, Hope abandoned that line of reasoning. “He was the only person besides you who didn’t want me dead! He was so kind to me… Kinder than you! You hate me; you hate me! You are killing me!” Becoming hysterical, she began to squirm in her mother’s grasp, trying to throw Gabrielle off but also unable to let go of her. “How could you?”

“Hope, I’m sorry-”

“No, I’m sorry!” the dying girl cried, truly and deeply heartsore. “I’m sorry I’m such a terrible curse upon your life that you’d rather let me die than keep me with you. You can’t stand to have me near you, can you? I make you sick! That’s why you’re making me sick now!”

“Hope, that’s not- You- I-”

“Yes, it is true! You’ll use any excuse to get rid of me!”

Deciding not to call out her child on her lies and manipulation, the young mother dully mused, “You… knew Solan’s name, Hope. There’s no way-”

“Yes, there is! Xena and the centaur said it right in front of me! You even pulled out a chair to give me a front-row seat to the conversation! Don’t you remember? How do you think I knew to go to the Ixion caves to-” Hope gasped.

Gabrielle felt her own life drain away yet again with the admission. “You killed Kaleipus, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” Unable to strangle or shake her daughter, she dug her nails into sackcloth.

Her child sniffled, losing hope too. “I had to, mommy. He found me.” Her hollow tone hurt her mother even more than the truth did.

“Because you were there to kill Solan,” the bard said with her own emptiness. Again, tears fell down her bowed face onto her baby’s. “Oh, Hope… How could you?” How could I?

“I’m sorry, mommy,” the girl whined petulantly. Then she remembered her rage, which gave her a fleeting spurt of strength. “But Xena deserved it! She took you from me! Father’s let me see! It’s only fair that she suffer like we did! I hate her, mommy! I’d kill her son again if I could, and her too!”

Gabrielle stared into the setting sun, blinded by the light and getting lost in the darkness. Bleakly, she realized her old lie had come true.

“It’s- beautiful expression of sweetness just turned into this, this hateful snarl and; and it was like looking into evil itself.”

“Help me, mommy, please! Don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die…” Her high voice waning into fainter whispers with each word, Hope suddenly got loud as she fell victim to a wracking coughing fit.

“Hope!” On instinct, her mother poured more liquid from the water skin into her mouth to stop the attack.

Hope drank it thirstily just before they both realized what they were doing. “How could you?”

That final cry would play over and over in Gabrielle’s head for the rest of her life.

She shook harder than her daughter did when Hope began convulsing from the poison.

Froth filled the girl’s mouth as she choked, and her eyes started rolling wildly in her head. The hand in her mother’s hair held onto it as a lifeline even as she began to fade.

“I’m sorry; I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.” Gabrielle crushed her baby in an embrace to try and keep her from shattering, to take away her fear and pain. Familiar flames ringed around her before slowly drifting inward, singeing her flesh. Rather than scream, the bard welcomed the pain even as Dahak punished her by lifting the sensation. “Hope, my Hope! My love… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Relief that her child had stopped seizing lasted only a breath.

Hope’s last.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2: Herald

 

Gabrielle panted, once more caught in Dahak’s flames. Burning pain consumed her as her body both expanded to accommodate the rapidly growing being within her and constricted to expel it. Even as her ballooning uterus shuddered to force the creature out, the muscles below it clenched shut, loath to unleash Hell on Earth.

“You are the gate; the way… The spring!” echoed in the young girl’s head.

No, no! she pleaded, clutching at her sackcloth, similarly trying to rid herself of something that had been forced on her by a dark entity and to cling to it. I’m not! I-I won’t be! I can’t! …Oh, please, stop!

But she could hide from the truth no longer. The more she tried to shut out her reality, the more insistently it impressed itself on her. Clarity came at a delay: “For what’s to come,” Khrafstar had told her as he spurred her womb to readiness for conception and sparked her milk ducts to production; “Today the prophecy has been realized!” he’d declared while pumping her full of his seed; “Blessed vessel, you glow with the fire of the one god,” the priest whispered in reverence after dismounting her.

His hands descended upon her from beyond the grave.

No! Please! Don’t! Gabrielle choked on her distress, writhing to avoid his blazing, phantom touch even as supernatural fire devoured her.

Had she always been so helpless against the forces of darkness? Where was her protector?

The bard cried out in spirit for the warrior who had forsaken her in a strange, dangerous place yet again.

Recent memories revealed themselves in flashes of lightning.

“You all right?” Xena had asked earlier in the day.

“Yeah, my stomach’s better. It’s just; my soul…”

What’s left of it, anyway, Gabrielle mourned bitterly, alone on a pallet in the middle of a straw-strewn stable.

“Soon, I will take everything from you. What I do to you will tear at your very soul, swallow your light whole. Your purity will be mine! Then we will present it to the great Dahak!” The Deliverer had made good on his word too. There was nothing, least of all goodness, left in his victim by the time he was through with her…

Thunder boomed overhead, disorienting the bard much like the cult’s discordant melody had. Jagged bolts tore across the sky while invisible ones zapped outward from her abdomen.

“Xena, I thought that Khrafstar was leading me to the salvation of the world, through peace and light. And instead, I discovered the heart of darkness. I became a part of that—” Now you are truly mine, Dahak had gloried in her desecration. You invited me in, and forevermore, I will be a part of you— “I think that that’s what the banshees were talking about, that maybe that there’s an evil in me…”

“We wanna serve you-” “Worship you-” “Nourish you!” the shades had proclaimed in chorus, caressing Gabrielle from all sides, much like the followers of Dahak had. But rather than forcibly strip her and take advantage of her vulnerability, the banshees had clothed her. Perhaps they could be her allies….

“Xena! At least they seem interested in protecting me!”

“Not you; it!”…

“You carry within you the child that will bring a new order to the world, the child of darkness!”

All of creation went black before her coming baby.

#

 

“Someone, help me!” Gabrielle shrieked into the void.

I am here, that deceptively kind voice enveloped her in unholy warmth.

“NOOOO!”

Hooded figures only the chosen one could see and cursed chanting only she could hear ringed around her to witness the fulfillment of the prophecy.

“What’s happening?” she asked between gasps, trying harder than ever to cleave to her ignorance. Please; please! Let this be a dream! Fleeting relief washed over her at the belated realization that Xena had returned to her.

“Okay, you’re gonna have to listen to me. Now, breathe; deeply, alright?”

Gabrielle tried and failed to shake her head. I can’t! Even as this thing draws closer to its first breath, it is taking mine. More air got crushed from her lungs when she screamed.

Male voices broke through the battered wood of the stable door. “Come on! Kick the door in!”

Xena needlessly tried to distract her friend. “Come on, Gabrielle. It’s gonna be alright.”

Too preoccupied with the danger trying to break out of her to notice that which endeavored to barge in on her, the teenager shrieked all the louder.

The inferno surrounding her converged onto a small area, scorching the muscles holding back the unknown.

“It hurts so much!”

“This should help.”

But it didn’t. The deactivation of her pressure points proved to be just as ineffective as it had been with her morning sickness.

Endlessly, Gabrielle wailed her anguish.

Ssh. Hush now, Dahak coaxed. My work in you is almost complete.

His designated vessel screeched yet again, unable to tell if the god was speaking to her in that moment or if his words were merely a psychic echo. Xena, please help me! “I’m afraid! I’m afraid!”

“Gabrielle; don’t think about that right now. We just have to get through this. Now, push!”

I can’t! You don’t understand! He’s here! His cult- They- It’s- Ah! Gods, please!

But the creature inside her had the same fiery claws that its father and failed Deliverer did. Against its mother’s flagging resistance, it began to free itself from her body.

The Knights of the Pierced Heart fought all the harder to stop it. “The baby’s coming!” “Quickly!” “Break it down!”

They’re going to kill us! Gabrielle thought in blind panic. Please hurry! Don’t let this be! and No, you’re wrong! Go away! warred within her heart.

Xena tried once more to coach her friend through the final stages of childbirth. “Keep breathing. Come on.”

New life was about to enter the world. But would whatever Gabrielle bore even be able to be considered alive?

“What if it’s a-”

“Push!”

I can’t! I won’t! Images of a crouching gremlin ripping her open to pounce on the warrior flickered before Gabrielle’s dimming vision.

Dahak’s child dropped into her birth canal.

Nooo! “It’s coming!”

A wolf became a lamb as it rode to freedom on a gush of blood.

Gabrielle gazed at what she could see of her newborn with mute dread.

Xena too gaped at the small infant in her hands, which appeared for all the world the epitome of beautiful innocence. “It’s a girl,” she breathed before wrapping the child in coarse cloth.

The storm had stilled, the chanting, ceased. Light flooded back into the world.

Having successfully put his chosen one through the worst agony imaginable, surpassing even that which he and his minions had inflicted on her in his temple and far greater than any other birthing woman would ever have to endure, thus fracturing the girl into tiny pieces and then grounding them into a powder, Dahak reformed her as he sent strength and wholeness into her splayed figure.

Radiant bliss and optimism came with the enrichment, replacing all the pain and fear she had suffered.

Hope! My hope has been restored! Using her returning breath to laugh, something she had thought she would never do again, Gabrielle sighed as soon as Xena laid her child in her arms. Oh, Hope!

 

 

 

Chapter 3: Disparity

 

“Hello, mother.”

Joy and despair fought for dominance in Gabrielle’s skittering heart and revealed themselves to her daughter’s keen perception.

Hope smiled wryly. “Father calls me that, you know; ‘Despair—’” Her mother didn’t; neither lookalike could remember what had happened in the lava pit—“You and he have wanted very different things from me from the beginning.”

“For you,” Gabrielle corrected automatically.

Her reflection’s face twisted all the more. “What’s the difference?”

The bard opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out of it. An oddly familiar cloak of silence fell over her as she stared at her daughter. Identical though they may be to the outside world, Gabrielle found very little resemblance between them. Still, she felt that she could gaze upon her child forever.

