~ How the Mighty Have Fallen ~
by Jacques Ser
mightyjacques.ser@gmail.com

Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me; I'm just borrowing them briefly.

I sing of Gabrielle, the girl I love, who loves another. Best friend to Xena. Best friend to me.

Okay, okay, so the opening's not mine so much as it's Gabrielle's. I lifted it off one of her scrolls while she was sleeping one night. Changed it around a bit. I admit it, all right? I'm not the bard, Gabrielle is. I could never be as good as her. She writes so beautifully, so poetically that I... well, I love her. Anything she wrote would be perfect. If she wrote me directions to get lost I'd frame it and swear that East never looked so right as it did in her script. But that's not why I love her. Why she loves her. Her writing is just one part of her - a big part, but not all the pieces. You've got to understand that to understand her. And them.

I'm a warrior. One of the toughest, biggest, most loyal warriors there ever was. Joxer the Mighty. Joxer the Bloody. So why take the time away from all the warrior stuff, all the fighting and sparring and general sword sharpening to write a scroll? I guess I had to write it. Someone had to. Gabrielle was always too busy writing about all her and Xena's big adventures to write about all the little ones that happened in between. Thought it was a shame that all the other stuff was getting forgotten. Like the time I rescued them from a burning inn. Or when we all found ourselves too close to a pack of stray dogs, real angry, hungry dogs. Big as horses. Things like that.

Maybe the first one isn't entirely true. There was a fire, but they ended up saving me. And I might have started it. Unintentionally, of course. I didn't mean it as a lie or anything, more like creative license. Gabby told me bards could take creative license with their stories. She hates it when I call her Gabby, but it slips out sometimes.

And if we're being honest, it wasn't a pack of horse-sized strays. It was a puppy. It followed us for days until we found it a home in the next village. Gabrielle gave up part of her dinner each night to that mutt. She loved him. It might have been the fire's shadow, but I swear I even saw Xena slip him a few scraps. We were always doing things like that, being nice to the little guy. They taught me about the greater good. Gabrielle must have seen some greater good in that dog, some good that Xena and I had missed. Xena went along with it. She learned some things, too.

Gabrielle gave me this scroll to write on, one from her own stash. I don't kid myself about why she gave it to me. Probably to keep me out of her way. Keep me busy. To give me a piece of herself to have close at night. All right, so I kid myself a little. The scroll's tucked away behind my chest plate, safe with all my important things like my lucky rabbit's foot and a lock of Gabrielle's hair. I kid myself a lot.

---

Xena and Gabrielle are my best friends. My only real friends. I get on their nerves sometimes. You'd think more on Xena's than Gabrielle's, but I'd say their intolerance of me was on par. They love me, though. I know it. I can feel it. Sometimes they just got short. But that's what happens with friends as close as we are. That's why this scroll is with all my treasures, kept against my heart. Their friendship means the world to me. I want to try and write that down.

We weren't always best friends. Back when I was a ruthless killer, back before I turned good like Xena, I tried to kidnap Gabrielle to earn my way into Callisto's good graces. What an idiot I was. I got called that a lot, even by Xena and Gabrielle sometimes, but if some jerk in an inn or tavern made fun of me, they were the first ones defending me. Big, tough guys like me don't need protection, but it's nice to know your friends have your back.

Everyone thinking you're an idiot has its advantages, though. People say things in front of you they might not in front of somebody else. You hear things. You see things. It's one of the only advantages I have. Gabrielle and Xena? Sometimes they thought I didn't notice. Or that I was too oblivious to put two and two together. Oblivious? Nah, but denial and oblivion sometimes come across the same. I could see how they got that confused.

It was always them. They together. They as a pair. They who let me tag along with them. I got that. I didn't fool myself about that, maybe about a lot of other things, but never that. I knew there was no coming between them. They'd been friends since before I came along.

---

After we stopped Callisto, the first time, there were other times but I'm getting ahead of myself. We've got to start at the beginning. Gabrielle told me stories need structure. After we first stopped Callisto, I kept close to them for a few days. I never stayed in one place long, but for those few days I tried. I tried real hard until I got too restless sitting by the same campfire each night and had to move on to my next big adventure. I wasn't sad because I knew we'd meet again. I'd made sure of that. But there was something about those few nights that cemented in my mind how much I loved those two. How much I wanted to be able to say they were my friends.