“Oh, let me do it!” Hope cried in a mocking sing-song, reading her doppleganger’s mind yet again. “Here.” She feigned poking her mother in both eyes at the same time. The corners of her own mouth flicked up and down when Gabrielle did not retreat. Then she yanked her hand back when the woman almost leaned into her touch. “Here in your eyes,” she elaborated unnecessarily, trying to regain the hard edge to her voice. “Fear. Mine?” She twisted her wrist to make the same gesture at her own eyes. “Strength. There—” her hand rotated again as all her fingers came together, miming covering her mother’s mouth— “weakness.” She pointed at her own gritted teeth. “Here; power.”

“Ah, but here,” Hope continued, patting her injured shoulder without flinching before pressing a fingertip to her black eye and relishing the pain. “Hurt.” Then bitterness filled her mouth like poison, and she shoved her mother before she could help it. “Care! Someone took good care of you. Was it Xena?”

Gabrielle once more swallowed her voice as shook her head. Who hurt you? she wanted to ask. Water filled her eyes. Was it me? she wondered next.

“No, it was me.” Hope smiled bitterly. “Bet you’re feeling cheated, huh? Perhaps you’d like to add a few more bruises.” She stepped toward her mother to crowd her against the wall. “Go ahead. Do it!”

Rooted to the spot, Gabrielle found herself paralyzed in addition to mute.

“Go on. You know you want to,” her daughter continued to try and goad her.

The bard began to shake with suppressed tears. “Oh, Hope…”

“Don’t! Don’t say my name like you love me!” The beaten girl backed away as if she were disgusted instead of affected by her mother’s emotion. “And only touch me if you’re going to hit me,” she ordered too as she knocked aside the trembling hand reaching for her. “No? Oh, that’s right.” Hope jabbed a finger into the center of her mother’s chest. “Because here beats the heart of a hero. Touching, truly.” Becoming a better and yet worse copy of Gabrielle’s likeness, she made tears well up in her own murky eyes. “That story you told Lila just now. I’m moved. Oh, wait. I’m not.” Hope’s waters drained inward. “I want to… What was it? ‘Kill you all.’ Because while you are a hero, I am a monster. I have never tried to retaliate against you once, though I have had every opportunity— and father screaming in my head at me to do it each time; remember?— and yet I am the evil, murderous one. Isn’t that right, mother? You’ve killed me twice and refused to stand by my side that same number of times, but somehow you are the hallowed one.

“All I ever hear about in Potadeia is Gabrielle, the godsend. Gabrielle, the angel on Earth. Always loving, always kind, always courageous, always inspiring. Rescued this old woman’s cat from a tree. Visited that old woman daily to comfort her after the loss of her husband. Donated your winnings from the regional barding tournament to the orphans in the next town over. Organized planting contests on the lands of the farmers whose crops failed. Taught destitute widows their letters and numbers. Why, everywhere I go, townspeople fall on their knees to kiss my feet. Little birdies weave flower crowns for my hair.

“Is there any good deed Saint Gabrielle can’t or won’t do? Oh, yeah! Let her child live. Well, isn’t that astonishing? The great Gabrielle who loves her friends and family with all her big, beautiful heart– led her sister through a snowstorm and pulled her drowning neighbor from the river by her house— left them long ago, just like she abandoned her newborn in a different river across the sea. Ah, but at least she leaves good things behind too, yes? The saint always gives away her winter solstice gifts to those less worthy! Lila got your doll”– Hope indicated the toy Gabrielle held in her limp grasp— “and I got your lamb figurine. …That you burned with me on that pyre before walking away from me yet again, leaving me with nothing to hold onto, nothing of you but the sight of your back. …But now you have returned. And we are all together.”

Wordlessly, she asked for the rag doll, which Gabrielle gave to her in the same way.

Hope fought the urge to smell it before holding it to her chest and smiling wanly. She did not tell her mother that she had slept with the doll every night since arriving in Potadeia. “It’s turned into quite the family reunion…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4: Flood

 

Her child gurgling in her arms, Gabrielle beamed. “A-goo-goo-goo!” she gushed over Hope, waving a finger in front of the infant’s face and giggling when its tiny hand caught hers. “Who’s mommy’s sweet girl? Oh, who’s mommy sweet girl?” The young mother leaned over her baby to rub their noses together. “Mommy loves you so much! Yes, she does!”

Air, light, and warmth fell away when a rough voice intruded on the tender moment.

“Goewin, take the baby for a moment.”

The bard snapped her head up, arms automatically cinching around her child. “What, why?”

“Give the man the baby, Gabrielle,” Xena said even more firmly as she prepared a place for her friend.

“No! Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

The warrior made a face and then shrugged. “Alright, if you insist.” She trailed off with a pointed look, nevertheless, to spare Gabrielle possible embarrassment.

Her friend didn’t take the hint but rather gave her mullish frown.

Xena’s stomach twisted when the girl’s expression darkened further, all but baring her teeth when the kind knight approached her with his arms out. Evil. Something evil is going on. I have to separate her from that thing! She shook her head so as not to show her thoughts on her face; her little blonde was far too perceptive. “Sweetheart, you still haven’t passed the afterbirth. It’s been too long. I need to check you.”

Awash under crashing torrents of surprise, confusion, humiliation, misgiving, fear, anger, pleading, and placation, Gabrielle tried not to drown. Forcing a laugh into her tone she asked, “Did you just call me ‘sweetheart’?”

The warrior locked eyes with her rather than avert her gaze. “I did.”

Seeing quiet yearning intermingling with pity on her friend’s face, the teenager rushed to nip the latter in the bud. “Well, don’t! It’s weird.”

“Alright, Gabrielle,” Xena answered her evenly once more. “But I still need to-”

“No, you don’t! I feel fine. I told you-”

“That’s not the point!”

Fighting fire with fire rather than concede as usual, Gabrielle shot back with, “I said no!”

“Little one, you can give the baby to the man so I can carry you back here, or you can stay over there with her and get checked in front of an audience.”

The girl jumped to her feet at once and handed over her infant almost without thought. Her legs gave way before she could take a first step. “Ah!” she cried.

“I’ve got you!” Xena dashed to scoop her friend up bridal-style and bring her to the most secluded spot in the room, the space behind the sword in the stone.

Squirming gingerly upon being lowered to the floor, Gabrielle settled into a contorted reclining position. Propped up on the elbow opposite her friend, her hips tilted upward and heels close to her behind, she pressed her sackcloth over her closed thighs with her free hand. The shoulder connected to it rose to her ear as she steadfastly faced the far wall. “But Xena, please-”

The woman treated the girl to a hair-stroke. “It’s alright, sweetheart. I’ll make it quick.”

“But-”

“Gabrielle-”

The bard flinched violently from the sudden pressure on her self-protective shoulder. “Xena, please!” she squeaked. “I don’t want to do this!” All at once, she devolved into frenzied supplication. “Don’t do this; don’t do it! Please don’t make me! Don’t! Please!”

The invisible knife in Xena’s heart that had been there since finding her friend in Dahak’s temple twisted viciously. “Oh, sweetheart. I won’t hurt you. I promise I won’t!” she said as she wrapped the teen in an embrace. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No, it won’t!” Unwilling honesty continued to flow out of Gabrielle in a surging current. “It’s not gonna be okay. I’m never gonna be okay!”

“Little one, you will! I’ll take care of you!”

Just as quickly as she’d fallen apart, the blonde pulled herself together and threw off her friend along the way. “Oh, let me just take your word for that! Because you have such a good track record with that lately!”

“Gab-”

“Let’s name the ways you’ve outdone yourself with taking care of me this week alone, shall we?” Ticking off the list with her fingers, Gabrielle unleashed a furious tirade on the person she could no longer call her hero. “Dragging me to Brittania without ever asking if I wanted to come here in the first place. Charging into battle without me and not even noticing until– When? The next day?– that I’d been captured. Leaving me in Caesar’s camp all that time so he could menace me and Kh- the priest could dig his hooks deeper into me. Leaving me alone with him yet again at …that temple! Just like you did this morning when I got mobbed and nearly burned to death in that tavern, then chased by the lynch mob, kidnapped by banshees, nearly murdered again by these guys—” she gestured toward the unseen knights— “Then you did a hell of a job- Oh, wait! I’m forgetting some things, aren’t I? Standing– No, laying– by while I got tied down on a cross and then lifted on it. Playing around at my feet while I hung there helplessly. Only bothering with me long enough to throw knives me at so I fell, knocking the wind out of me and nearly breaking my legs yourself with that trick since you didn’t untie my ankles first, and then leave me gasping in the dirt—” Gabrielle choked on the words when she realized that they were first Khrafstar’s.

Then she began to gag until she was dry-heaving. “Get off of me! Get off of me!” she cried, not caring that she was all but clawing Xena’s arms. “Letting Kh- him-” But she could not finish her rant. Nor could she fight her friend off when Xena enveloped her in another embrace.

“That monster did something terrible to you, didn’t he?” the woman whispered, having known the horrible truth since witnessing Gabrielle’s reaction to his reappearance in Dahak’s temple.

“What do you care?” the bard spat at her, once more becoming rigid against her emotions and her friend’s affection. “Get off of me,” she said lowly.

Xena obeyed. Then the tone of her friend’s voice reminded her of her fear. “Sweetheart-”

“Stop it!” Gabrielle shrugged off her hand. “Let go of me! Don’t touch me! I don’t want you to t-”

“Sweetheart, this is a sign.” The warrior pressed the significance of the assessment on the girl with her voice rather than her eyes or fingers.

Gabrielle froze. “What’s a sign? Of what?” she asked tremulously.

“What I’ve been afraid of for a while now.” Xena trailed off before committing to continuing until the end. “The baby came too fast before, but in the second stage of labor, women usually experience a radical personality shift-”

The teen laughed sourly. “You think I don’t know that? I too grew up in a small farming village, you know! How could you forget? You never let me forget my humble beginnings!”

“Gab-”

“And what’s changed? Is me talking back such a strange thing?” She pouted for the briefest moment. “Hm, I guess it is. I take all your crap, don’t I? With a grateful grin, no less! I remain your sweetheart. Because I’m a good little girl. I-”

“Sweet- Augh, Gabrielle, stop. The point is; you might still be pregnant.”

Once more, Gabrielle went stock-still with cold horror. “What do you mean?” she breathed.

“There might be a second child inside you. Let me take a look, alright?” The warrior gave her friend a wan smile. 

Her usual travel companion flickered behind bitter eyes. “Xena, please,” she whispered.

“It’s alright-”

“Don’t you touch me!” the new person returned with a vengeance. “You’re being ridiculous. If that’s all, then I’d like-” Her facade broke yet again, leaving Gabrielle cringing in fear, when Xena grabbed her arm in a vice grip.

Deciding she’d too have to play a character to get anywhere, the dark-haired woman hissed into her friend’s ear. “Stay down, or I will tie you down!”

“No!” the bard said in another sharp gasp. “Don’t! Xena, please don’t tie me down; please!” Green-blue eyes searched for her friend in icy orbs.

Xena did not give in, squeezing the hard limb in her grasp for good measure. “Then hold; still.”

Gabrielle nodded both timidly and frantically, unable to open her mouth lest she vomit after all. A muffled scream tried to shatter her teeth or tear her throat in order to escape when Xena lifted her lower half to bare it, but she bit down even harder on her rising panic.

“Lay down,” the warrior told her with a mere trace of warmth in her tone, ready to take it back at a moment’s notice. Her pierced heart panged when tears instantly streamed down her friend’s reddened cheeks in response to her command, and her hand hovered over the girl, poised to reassure or restrain as necessary too.

Parting her lips without unhinging her jaw, Gabrielle breathed hard through her mouth to try and calm herself. Oh, gods. She’s making me do it myself. This is… harder. A sob bubbling up from her chest forced out the mournful cry she’d been suppressing.

Xena grabbed her small hand in both of her own at once. “It’s alright, sweetheart. It’s gonna be alright. Your- Hm. Your Hope has come back to you. Remember? Would you like to hold her for this after all?”

The girl nodded all the harder. She also shook her head.

Neither Xena nor Gabrielle could decide if having the product of the latter’s rape on-hand during an experience that would likely recall that assault would be helpful to her. The baby would either be a reminder or a distraction, possibly both and more at the same time.

“Which one is it, little one?”

“I- I…” Gabrielle fell onto her back when she clapped both hands over her face. “I don’t know! I just- I don’t want to do this! Don’t-”

“Let’s try yes, then. If you change your mind, you change your mind,” Xena once more retreated into her business-like attitude. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move a muscle,” she added in a low tone before getting to her feet.

Goewin took a step back, angling his body away from the warrior and moving the infant out of her reach when she approached him. “I…” He sighed, lifting a large, gloved hand to further shield Hope. “I couldn’t help but; overhear… The young girl… If she doesn’t want to-”

“She doesn’t have a choice,” Xena spoke just as brusquely as ever to him. “Even if she doesn’t have another child drowning within her, she could get an infection from keeping the afterbirth inside.”

As a father, the knight knew the risks attached to such a condition. “But- That would take days to develop! The girl’s too raw right now-”

“It also takes more than nine months for a child to develop in its mother’s belly. Gabrielle had a flat– albeit, upset– stomach this morning. I’m not taking any chances. Now give me the child, or lose your arms.”

Against his conscience, Goewin did as he was told. Then he made to go to Gabrielle when she began weeping.

“Don’t you dare. She’s upset enough!” Xena scolded the man, carrying Hope somewhat carelessly as she sauntered away from him. Then she gave him a fleeting smile. “But thank you for caring for her,” she said before ducking out of sight.

#

 

“You’re going to suffocate that baby,” she warned Gabrielle when her friend once more dealt with the situation by clinging to her hope that it would soon end.

For a moment, the teenager wondered if smothering the infant wasn’t the right thing to do. “Aah!” she grunted when Xena pressed down harder on her extremely sore abdomen.

The warrior groan-sighed. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I’ve really tried, but there’s no other way. With the cord completely detached as it is—” she held up the bloody tube to showcase it again— “I need to …use another finger.”

“A-a different one?” her friend panted, ever turning hope to willful ignorance.

“At the same time. Ready?”

“No! W-wait! Wait!” Gabrielle gained control over herself in Xena’s stead. “I-I just need… to breathe-”

“And let Hope breathe,” the brunette reminded her.

Gabrielle avoided looking at her baby as she obeyed, disconcerted by the child’s peacefulness rather than soothed by it.

Hope seemed to be enjoying her mother’s distress, if not gaining nourishment from it. She did not fuss at being squeezed but blissfully popped her lips like an algae-eater would. Her little body seemed to be growing too.

“Maybe she’s hungry,” Xena suggested without looking up from her work. “You know, nursing can help the uterus contract and-”

“And maybe mommy’s in enough pain at the moment, hmm?” Gabrielle retorted to offset her mounting sense of familiar, unbearable helplessness. “Xena, will you please? This really- Aah!”

“Sorry. I didn’t want you to tense up.”

“But I didn’t say you could do it yet! You weren’t supposed to- You promised- You- never keep your promises anymore…” The young girl broke down into tears yet again.

“Got it!” the woman cheered as if nothing had happened. “Easy now; easy!” Carefully pinching the placenta between the tip of her middle finger and the nail of her pointer finger, Xena began withdrawing her hand from her friend’s rose-red center. “Little one, breathe!”

“It hurts too much to breathe!” Gabrielle countered.

“Well, if you keep tensing up like this, then you’re going to pull the thing deeper inside yourself again and leave me with just this one little bit, like you did with the cord. Then I’ll have to keep fishing out the rest, piece by piece.”

“What do you want me to do?” the girl howled. “You’ve got your- You’re …poking and prodding… places that are very tender, h-had to accommodate a fully-formed newborn in an hour! You’re- This is killing me!”

“Put the baby to your breast, Gabrielle. Just try it.”

“No!”

“Gabrielle, if you don’t-”

“Then, what? You’ll punish me by forcing your whole hand up me? Why don’t you just go ahead and do it, then? Everyone else has, and- You can’t stand that, can you? It’s been your goal all along! Oh, but I gave you permission! That makes it not fun anymore, doesn’t it?”

“Gabrielle!”

“What? It’s-” The bard screeched, loud and sustained enough to disturb Hope even, when Xena began to massage her lower abdomen firmly and to work a thumb into her at the same time. Terror adding to the cacophony of emotions breaking over her, Gabrielle shrieked, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please! Please stop! Please! No more! Please!” Then she fell silent, blacking out at long last.

#

 

Goewin crouched in front of the stone, eyes down even though he had purposely positioned himself so he could see nothing of the three females. “How’s she doing?” he asked with a catch in his voice. His trembling hands worked to steady themselves before he passed forward the bucket Iochid was dangling by his face.

“Not well. I don’t know how much longer this can continue.”

A heavy silence weighed on the small group.

“We will continue praying for her,” the knights promised as they reluctantly returned to their post guarding the door.

“Thank you.” Xena changed the cloths on her friend’s forehead and between her legs for the fifth time.

Gabrielle had been unconscious for more than an hour. She had not responded even when Xena had stripped her in full to wipe her down with cool water nor turned Hope over to allow the baby to suckle from her mother.

Nor had Xena been able to achieve her primary objective.

Gabrielle’s traumatized tissues remained clenched shut just as tightly as they had to prevent Hope from escaping. They did not budge once throughout the sustained nursing session. The level of heat radiating from them and their color only heightened Xena’s concerns that her friend was developing a dangerous infection.

The warrior glared at the bump beneath the sackcloth she’d draped over mother and child to preserve the former’s modesty. Before her fingers had been ejected from the girl’s swollen passageway, Xena was certain that she had felt scratches, much like the ones the Deliverer had slashed into her own arm, lining it. “What am I going to do with you, Gabrielle?” she muttered to herself. “What am I going to do for you?” Removing her hand from her friend and curling it to hold onto her composure, she had to fight every fiber in her being not to bring her fist down on the infant’s skull. A jolt passed through her when she heard an answering snarl. Then she whipped back the banshees’ gift.

But Hope once more showed herself to be a perfect innocent, no trace of her demon father to be found anywhere in her tiny body or sweet face.

Still, Xena grimaced at the way the infant seemed to be devouring her mother. During the single feeding, Hope had milked enough sustenance from Gabrielle to grow to the size of a five-month-old child. Xena herself had only been able to nurse Solan once before giving him up and well-remembered how uncomfortable that had been. She could not imagine what her poor friend would feel upon waking. “H-hey, kiddo…” Patting Hope’s back awkwardly, she said, “Let’s give mommy a break, shall we?”

The baby rebelled against the invitation, writhing and becoming hot to the touch.

Feeling even sicker, Xena became only more determined to pry her from Gabrielle. “At least change sides, will you?” she begged Hope when she caught sight of the marks the newborn had left on her mother’s breast and how deflated it looked. “You’ve got to stop hurting her!” she said more strongly, urgently.

Hope ignored her.

“I mean it!” Impetuously, she laid a hand below the infant’s nose and pressed down while hooking her other hand under the baby’s tummy and lifting her.

“Ouch!” Gabrielle jerked to awareness, fast becoming fearful. “Wh-what are you doing? X-Xena, please; d-” Her countenance changed when her eyes met her child’s. “Oh, Hope! Hi, sweetie!” she effervesced.

“Gabrielle?” Xena asked in billowing misgiving. “Little one?”

But the girl didn’t answer. Then she yelped a few moments later.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Sh-she’s- Aah!”

In an instant, Xena’s unease broke free of the dam she’d worked so hard to keep it behind. “What’s she doing? Get off of her!”

The only thing that stopped Hope from being gouged to pieces was the outward thrust of her mother’s arm.

“N-no!” Gabrielle panted. “I-it’s not; not that. She’s- Oh—” she moaned in torment— “she’s helping me. H-hold on!” Voice becoming softer, the blonde returned both arms to her baby to hug her close. “Keep going, precious. I-it’s okay. Mommy’s okay.”

Hope obliged by kicking more emphatically with her little feet, sliding them along her mother’s sweaty skin without lifting them.

In a matter of seconds, her placenta flowed out of Gabrielle on a wave of blood, taking all the bard’s pain and feverishness with it.

“Th-thank you, sweet girl!” she gasped. Mirroring the immediate aftermath of the birth of her child, her overwhelming sensations transmuted into wellness; the tears spilling down her cheeks came from joy. “Thank you! Oh, my love; you make everything better.”