They had an unspoken routine all laid out. I guess travelling with someone for so many moons does that to you. They sent me off to collect firewood. We had lots, but the nights got cold; that's what they told me, so off I went.

Xena had caught a few fish in the river. Gabrielle cleaned and cooked them while Xena watched and sharpened her sword. I came back to the edge of camp with a few good sized branches in my arms and saw them there, quiet and perfect. I didn't want to interrupt. I've never forgotten how they looked that night, or what happened. You just don't forget important beginnings like that.

Gabrielle stared into the fire, turning over the fish in the frying pan. Xena went on sharpening her sword with her whetstone. Shh. Shh. Shh. It was such a gentle sound to be coming from so large and dangerous a weapon. That music knew nothing of the blood spilled from its instrument. Gabrielle closed her eyes and listened. I closed my eyes too. The tall grasses rustled in the wind. Birds flew past, their wings beating the air. They called out, but no one answered. I wish I had. And there was Xena's sword. Whispering. Shh. Shh. Shh. The afternoon was fading and I opened my eyes, sure that that was the sound of the sunset.

Xena was so focused on her sword that I thought she hadn't seen the tears in Gabrielle's eyes. I saw them on her cheeks, almost orange in the fire's light. I had seen them, but was sure that Xena hadn't or at least had pretended not to. I was never sure how the two of them got together, the opposites they were. Why Xena, the reclusive ex-warlord, let that young girl follow her around. Maybe she saw something in her the same way Gabrielle saw something in that stray dog. Possibility and love.

Xena did see. Tossing her sword into the dirt, she moved to Gabrielle's side and put her arm around her back.

"Don't cry," she said and Gabrielle cried louder and longer and sadder. "Please, don't cry. I don't know what to do."

Gabrielle turned into Xena's shoulder, sniffling her nose against her leathers. "You're doing just fine."

I didn't mean to move, but I did, and my armour clanged together, enough to give me away. Gabrielle pulled away first and walked off, mentioning something about Argo. I didn't remember until later that night, or realize the importance, but Argo was grazing in the other direction.

"I brought wood," I said. I didn't know what else to say. I guess Xena didn't know what to say either. She kept turning her head to where Gabrielle had wandered off. Her sword lay on the ground, covered in soil and bugs. She didn't notice, didn't even pick it back up until Gabrielle returned. They sat in their same spots, on opposite sides of the fire and Xena began sharpening her sword. Gabrielle took the fish off the fire. They were burnt. Everything was forgotten and back as it was.

That night, long after we had laid down and gone to sleep, I heard them whisper behind my turned back.

"Xena?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you all right?"

Xena rustled and mumbled she was.

"I just keep thinking about it," Gabrielle admitted.

"About what?" Xena replied in a hoarse voice.

"Everything, I guess. Calisto. The fight. The dart..."

"I'm okay Gabrielle."

"I know, but you could have died. I thought you did. And then the fight? I could have died."

"It's a lot of coulds. But we're okay, right? You're okay?"

Gabrielle didn't reply. I heard her get up and drag something light across camp. Her bedroll? I couldn't be sure by the sound alone. Gabrielle's voice was closer and softer.

"We'll be okay," she said and I realized then what Gabrielle had noticed and I had overlooked. Xena's hoarse voice was not from having been awoken, but from emotions everyone assumed the Warrior Princess lived without.

Callisto was always a sore spot for Xena. Gabrielle pulled me aside after Callisto got taken away and told me everything about Cirra. She didn't want me sticking my foot in my mouth. She said, "Joxer, try not to talk tonight. Or tomorrow. Or ever. You'll upset her." It made sense. Let me understand Callisto and Xena a little better. All that guilt and revenge going round and round puts things into perspective.

They fell asleep side by side and I rolled over to watch them through the flames. I couldn't help but think that Xena had watched that fire and seen Cirra. The funny thing is that before they spoke, I remember Gabrielle being asleep. Steady breathing. Not the breathing of someone troubled by the day. That's the funny thing...the thing I can't get my mind past.