Drained by the use of her telekinesis, Hope grew faint.

“Oh no! What- Oh, honey! Mommy’s sorry! She should have fed you hours ago! Here!” Gabrielle shifted to offer up her other breast, paying no mind to the state of the first. “Aah! Oh, honey; you’re so hungry…” Very lightly scratching Hope’s scalp to soothe her, Gabrielle solemnly swore, “Mommy will never be so selfish again! Mommy’s so sorry, baby. You take everything you need from mommy. Hurt her all you want. It’s okay.” The rekindled fire in her eyes became directed at Xena when she finally acknowledged the warrior. “You come first,” she told Hope while warning her friend of the way things would be from there on out.

Mouth dry and gaping like that of a fish out of water, the brunette breathed, “…Ga-”

“No, Xena. Mark my words. They’re not up for debate.” Then the girl returned her attention to her child.

The rest of the world fell away into non-being.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5: Restoration

 

“I know you’re out there; somewhere. My, my love; my hope. Please;be good…” Gabrielle gazed up at the stars, praying that her baby was looking up at them too. She stared at the heavens so hard and so long that she did not notice the movement behind her until its source was almost on top of her. Then she whipped around with a gasp, staggering to her feet and trying to back away. “X-Xe…Pl-” It’s not what you think! died in her throat.

“Hey there, little one,” a voice she was not expecting to hear reached out to her from the darkness.

“Aphrodite?” the bard asked in the same breathless tone in which she’d tried to say her friend’s name.

“That’s me!” The goddess of love gave her a sad smile and little wave.

“What are you doing here?” Gabrielle gawked, transfixed. Then she took several steps forward. “Are you- Did you- Please!” Her efforts to scramble backward did not go to plan.

“It’s alright,” Aphrodite reassured the mortal as she enclosed her in a light but ardent embrace. “I’m only here to help.”

“How’s-”

“She’s safe. I heard your prayer and made sure she …got to her destination. Don’t worry.”

“Her destination? But what- H-”

“Little one, she’s safe. Now I want to be sure you are safe.”

Gabrielle grabbed Aphrodite’s upper arms. “Let me see her. Please!” Frantic eyes searched the deity’s as if Hope were hiding somewhere within their depths.

“Alright, little one. Not a problem!” Trying to maintain her dismissive attitude, the goddess of love put a hand over Gabrielle’s face.

Her baby wailed and writhed in the arms of a hooded figure.

“Oh, Hope! Please don’t cry. Mommy’s here!” Gabrielle cried right back, straining for her child as if to take her from the stranger. But she could not touch them. No matter how hard she struggled to bridge the miles-wide gap between them, nothing worked. Her last attempt to comfort her baby had her hovering a hand over the infant’s sweet cheek. “Mommy’s with you, Hope. Always! Mommy loves you. P-please be okay. Please, be good!” Gabrielle’s voice broke as their fading connection grew weaker.

A chubby little hand tried to clap the bigger one in place but passed right through it.

“Aphrodite; Aphrodite! Please! Please!” The girl fell to her knees, fisting the goddess’s flimsy shawl. “Please bring her back to me. I was wrong. I was wrong! Please…”

The goddess knelt with the girl. “Little one, I promise you; she will be taken care of. She won’t be harmed. I’ll see to it. But if I bring her back here…”

“Hope will die. Xena’ll finish her,” the bard knew deep in her aching heart. Cold comfort enveloped her in the ethereal arms of love.

“I’m so sorry, sweet pea.” Unseen by the mortal’s wounded eyes, tears sparkled on Aphrodite’s eyelashes as well. The deity pressed a heartfelt kiss to the girl’s forehead. “I’ll keep her safe,” she swore before moving to change the subject. “Now it’s your turn.”

Gabrielle flinched. “Is this your way of claiming payment?” she asked, instantly brought back to her own reality by the inquisitive palm roving over her front. “So be it,” she grunted, teeth gritted and eyes clamped shut as she breathed hard through her mouth. Nevertheless, her body could not help but cower from the unwelcome touch the wider it spread.

It skimmed along her upper chest under her collarbones and then down her central line until she bowed with a whimper and caught Aphrodite’s forearm in a desperate grab as it passed over her navel.

“Please! Don’t- Not-” Tears fell ever faster down her face. “A-Aphrodite, I-I’ll do a-anything, but please-”

“Ssh, it’s okay! It’s okay! That part’s; done. I was just …checking.” Aphrodite raised her opposite arm higher around Gabrielle’s shoulders to anchor her while returning her own exploratory hand to lay over the girl’s throbbing womb. “Ssh, Theenie gave me her blessing.” Wanting to and not, she locked eyes with Gabrielle. “So I can heal you for real. Not like- Don’t worry! I just need this …one point of contact, and it won’t hurt a bit.”

Gabrielle tried with all her heart to believe the goddess though she was unable to lower her guard against trusting a single word from any deity’s lips. Cringing, ready to fight or at least scream for Xena, she waited. Her balled hands shook below her ramrod-straight arms the longer the seconds dragged out.

“…Okay? I’ll only do it if you allow-” The immortal echoed Gabrielle’s hissing inhale with a nanosecond’s delay. “That beast said something very similar to you, didn’t he?” Her heart broke at the confirmation on the girl’s face. “Oh, little one. I… Please let me do this for you. You asked for my help, and I’d really like to answer that prayer.”

Tersely, Gabrielle nodded once. Her held breath left her in a shuddering gasp as warmth and light filtered into her from the glowing hand on her belly. Though each cell in her body had been preparing for great pain and violation, she felt neither. Instead, wholesome goodness seeped into her skin. It flowed in her veins, easing its way into every muscle, bone, and organ she possessed and displacing most of the darkness, hurt, fear, and sickness that had been plaguing her since she’d stabbed Meridian. Her reproductive tract and sex characteristics in particular returned to their original condition.

Reflected happy tears spilled from Aphrodite’s eyes as she beamed at the girl. “Better?”

Too overcome to speak, Gabrielle clapped her hands over her mouth. Wide green-blue eyes riveted on a new celestial being. Slowly, their owner started to nod until joyous laughter came tumbling from her lips. Then the teenager threw her arms around the goddess to squeeze her tight. “Thank you!”

“Oh, you’re welcome, sweet pea!” Aphrodite whispered in her ear, sliding her healing hand around the mortal’s waist to hug her back just as snugly. “Any time! I mean that. Now…”

“Y-yes?” Gabrielle sniffled to keep her haywire emotions in check.

“I have some more gifts for you. Drink this.”

Feeling some of her euphoria evaporate when Aphrodite released her and all too easily slipping into mistrust, the bard closed her mouth, shook her head, and sat back on her heels.

“Gab-”

More emphatically the second time, Gabrielle refused, even rising to her feet to get farther away from the goddess.

The deity merely looked up at the young girl, not trying to physically stop or recapture her. “But they’re yours; your memories. From Mnemosyne. If you drink them, you won’t remember what happened in the temple after… that, um, unfortunate run-in with the priestess. Nothing of what that god did to …hurt you. And, if you want, you’ll be able to remember everything when you’re ready. See? Seenee gave me two potions. One makes the memory loss permanent, while the other makes it only temporary. …It’s up to you.”

Surprised, confused, relieved, unsure, and more, Gabrielle regarded the vials in Aphrodite’s outstretched hands. The goddess had not mentioned the first assault but probably did not know about it, the bard thought to herself. And I won’t know about it either. Presumably, Mnemosyne knows and included those memories too. Otherwise, the gift is useless, right? …But is it already useless? Can I really forget- what; what happened? Do I really want to? “Will I forget Hope?” she asked out loud without looking away from the colored tubes.

“No, sweet pea. I mean, I’m sure we could swing that if you really wanted to, but-”

“I don’t.”

“O-”

“But how will I remember her if I don’t remember—” Gabrielle’s voice caught in her throat— “what happened to me?”

“Well, the way Mnemosyne described it, it’d be hazy, like a dream. You’d only see the necessary parts clearly; the rest would be shrouded in fog. She- …I’m no good at talking in riddles. Plainly put, sweet pea, you’ll remember going into the temple, the trick the girl played on you with pretending to sacrifice- …him, ‘rescuing’ him, his smug little speech. Um… What came next?” Aphrodite rolled her eyes up to the sky as she too stood. “I think I saw you scream– in the bowl Seenee showed me; not live! Otherwise, I would have inter- Nevermind.” The goddess tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Then Xena running into the temple. You guys talking. That- guy daring show his evil face… His god catching you and pulling you into his fire– Mortals, that was a horrifying sight– Sorry. But, um, yeah. I think that’s about it. You’d remember floating, but only very vaguely. …So. Um. Sound good?”

“Which one will let me remember someday?”

“This- Oh, okay.” Aphrodite watched as Gabrielle both carelessly and carefully flicked the lid of her chosen vial and dumped its contents into the waters of her memory.

Recapping the latter with her thumb, the mortal shook the tiny bottle vigorously. “You sure this will work? No sneaky consequences or any of that? I won’t be pun-”

“No, little one. You’ve been punished more than enough and never deserved it in the first place.”

Gabrielle gave Aphrodite a wry smile. “Yes, I did. I killed-”

“In self-defense! Gabby, you did nothing wrong. I saw that! It was practically an accident! Or at least an unconscious instinct! Either way, it was completely justifiable!”

The girl wiped the stunned look off her face to smile grimly. Still, she felt some of the burden fall from her shoulders. “Thank you, Aphrodite.”

“Sure thing, sweet pea.” Rare sternness showed in bright blue eyes. “But don’t ever let me hear you talking otherwise, okay? Okay?”

“Agree to disagree. If I remember.” With that, Gabrielle tossed the chalky liquid into the back of her throat and gulped it down. The glass tube fell from her hand with a small crash as a dazed look came over her face. Her dopey expression became drowsy, and she started to sway on her feet.

“You wo- Oh!” Aphrodite rushed to store the unused potion in her pouch before leaping forward to catch the bard and prevent her from slumping to the forest floor. “Now for my gift. Little one, I wrap you in my love and protection,” she whispered over Gabrielle as she took the gauzy shawl from around her own shoulders and bundled the small girl’s unconscious form in it. “Dahak and his followers will never touch you again,” she vowed.