I left the morning after, bidding my new friends farewell with a promise to meet up with them soon. I didn't want to be away long, but my visits were always sporadic. If they travelled out of Greece I might not have seen them for seasons. Or if I got busy. Or if no one had heard word of them for a few days and I lost their trail. Apart, I thought of my friends often. Everything was more interesting with those two. Trouble found them, but most of the time they let themselves be found.

---

After Callisto, it was Bacchus. But before Bacchus I was running around delivering messages and drinking my way through Greece's finest taverns helping villagers here and there. Messenger boy to Bacchae slayer. See what I mean about things being more interesting?

Then Gabrielle went and married Perdicus. It surprised us all I think, especially Xena. She'd given her blessing, but that was because Gabrielle so desperately needed to hear it, needed to believe it was for the best. Gabrielle wrote about Perdicus. About the Trojan war. His need to stop fighting. His proposal. Their marriage. And his murder by Callisto. She wrote about that, so I won't. I wouldn't do it justice. But there were parts she left out. Parts she wasn't around for. And parts she might not have noticed in all her excitement and sadness.

Her wedding night was the night Xena and I realized what we had lost. It was so quiet around that damn fire without her. We knew she was gone, but our instincts had yet to realize. We sat there, she and I, staring at that accidental third portion of dinner, missing her. It was as if that soup laughed at us. Whether it was my company, or the lack of Gabrielle's, Xena couldn't stand to be there. She kicked that soup across our camp and took off to find Theodorus.

Xena had stood for Gabrielle at her wedding. I stood for Perdicus. After the ceremony, we put on our smiles, clapped hands, clapped backs, and kissed cheeks. Xena didn't mean any of it. Gods know she tried, but I saw her face straighten when she looked at Gabrielle, looking at Perdicus, and knew it was a hoax.

"Joxer," Xena said, guiding Gabrielle to the door, "take a walk."

I practically scurried away. They spoke, about what I've never been privy to, but I watched them. I watched them a lot over the years.

Xena leaned down to kiss Gabrielle, hiding her disappointment over their embracing arms. That expression, that look of sadness, I'll never forget. Gabrielle walked off on Perdicus' arm and Xena watched them go, clutching Gabrielle's bouquet of flowers.

"Goodbye, Gabrielle," she whispered.

I walked out of my corner towards her. "It's not goodbye, Xena. We'll see her again."

She didn't answer, just lifted those flowers to her nose and closed her eyes.

"She didn't say it back," I told her.

"Say what?" She stared at me, so fierce and interested at what I had to say.

"When the priest finished and Perdicus said 'I love you, Gabrielle', she didn't say it back."

"She didn't?"

"Nope. Weird huh?"

"Yah, Joxer. Weird."

She walked off and I saw her smile. I remember because no one smiled for a while after.

Xena had arrived just in time to save Gabrielle from Callisto. Her first instinct was to protect her friend; she never factored in Perdicus, never had time to save him too. Gabrielle took his death hard, of course. Who wouldn't in her place? But Gabrielle? Well, she loved harder and easier than anyone I've ever met. His death changed her for a while. She wasn't the Gabrielle Xena and I knew, or expected her to be.

At campfire that night, it was worse than when she hadn't been with us. She sat there, broken and almost frightening with her rage. Xena promised over and over that she'd take care of Callisto. It was all she could offer our friend. Selfishly, we needed Gabrielle, the old Gabrielle. We needed her to tell us about love ending hate. We needed that reminder. But how could we remember that lesson? reteach it to her? when she was so dark and foreign.

Xena knew taking on Callisto and her army, on their own turf, was suicide. She told me to keep away and walked on, head high, almost at peace with it. Things ended differently than any of us expected and Xena didn't die. But she would have. She would have fallen on her own sword if it meant seeing that light back in Gabrielle's eyes. Even if just for one quick look before she passed over. I'd like to think I would have too.

---

So much happened over the next few moons that we couldn't help but change. Xena did eventually die, not for Gabrielle, but for a little girl. And Gabrielle had almost died to bring Xena back to our world. I heard of Xena's death and tried frantically to find Gabrielle. I figured she'd need someone to comfort her. To lean on.

By the time I found her, I found Xena too. Alive. It was one of the few times Xena let me hug her. Seeing her almost caused me to faint, but I hugged her tighter and tighter until I lost that dizziness and Xena lost her patience.