The cloth twinkled with golden sparks that imprinted on Gabrielle’s skin before becoming invisible along with every other trace of the spell.

In a second shimmer, Aphrodite teleported them back to the camp where Xena lay in an enchanted sleep. “Sleep now, little one. Rest and be restored,” the immortal said as she tucked the bard into her bedroll. “Keep her safe this time! …You do your job; I’ll do mine,” she said in a firm tone to the warrior before lifting her spell on the woman and disappearing too.

 

 

 

Chapter 6: Iridescence

 

Gabrielle cradled her sleeping Hope. Softly, she sang to her child while caressing the infant’s fast-growing hair. Then she just held her baby, rocking her and completely in love.

Xena tried a different approach with her friend. “She sure is cute, eh? Gonna look just like her mommy when she grows up; I know it.”

The girl beamed at the woman. “Thank you, Xena.”

Hesitantly, the warrior reached for the bard to smooth her shiny bangs. “I only speak the truth, little one.”

Gabrielle leaned into her friend’s touch. “Mm,” she answered peacefully as she turned her face to nuzzle the calloused palm on her face. Then she tutted her tongue. “You’re checking my forehead, aren’t you? I told you; I feel great.”

Xena could not smile back. “I know. I just …can’t help but worry about you.” Truth being extracted from her as if it were a rotten tooth, she admitted, “You had a point earlier. I’ve really let you down these last few days and… don’t want to do that ever again.”

“Xena…” the teenager sighed in her usual way. “I didn’t mean any of what I said before. That was the pain and fear talking. I don’t-”

“Well, whatever it was, it was right.” The woman scoffed to displace the tears welling up in her eyes but failed that too. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for-”

A small shadow fell over Gabrielle when she said, “Join the club.” Then the child in her arms squirmed, filling her with more power. “But Xena, if those things didn’t happen, then I wouldn’t have Hope. She makes it all worth it.”

But you wouldn’t have lost your hope in the first place if- Xena held her tongue. Then her anxiety set it in motion again. “Little one… you can of course say no… but I’d really like to check you again. Just to be sure.” She breathed in through her nose and closed her eyes, waiting for some sort of emotional outburst to come from her friend, whether anger or fear.

But Gabrielle merely regarded the warrior with only slight weariness when she said, “You don’t think she could have done it, do you? You still don’t believe-”

“Gabrielle, she’s just a baby! I …don’t want to make her responsible for your health?” Xena asked more than declared in her continued effort to keep from upsetting her companion.

“That’s reasonable,” the bard said without inflection. “I suppose one last look couldn’t hurt.” Then she smiled. “I have my Hope.” Low warning hissed out of her a second later. “And you’re not taking her from me this time.”

“That’s… reasonable,” Xena echoed with a gulp.

“Then, fine.”

Hope stirred against her mother’s chest before the girl could ask for her help.

“Hello, my love,” Gabrielle whispered as she kissed the newborn’s forehead. “Oh, you’re growing so fast. You’re going to be so big and strong, aren’t you? You already are.”

“Gabrielle?” Xena shook the blonde’s shoulder harder to break through the love fest, still disturbed by the drastic change in her, no matter how positive.

The teenager lay back on her sackcloth without care, lifting her baby straight up into the air and grinning at her when Hope squealed with glee. “Do what you will, Xena,” was the last thing she said to her friend. She barely noticed the examination even when the conflicted warrior tried to bring her the mental clarity that came with pain. Gabrielle only had eyes for her baby, alternating between letting Hope soar and bringing her close for kisses and nuzzles. “Oh, lookit mommy’s sweet girl fly! Lookit her hero go! Whee!”

Xena tried to not let her misgivings be clouded or fed by jealousy.

#

 

The knights responded to Gabrielle’s renewed brightness with welcome. Too, they wanted to connect with the source of her resilience.

“Oh, please, can I hold her?” Goewin all but begged with an amusing expression on his handsome face.

Though she was loath to part with her child, Gabrielle wanted to thank the men for their help and to share her happiness. “Alright, but be very careful with her!” she warned them with only slight senses of worry and loss as the brown-haired man carried Hope over to Iochid.

“Do not worry, little one! I will treat her as my own,” he promised in his usual gallant manner. “I have a couple of girls, you know. A boy too. He’s about this …size.”

“Really?” the bard asked in wonder, beaming with pride as her daughter brought their defenders joy.

The men turned to goo over Hope in seconds, same as she did. They also shared in the young mother’s beliefs.

“It’s amazing how fast she’s growing,” Iochid spoke for one of the first times Gabrielle could remember.

“She’s perfect!” Goewin gushed.

The redhead joined in his fellow’s good cheer. “I’m sure she’s the child of the light!”

Xena watched the warm camaraderie from cold, dark sidelines.

Chapter 7: Still, False Hope

 

Gabrielle’s blood ran cold when Xena answered her confusion after their confrontation with Callisto by saying, “She’s not working alone; she as good as said so!”

“What?” came out breathlessly.

“Someone is helping her.”

The word “Hope” played over and over in her head and almost showed on her face.

But pale blue eyes had turned from her at the sound of a man choking and collapsing in the distance. “We just don’t know who,” Xena finished darkly before running to find out what had happened.

Both women froze at the sight of a centaur bleeding from the mouth and gasping in the dirt.

Xena recognized him first. “Kaleipus!”

“Oh!” Though she followed her friend, Gabrielle stood back while the warrior frantically questioned the dying leader about Solan.

Goewin’s face floated before green-blue eyes, beaming at her from afar and then gone. Another mysterious attack on a man sworn to be the protector of a danger-stalked child. But this time it was Xena’s son rather than Gabrielle’s daughter.

The blonde darted her eyes back and forth when Xena asked the centaur to name his assailant. Breathe, she urged herself. Wishes for Kaleipus to confirm and disprove her fears swirled around Gabrielle as she tried to simultaneously keep her eyes on him and to not see him. Oh, please! her heart begged unspecified gods, her child.

“The chi- H- Oh; uh!” the old centaur tried to hold on to more than Xena’s hand as he bled from his chest wound.

The child? Hope? Gabrielle wondered in expanding horror and panic. This can’t be happening… It’s not! That doesn’t make sense! He doesn’t know her name! He wouldn’t say- There’s still hope. It must be something else.

She twitched when he exclaimed his final words.

“Raise him!” Kaleipus breathed his last.

#

 

Xena let Gabrielle go without comment. She had once more come to a path her companion would not follow, one she had to walk alone.

Somehow, it seemed right.

The bard watched the haunted warrior numbly stumble toward the place where her son would be waiting for her. Gabrielle couldn’t face the boy. And she had her own searching to do. Wanting both to find her own child and to never see the girl again, she tore through the village, sidestepping the guest hut until she could avoid it no longer. “Fayla!” she shouted, the false name Hope had given her leaving a bitter taste in her mouth, and threw open the door to the place where she had told her daughter to wait for her.

It was empty.

Hazily, Gabrielle again envisioned herself as Pandora with a broken box. And a second time, she knew that hope had not been left to her, was not hers to keep.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 8: Spark

 

Time fractured into pieces as Gabrielle gazed upon the Hellish scene in a replica of the site of her nightmares.

Dahak’s temple was littered with the bodies of his priests, its walls lined with the skull of a giant and oversized stone caskets straight out of Illusia. At the back of the atrium, Callisto stood watching the action in open-mouthed anticipation, having just sent pillars of fire from her hands at Ares to throw him across the room. The god of war sat slumped and panting near Seraphin, the misguided priestess still bleeding and clutching the stone bricks for support. Joxer knelt in the middle of the hall as if he were still a sacrifice for the evil god.

Sparks fell from the ceiling, shot up from the floor, and flew every which way; the Hind’s blood dagger glittered with them.

A ceremonial dagger, held aloft, glinted in the candlelight.

“With this life, we praise Dahak, the dark one…”

Shards of the past began to overlay each other as Xena backed Hope toward her father, her demise.

A tendril of flame grabbed hold of Gabrielle around her right ankle with the lash of a whip, began to drag her toward what was sure to be a horrific death…

Xena’s whip wrapped around Gabrielle’s ankles and knocked her into the dirt before dragging her to a cliff the warrior intended to toss her corpse over…

Most prominently, Gabrielle saw Xena looming over her out of the darkness, poised to run Hope through with her shining blade…

“It is not a baby! It is a thing in the form of a baby; a dark, wicked thing that must be destroyed!”

Heard Khrafstar weaving a tale of being in a similar position…

“One day, a warlord came and destroyed my home and almost killed me. Then I met the warlord again. He was wounded from some battle already, and I was filled with so much rage, and as I was standing over him with a sword at his throat, something happened. A light filled me, and I knew he existed.”

Remembered experiencing the indwelling of Dahak’s tainted blessing for herself…

“I guess being a mother must agree with me. I feel like some power has just poured new life into me.”

Finding that false hope again…

“What’s your name?”

“Fayla. Are you Xena, the Warrior Princess?”

Losing it for the innumerable time…

“You killed Kaleipus, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

Her child sniffled. “I had to, mommy. He found me.”

“Because you were there to kill Solan. Oh, Hope. How could you?”

The slideshow of her memories sped up with that eternal question.

“She’s your daughter, Gabrielle. How could you— the vision wavered—r daughter be evil? …”

“Regardless of who her father is, she’s born an innocent, just like anyone else…”

“The goddess Hope is a balance of good and evil. But born as a mortal, she is one of us.”

“She’s evil. That’s what she is. She’s like her father, a murderer. She doesn’t care about any of us. Even as a child-”

“Can you blame a child for not understanding a power that was given it? A child, without guidance; without her mother?…”

“I have this power! To move things. I don’t know why. She says it’s; ’cuz I’m evil.”

“That is a lie! You are not evil. Never believe that…”

“Xena, you were always so quick to blame her, weren’t you? Well, she is not evil! She is not!…”

“Gabrielle, she is the daughter of Dahak.”

“I have thought about that. Xena, maybe she is. Look, if that’s true, then I will help her fight against her dark side, just like I helped you fight against yours. See her for what she truly is. She's a beautiful, innocent baby!”

“I’m not so convinced of her innocence…”

“Xena hates me!”

“She doesn’t hate you. She just doesn’t understand…”

“Why you released that monster that killed my son on all the children of the world? Well, that, I do not understand!…”

“I know you hate me, Xena; no more than I hate myself…”

“I wondered how you made it to Chin ahead of me. I figured Ares might have a hand in it, but what I couldn’t understand was why…”

“I understand. You forget; I’m a warrior too. Many times, if I’d told my soldiers my plans, I would’ve had a mutiny…”

“Maybe it’s not too late. She’s young. Poison’ll kill her if her powers aren’t mature.”

“Poison? Xena, she is my child!…”

“Mommy, my throat hurts.”

“I’m so sorry, my love. H-here. Drink more…”

“We had heard about the mother of the goddess Hope. She’s known as the betrayer, the one who selfishly killed her own daughter. We were never told her name, because it was said that to speak it was obscene blasphemy…”

“You betrayed her; therefore, you’re her enemy. She’ll kill you now as soon as look at you…”

“You killed me. By the gods, Xena! You killed me…”

“This one god of yours, does he have a name?”

“Yes, but we aren’t permitted to speak it…”

Khrafstar’s treachery had reached its full measure. He had taken an innocent’s own body from her. His methods even made it his ally, turned it against her too. Someone she thought of as a friend, one she betrayed herself and her convictions to save, had repaid her by profaning her flesh, thus maiming her mind, soul, and spirit, and using all of her best qualities and capabilities against her. He had even stolen her aspirations. All Gabrielle was and had hoped to be had been sacrificed to evil…

“I think that that’s what the banshees were talking about, that maybe there’s an evil in me…”

“Dahak’s daughter, your Olympian seed. You sold out your fellow gods so that you could sire a new race.”

“Our child will be the first of what Dahak calls the six destroyers, insidious creatures with no souls who eat of the living and the righteous. Gabrielle, all thanks to you, it’s the beginning of the end. The bloodletting ceremony will be the window into the world for Dahak…”

"Burn the witch! Burn! Burn!…”

“I don’t know what’s happening to me, Xena. I did something that I never thought I’d be able to do. I played judge, jury, and executioner…”

“We’re alive, Gabrielle, so let’s quit living in the past and celebrate your heroic deed. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be emperor of Chin. I would be another of Xena’s victims…”

“Xena, Hope is the victim here! That is why I sent her to Kaleipus’s hut, so she would be safe from Callisto!”

“You sent her to Kaleipus’ hut?…”

“Can we talk? Of course not. I betrayed you. The pathetic thing is, I thought I was saving you. My reverence for life kept a brutal tyrant in power, and led to my best friend’s execution…”

“All that pain and that violence was gonna stop with me. I was gonna revere life; bring peace; heal. Then, I killed…”

“I killed her, Xena!”

“No; Gabrielle! You couldn’t- ”

“No, I did. I just stabbed her…”

Ares’s voice brought the bard back to the present for the briefest of moments. “You know the stakes, Gabrielle. Xena’s fate is in your hands.”

“The Fates agree; I have the right to ask this?”

“The debt is binding.” “The burden is–” “–on Gabrielle.” “If Xena kills Hope–” “Xena–” “–will die!”

“No! Hope!” Just as she had leapt into the fray to stop Meridian from killing Khrafstar, Gabrielle used her staff to pole-vault herself between Xena and Hope.

“Well, you get this clear, Xena. No matter what she is, she is my daughter. Don’t come between us…”

But rather than take out the doomed aggressor, she charged the supposed victim. In the same move, she once again snatched her baby away from her best friend’s deadly intent. Screaming Xena’s name, she tumbled with her child into the lava pit.

#

 

A wounded cry echoed along the unending abyss as they fell. “Why, mother? Why?”

Gabrielle clung to her Hope, trying meld to their souls into one so her daughter would understand.

“Please don’t cry. I’m not gonna let her hurt you; I promise I won’t! I’ll die first…”

Time seemed to stop as mother and child hung suspended in space. A forcefield formed around them through use of the latter’s power, kept them from being incinerated.

Drawing away from Gabrielle, still and silent, Hope gave her the same red-eyed searching look that she had soon after emerging from her cocoon, while Xena and Callisto fought. At last, she spoke. “So, you kill me yourself? Again?” Her pained lack of understanding was not well-hidden in her soft voice.

Gabrielle’s eyes and throat burned as she simply stared at her baby.

“That’s your answer? You asked me what I wanted when I came to you, but perhaps I should have asked what you wanted from me.” Hope gritted her teeth against the tremor that shook her whole body. “Did you always want me dead?”

Again, her mother could not speak.

Frustration gave Hope strength. “Were you lying to me before?” she asked as she impressed her own memories upon the bard.

“My mother tried to drown me in a basket. She wanted me dead.”

“She wasn’t trying to drown you. She was trying to save your life.”

“You weren’t there! You don’t know!”

“I do! The basket is all there was. I- I had to put you in it, or, I had to watch you be killed. Now, I had no choice. I loved you.”

“You- you loved me?”

“I-I prayed that the gods would protect you, and they did. They brought you home…”

Just as she had while holding and killing her baby last time, Gabrielle endeavored to express her emotions without words. Lifting a hand to cup her child’s cheek, she was grieved but not surprised when Hope flinched away from her. So, she opened her hand for the girl to reach out and take on her own terms instead.

Both she and Hope gaped when a ball of light formed above her palm and then floated across the divide between them.

Green-blue eyes going wide and then squinting, the child of darkness tried to send the thing back at her mother with her telekinesis.

The glowing sphere bobbed in place. Then it split in two and shot into each doppelgänger, catching their breath in their chests when it hit.

Gabrielle’s broken heart lit in a flicker as she crouched on a muddy riverbank. “Aphrodite, please keep my baby safe. Teach her love, goddess. Let her be filled with it.” An impassible lump formed in her throat and cut off her plea when she let go of the basket carrying her Hope. Then she turned and ran for the rocks to lead Xena as far away from her child as she could, hearing the echoes of her soul’s cries get fainter and fainter…

“What are you doing here?” Gabrielle gawked, transfixed, later that night. Then she took several steps forward. “Are you- Did you- How’s-”

“She’s safe. I heard your prayer and made sure she got to her destination. Don’t worry.”

“Let me see her. Please!”

“Alright, little one. Not a problem!” The goddess of love put a hand over Gabrielle’s face to show her baby wailing and writhing in the arms of a hooded figure.

“Oh, Hope! Please don’t cry. Mommy’s here!” Gabrielle cried right back, straining for her child as if to take her from the stranger. But she could not touch them. No matter how hard she struggled to bridge the miles-wide gap between them, nothing worked. Her last attempt to comfort her baby had her hovering a hand over the infant’s sweet cheek. “Mommy’s with you, Hope. Always! Mommy loves you. P-please be okay. Please, be good!” Her voice broke as their fading connection grew weaker.

A tiny hand tried to clap the bigger one in place but passed right through it.

“Aphrodite; Aphrodite! Please! Please! Please bring her back to me. I was wrong. I was wrong! Please…”

“Little one, I promise you; she will be taken care of. She won’t be harmed. I’ll see to it. But if I bring her back here…”

“Hope will die. Xena’ll finish her,” the bard knew deep in her aching heart…

Gabrielle gasped as if rescued from drowning. She looked to Hope to see her reaction, but her daughter turned away from her.

“Father, what is the meaning of this?” the girl demanded of the molten rocks surrounding them.

Oh, gods! No!

In an instant, Dahak breached the bubble of his daughter’s lowering defenses to set upon his chosen one.

Something gossamer began to melt from Gabrielle’s skin until it disintegrated completely, andshe was suffocating again.

I am here, an all-too-familiar voice filled the space around and within Gabrielle, his flames following close behind.

Gabrielle gasped raggedly from the tearing, scorching pain of the repeated violation.

Hope answered for her mother. “No! Leave h-” Ever faster and less believably, she tried to appease the evil god. “Leave the fool, father. Sh-she’s served her purpose. We have no more use for her!”

You lie, Despair. You still desire her.

“No! Father, I-”

You have made every excuse to spare her. I chose her to bear and raise you, but she threw you away like you were garbage. And still, you chased after her as soon as you were able. Then you let the little viper poison you, even as I warned you and told you to act. You disobeyed me again and paid for it with your life. But I forgave and resurrected you, only for your to fail me a second time! You stopped Callisto from consecrating her to me as ordered, with the lie that I had more important things in mind.

Then you lied to me! Saying you were satisfied, all the while hoping that your mother would stay away from the ceremony. How your face that is hers by your own choice fell when that little pissant Ares laughed that she would come here! So, you went to her to try and keep her safe, beg her to love you, only for her to shove it in your sniveling face. And now your life yet again hangs in the balance because of her. She would kill you and your unborn child! You have forgotten him and forgotten me as you stand before me still lying on her behalf! You are pathetic, Despair! An utter failure who shames her father!

Hope sniffled, stunned. Dahak had only ever treated her with kindness and concern, comforted and looked out for her in her mother’s absence, before that moment. “I-”

Hatred like Gabrielle had never known billowed inside of her like fire, overpowering that trapping her. “You leave her alone! Leave my baby alone, do you hear me? She is my child! And her name is Hope! She can fight you! She can beat you!” Her rant paused as she tried to catch her evaporating breath. “You’ve just proven it! There is good in her! Darkness will never beat the light, Dahak; never!” Futilely, she thrashed against him.

The god laughed, full-bellied and heartless. Women are all weak. The only use I have for either one of you is to prepare my way into the world.

Gabrielle let loose another furious cry at the sight of Hope falling to her knees with tears streaming down her face. “If we’re so weak, then why is it that you need us? What have you done at all except to manipulate people into doing things you obviously can’t do yourself?”

Careful, girl, her enemy repeated his previous final words to her, his tone fearsome and then scornful as he laughed anew.

“Or, what? What can you do to me that you haven’t already done? You are nothing, Dahak! Nothing! Xena was right. All you have are fancy fireworks and a lame attempt at a religion. You will never win!”

Is that so? he sneered though he was no longer so amused.

“Yes! Goodness will prevail!”

And what goodness do you have, little one? Again, Dahak spat the endearment at his martyr.

“Every bit of what I always had. I never lost it! You couldn’t take it from me! And now I have hope again too. Mark my words. You’re going to lose, Dahak; everything! Look at Seraphin, all your disciples, priests, and priestesses! Hope herself! No one follows you of their own free will! You have to deceive, brainwash, or mind-control them! NO!” Gabrielle cut off the interruption. “The second anyone gets the chance to stop following you, they take it! Even a demon spat out by Hades himself like Khrafstar didn’t obey you for long! That’s why he—” Gabrielle darted her eyes to the side and found her daughter staring at her, captivated “—did what he did.”

And what did he do?

Her body reddened from more than the external heat. “You know what he did! And we both know what I did! I killed Meridian because, why? Trickery was involved. I wouldn’t kill for you if my life depended on it!”

Oh, but you have. Every time you’ve killed has been for me, little girl. There is no more goodness left in you. And now you will watch your hope die! Then you will die! In reality, the god would reeducate the bringer of his Destroyer once and for all, but first his chosen one would perish in their child’s true nature, despair. Dahak’s rage exploded in a fireball that immolated everything in its path.

Gabrielle screamed when Hope did, flames consuming the girl. It was the last thing she saw before she too got engulfed, but in golden sparks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 9: Hope-less

 

Hope is gone. These people’s hope is going up in smoke. Gabrielle watched the small town burn around her. It’s never coming back. She’s never coming back. The bard sighed in relief even as it hurt to breathe. And her father cannot touch me. Here I stand surrounded by fire and feel only a shadow of its heat. She stared at the tendrils of flame as they licked the villagers’ homes, then down at her boots. None of the wisps reached out to capture her around either of her ankles.

But if Gabrielle stared hard enough, she could see and feel the chafing left behind by the ropes that had held her to her cross and something else in Dahak’s temple. Her mind and eyes saw nothing more, however. Even a year later, she could not remember what had happened to her after the cult pressed in around her. Why am I still thinking about them? And why now? Because of the blaze? …No. Gabrielle closed her eyes. Because Hope is gone. My child is dead.

It had yet to be two weeks since her daughter had died for the third and final time, but for some reason, Gabrielle felt Hope’s presence more than ever in that moment. Head hung, eyes, throat, and heart burning, the childless mother did not allow herself to cry.

#

 

Still, she could not extricate herself from the past. The more she thought about it, the more she shook. This is what Xena wanted. Have we not been searching for days for a town she could use to make another stand against- …against- him? The blonde swallowed hard to keep down the bile roiling in her gut.

Xena was again chomping at the bit to lock horns with Caesar. She had promised not to get too into it, just wanted to stop the Romans from being able to hurt anyone else, but the warrior had also lugged Gabrielle across the sea only to abandon her on arrival due to being utterly consumed with that same man.

And look at what happened last time… And the time before that.

Months ago, Xena had taken up the cause of another rebel from Gaul in her fervor to frustrate Caesar and all but forced Gabrielle to participate in her deadly plans. Now another man caught in Rome’s web needs our help. Flanigus could be considered a stand-in for both Khrafstar and Vercinix. He too was a man looking to defend his way of life from Rome’s greedy bloodlust, a reluctant fighter who only wanted to save his family and hometown. The Greek mercenary seemed like a good person, but Gabrielle had thought the same thing about Khrafstar.

Subconsciously, she put up a wall against the former in self-preservation. Trust no one, she reminded herself with growing unease. Xena had long been trying to teach her that lesson. At the start of their travels, the young girl from Potadeia did not see how she would ever be able to apply that advice. Believing in other people’s innate virtue came as naturally to her as breathing did though it was not as easy to control. In her present day, Gabrielle’s scorched lungs could hardly function. And she no longer knew if she could even trust her best friend.

Squaring her shoulders, she erected a second, stronger wall around her heart. I will not let you make me a prop in your drama with Caesar again, Xena. Gabrielle shuddered upon hearing part of that phrase in the voice of a demon before plunging ahead in her resolution. Nor will I let you bully me into betraying my convictions ever again!

Memories of Crassus, almost moreso than those of Khrafstar, drained the color from her face even as nausea rose in her belly. Too late to stop it, she relived gulping as Xena dragged the Roman official behind Argo. Her friend had thought nothing of it as she leapt off her horse, but Gabrielle’s insides had both turned to water and been engulfed in flames at the sight, particularly the expression of cruel delight on Xena’s beautiful face, which the bard had seen from the dirt before being swept to the brink of death in the same fashion. Then the blonde heard herself telling Crassus that she would return his imperial ring to him so that he would not die, heard the doomed man screaming for it while its gold band flashed on her thumb as she turned away from his execution.

Gabrielle ran to spill her lunch out on the grass behind some trees. Relief overtook her with the loss of the seeming poison— the word bringing another prick to her heart— and that no one seemed to notice her brief absence, much like Xe- Focus! she exhorted herself.

#

 

”Sometimes the thoughts were too much to bear.”

“I know what you mean,” she automatically agreed, turning slightly to convey sympathy without fully opening her heart to either the woman speaking or the emotion. I can’t… Green-blue eyes darted from the mercenary’s wife to their work. Yet again drawn into her past, Gabrielle pushed herself deeper into it for once. She could barely remember being in Amanda’s position, waiting anxiously in taverns and hospices for Xena to return from various missions rather than fighting alongside the warrior.

But Flanigus was not like Xena, according to his wife. He hated violence and found no merit in it, while the warrior princess craved it in her blood and took great pleasure in drawing that of her enemies.

The villager’s parting words, “And now I finally have him back; the monster’s followed him home!” buzzed in Gabrielle’s ears.

He’s not the only one being chased by monsters, the blonde thought to herself. As such, neither am I almost made her smile.

Then the sweet boy she had met earlier in the day too sought her out for understanding and reassurance. Or, perhaps he was the only one. His neighbor was strong, strong like Xena.

Strong like I used to be, Gabrielle mused too. Warmer and more receptive to Temecula, she made herself smile so he would too, spoke lightly to him to ease the burdens he carried. Her patience began to wear a little thin when the boy expressed affection for Flanigus. A man. A man like all the others, caught up in conflicts that only bring about despair. …Despair. Hope’s father called her that. Father. ‘Like a father to me.’ But where is your father? Is this boy all alone in the world? ‘Killing people;’ you mean like I do?

Temecula’s next words stopped her derailed thoughts in their tracks. “I wonder what that’s like.” The fifteen year old elaborated upon gaining his new friend’s full attention, “To kill someone.”

Gabrielle repeated the words she and Xena had told each other exactly after a moment of staring at the boy in disquietude. “It changes everything. Everything.” Then she left him alone with the charge, to allow it to really sink in, not get lost in further discussion. She also walked away because she could no longer bear to be near such innocence.

Her thoughts jumped back to a previous thought. ‘His new friend’? Like- …Xena is like Flanigus, even though she’s not. He is this boy’s family, just like Xena is my family. Temecula does not know what it is like to kill someone but is curious about it, does not want to do it but will if he has to. Oh, gods. He is me. And I am his new friend. He trusts me and seeks me out because he thinks I have the answers to his questions, because he has no one else. His Xena is off fighting Caesar. Am I his Khrafstar? Will I lead this boy to commit murder?

No! That’s ridiculous. What a joke! Gabrielle tried to laugh at herself but could not even smile.

#

 

Xena returned to Gabrielle only to try and pull her into abhorrent machinations again. Take her to Hades in order to defeat Caesar, again. And Gabrielle felt herself falling, not wanting to but also wanting to do anything to please and appease her friend. No! I can’t! She listened stone-faced as the warrior’s words wove themselves into a familiar noose around her neck.

“There’s something else, another part of Caesar’s plan… I won’t be here when everything breaks loose. Whatever Caesar appears to do, it’s always part of a design. I’m afraid that Flanigus won’t see that. But you know Caesar. And you know how I think.”

It all made sense. It was all so rational and seemingly reasonable. That’s what made it so wrong. Not only had Xena used such tactics against her in the past, so had Hope. Her daughter too had a way of making murder sound like the most obvious answer to most any question.

Gabrielle forced herself to take a stand, braced herself for an argument she could not escape. “I can’t give the command. I cannot lead these men to their deaths.” I’m s- No, I’m not.

But Xena did not push her. Instead, she assented, “I’ll tell Flanigus,” with obvious disappointment before leaving Gabrielle alone in the chilly darkness, the little lights of their massive enemy flickering nearby.

Why, why, why? Why won’t you be here? the bard shouted in silence at her friend’s back. Why is so easy for you to walk away from me, especially when I need you most? Why do you never notice when I am in this place? …Why do you always choose taunting and bringing that man down over helping me and keeping me from falling apart? Why, why, why?

The part of Hope that remained inside her, just as Xena had told her that all children continuing to dwell in their mother’s hearts long after departing from their bodies, struck back at Gabrielle. You don’t know? her daughter asked venomously. Isn’t it the same reason it was so easy for you to choose her over me all those times?

Hope, stop it! You’re not real. And I’m not losing my mind! Gabrielle turned her thoughts from her child with great effort. Even more bitter toward Xena, she added, Of course I know Caesar! You’ve made sure I’ve been up close and personal with him enough times. The first time, he tried to crucify me! Remember? Well, he did. While you hid at my feet until the opportune moment to humiliate him, rather than preserve my dignity …my sense of safety. The last time, you left me as a bargaining chip in his palace, then had me thrown into one of his prisons so that your plans could work out. Gee, I sure hope I don’t get re-recaptured by his men while you’re off on another snit!

Here we go again…

#

 

Temecula came to her in jubilation. Rather than talk to his kinsmen, he spoke directly to Gabrielle. “It’s over! The battle! It’s over!”

Cold horror splashed in her face like water from a mountain spring. Gasping to hold onto her breath and speak, she tried to make the people of Flanigus’s village understand. Amanda, what are you thinking? the bard wanted to ask. You just said that the attack will begin with the coming dawn. How can it already be over when it hasn’t even started? Unable to reason with them, she ran straight to the mercenary.

"Flanigus, listen to me! Caesar will not retreat. He’s too arrogant. If we don’t finish what Xena started, Caesar will win. I’m positive.” Voice becoming breathy by the end of her declaration, Gabrielle felt her hope abandon her too. He’s not going to listen to me. He thinks I’m a little girl. These men are going to die. …What?

“Okay, listen up!” the soldier called to his men without taking his eyes off of her. “Before she left, Xena told me to listen to Gabrielle. Xena wanted us to trust her!” He turned to his neighbors at last, only to pivot, step back, and then straighten up to stand at attention. “You’re in command.”

By the gods! and Xena, how could you? fought in Gabrielle’s heart before taking residence in her blanking mind. What do I do? she wondered though she already knew the answer. I don’t want to be in command… Please, do it yourself. I’ve already told you what to do. Somehow, the blonde knew that wouldn’t work. Perhaps that was because it was what she wanted rather than what Xena wanted, and Xena always got her way. You win again… she thought, dazed, distracted, and detached.

#

 

So, now I will lead these people to their deaths. Even sweet Temecula is here in the middle of a war zone, a place someone like him should never be. Isn’t that right, Marmax? Her broken heart throbbed in her chest. And he will see things a child should never see, right, Solan? …Your mother gave you away to save you from this, only for you to be killed in your own home. Because I sent my child straight to you. I’m so sorry…

Opposite from what she would have expected and yet totally aligned, she thought, That’s why we have to do this. Why I have to do this. So no more children will die. …If leading these men to their graves saves their children from falling into their own— Gabrielle shivered and shuddered at the same time— and if one ch-child has to die for the sake of the others… So be it.

…I’m so sorry, Hope. Temecula.

#

 

The unwilling general charged into battle with her quarter-staff rather than a sword or any other sharp weapon. Never again would she stab someone.

Nevertheless, the people Gabrielle had killed materialized around her to speak their own names incessantly to her. Meridian, preteen Hope, clone-of-her-mother Hope, Crassus; she could not shake them any more than she could have fended off Dahak’s followers as they closed in on her, similarly chanting until they too brought Hell to Earth with her as the nexus.

Faceless, tar-covered men appeared in less substantial form, for although Gabrielle did not know whether her tipping over Xena’s cauldron onto the Persian soldiers as bidden had killed anyone, the pit in her stomach told her that it had. Her friend had been quick to assure her otherwise but had also descended to the barn’s earthen floor to clear out the bodies littering it before allowing her to even peek over the side of the loft. Just as those thoughts arose, a third Hope appeared holding hands with her son. Though The Destroyer had killed his mother that final time, and Xena had killed him, Gabrielle felt responsible for their deaths too. Seeing two identical versions of her child, the second wearing her mother’s usual outfit, the bard got the feeling that she had committed suicide too.

Solan joined the circle last but was the most solid of its members. His loss of life, she felt most culpable for, even though she had poisoned young Hope and then tackled her into a lava pit. Gabrielle could almost believe that she didn’t have a choice in any of the later incidences and that there was little blame in them. Everyone after Solan had died for the greater good or some other lofty ideal, mostly because Xena had made it so. Furthermore, motherhood had been forced on the bard in an instant, was to a being that was not human. And Gabrielle hadn’t meant to kill Meridian, would never have done so if she had known the consequences it entailed, the cruel deception that led them to that place. But the boy…

The boy! “Temecula! Temecula! The signal! Now!” To the rest of the Greek militia, Gabrielle cried, “Get ready to pull back! When the catapults hit!” She wanted to scream more but had to do a complete 180 after Caesar’s second-in-command again called for his forces to pull back. It’s the same trick! As soon as her men’s backs were turned, arrows and spears and javelins would be sprouting from them, she knew. “We can’t let ’em fall back!” she cried to the villagers, hoping they would not question her conflicting commands, but simply obey the latest ones.

It was what Xena expected of her, which she usually fulfilled, after all.

Maybe being the one issuing orders isn’t as great as I thought it was, flitted through Gabrielle’s mind.

#

 

The battling bard of Potadeia once more found herself surrounded by chaos and devastation, men falling and flames leaping everywhere she looked. Weary enough to feel her shattered heart crumble and be trampled underfoot, ready to let her body fall after it, she stopped fighting. I can’t do this anymore.

Perhaps Flanigus is like Xena after all, Gabrielle thought dully as her aimless gaze clapped upon the person who had wormed his way into her heart without her notice raising his sword in triumph after cutting a Roman down, a proud snarl on his face. Then she saw Caesar’s second-in-command stalk up behind him. “Look out!” she shouted with all her might.

Brought to his knees by the surprise blow, the Greek mercenary lifted his sword to stop his attacker’s.

Gabrielle used the time he had bought them to force herself to pick up a spear. I have to; I have to! she tried to psyche herself up to put a blade into another person’s body, to convince herself to once more betray her deep convictions for a man she barely knew.

Meridian’s haunting smile flashed before her mind’s eye just as Hope stepped forward from the ring of shades.

 “No, mother,” the demon-child said lowly, raising a hand first to stop Gabrielle and then flinging it outward to telekinetically send her weapon off-course.

The blonde froze for the untold time. That; that wasn’t real. There’s no way. I threw the spear true, and it hit its mark! she thought in direct conflict with what she had believed immediately after plunging the ceremonial dagger into the priestess’s side.

But she had never held a spear before, save the one she had knocked the head off of in Morpheus’s dreamscape. And Hope was gone, long gone, never to be seen again. Hadn’t Gabrielle’s whole body spasmed the second before the wooden shaft left her fingertips? Did my muscles refuse to cooperate with my will, just like-

In an instant, it did not matter. The spear twanged in a dirt pile while Flanigus’s internal organs fluttered around the sword impaling them.

“Noooo!” Gabrielle cried.

Then another impossible thing happened. As if her refusal had turned solid between them, something hit the second man right where the bard had sent her feelings, into his heart.

She flinched with a sharp inhale as her wild eyes cast around for the person who had shot the all-too-real arrow sticking out of the soldier’s chest.

Just as in Dahak’s temple, the world ended when Gabrielle found that the Roman’s killer was the boy she had come to think of as a version of herself.

So, I did lead you into needless slaughter. I made you kill, because I couldn’t. What have I done? What have you done? Oh, Temecula…

Once more, the child looked to her for reassurances she did not have, so the makeshift general ran for Flanigus.

He too smiled at Celesta as she came for him, mollifying and horrifying Gabrielle at the same time. It’s happening again. It’s all happening again… she realized.

The same evil had yet again come back around wearing a different face, only to take off its mask at the last second as a way of affirming that she would never be free of it.

Everything in Gabrielle raged against the unbearable verdict.

#

 

Empty, purposeful words mirrored their origin as Gabrielle gave Xena an update on what had happened in her unnecessary absence. The bard later told her friend what she herself took as truth: “I could have saved him.” I could have saved them both, she did not say. Then she asked how to get over that fact, listening and not to Xena’s response.

The pyres before her brought to mind Solan’s and Hope’s. Xena had been beside her back then too. But their positions had reversed. The one currently looking to connect was the warrior, while Gabrielle kept her teary eyes on the burning body before her.

“I can’t answer that question. Maybe ’cuz there’s nothing I can say that can take away that feeling you have.”

But why, Xena? Why? Why can you never help me anymore? Don’t you know I need you to have all the answers? Green-blue eyes found the person who had similarly looked to her for answers, whom she had let down. Because there are no answers, she knew too. Wanly, she tried not to cry. Fury, hatred, hurt, and loss filled her when Xena’s continuing speech blew apart the one thing they both had come to rely on.

“You wanna know that what you did was for all the right reasons. But with that pain in your gut and the weight on your shoulders, the best you can come up with is that it was a good day of fighting.”

So, there is no greater good, is there? That was all a crock. …I always knew that. Again, the blonde tried to find that silver lining she so desperately needed. But thank you for finally telling me the truth. …Or thank me for finally being able to hear it.

Xena was on a similar mental wavelength. “I’ve seen so many changes in you. Things I could never’ve expected. But as hard as the changes have been, you’ve gotta know that it’s for a reason. All this is for a reason! Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Gabrielle lost her breath in a painful exhale as she shook her head. I don’t know; I don’t know…

The words of her denial disguised as Ares came back to her as she tried to wipe away her tears. ‘Point? There is no point to living. Don’t you get it, Gabrielle? Maybe, that’s the source of all your pain. All you’ve been through with Xena, all she’s put you through; maybe you finally realized it all adds up to a big, fat zero!’

You’re wrong! the blonde thought much more weakly than she had screamed it between the Rivers of Memory.

Xena intervened on her behalf. “I was asking myself that same question when I first met you.”

Gabrielle’s internal monologue turned outward. So now I’m you? That’s better than being Khrafstar. I- …I guess I can be the hero you once were to me. Again, her eyes found the sad, quiet boy across the way from her. I have to… “I should talk to Temecula. I should tell him that, that what he did was for the greater good, and there is a reason for it.” It’s not a lie. It’s something to hold onto; I get that now. “It was a good day of fighting,” she reflected back to Xena to conclude their conversation. Pain radiated from Gabrielle’s soul even as she smiled, trying and failing to give her friend comfort too. Still, I love you, Xena, she once more sent to the woman who was her whole life before turning and walking away from her.

#

 

A broken heart in human form edged around the funeral pyres, cleaving to the facts that Hope and Solan were not in them and that it was only parting ways with its other half temporarily. Gabrielle reminded herself that she and Xena still loved each other dearly, were not in conflict, and would always return to each other.

But her hope was still gone. Gone and dead, never to return.

Why do I keep thinking of you this day, my love? The bard’s secret mourning for her child had been overtaken by her severe ailments, the absorption and fury they and everything connected to them had caused her. Are my thoughts drawn to you because of all the flames?

Tendrils from the bonfire cremating Flanigus reached for her on the wind as she passed him with her head down. The dizzying sensation of being lifted up and then suspended in space, then earthbound and trying her hardest to not release ultimate evil onto the world, alight with Dahak’s flames both times, told her everything she needed to know.

Oh! H-happy; happy f-first birthday, Hope… She choked on the thought as she hitched a melancholic smile to her face and approached Temecula.

 

 

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