Gabrielle stood close to Xena the whole time, and probably still did after I'd gone. She touched her a lot, little brushes on her arm here and there. I think maybe she had to keep checking.

Gabrielle looked terrible. First thing I noticed when I saw them was how awful she looked. Her eyes were so sunken, her skin so pale, that you'd think it was she who had died. You'd be right, in a way. They weren't meant to be apart. It killed her when Xena died. I really believe that.

Perdicus had died not that long before Xena. But their deaths were so different. Xena came back. And if we're gonna be real particular about it, she came back because of Gabrielle. And Gabrielle didn't take their deaths the same way either. With Perdicus, she only wanted revenge, at least in the beginning. She forgot about everything she believed in for the chance of killing Callisto. When Xena died, Gabrielle was empty. Lost. She didn't want to kill anyone. She just wanted to live with the Amazons and honour Xena's memory. See the difference?

Gabrielle did.

We'd left the Amazons and set up in the surrounding forest. We were taking it easy, with Xena being back from the dead and all. You couldn't really blame her for being stiff, but she did. Xena went off to stretch and curse a little by the river, and there was me and Gabrielle, all alone.

"You okay?" I asked her.

She looked at me like I'd asked her the stupidest question there was. I knew she wasn't okay, but you always ask someone that anyway. It's what you ask when you don't know how else to begin.

"Well, I mean...Perdicus and Xena? And so close together."

Her face changed from 'Joxer, you're an idiot' to surprise. She didn't say anything, so I kept going.

"I'm real proud of you, Gabrielle. I don't know how you're keeping it together."

"Xena," she said quietly. "It's because Xena's back. She's keeping me together." It sounded like a revelation. "When she died all I thought about was getting her home. To her brother. She came back and... now, it's like he's died all over again."

She got up and left. I hadn't meant to upset her. I felt real awful. Part of me thought that maybe she wasn't upset that he was gone, but that she had forgotten him so easily.

Xena came back just as Gabrielle was leaving.

"Where's she going?" she asked.

"To talk to Perdicus, I guess."

Xena sat down against a rock, suddenly looking small. "Oh."

"Maybe to say she's sorry."

"Sorry? What's Gabrielle got to be sorry for?"

"You died, Xena."

"I know, Joxer. One doesn't normally forget their own death."

"It was a real lousy thing to do!" I said, suddenly angry. This was the first time I'd really spoken up to Xena. I didn't care that I might make her mad. I just didn't. I stood up to stare her down, make her look even smaller. "You died and she forgot him. She forgot about everything and everyone but you. It was a real lousy thing to do...." I sat back down and tried to smooth things over. "But you came back. That counts. She couldn't have gone on much longer without you, you know."

"I know," she said, and we said nothing more.

Gabrielle kissed Xena that night. They thought I was asleep because I was snoring and snoring to make it seem that way. I couldn't sleep, but I didn't want to be the reason that Gabrielle stayed put and got scared.

She pulled her bedroll next to Xena, which was why I'd been making all those noises. If she was touching Xena to make sure she was real during the day, what about the night? I'd be the most scared at night if I was Gabrielle. More a chance that your dreams tell you otherwise. That maybe Xena was dead after all.

So she moved across camp and Xena lifted up her own blanket to let her under. Xena closed her eyes and I almost followed, but then Gabrielle touched Xena's cheek. She touched her cheek, leaned in, and kissed her.

I stopped snoring and rolled onto my side away from them. They froze. As much as I loved them, I just couldn't help it. I did it on purpose. I wanted them to stop. It hurt too much to let it happen.

They waited awhile before they spoke. The fire had burned low and the camp was darker, more private.

"Gabrielle..." Xena whispered, maybe starting to say how they couldn't be together. Or maybe that it was too soon. Maybe she'd been waiting for this forever. There were a thousand possible maybes for Xena to say, but she didn't say a one of them.

"Gabrielle," she said again. It was all she could say. Neither disproving or encouraging. Hopeful or frightened. It was all she could say, but it said it all.

I imagined they kissed again. I saw Gabrielle smiling in her sleep with Xena's arms around her. I dreamt it was me, though. That it was me she kissed. That was about the time I realized I loved Gabrielle.

---

My first big adventure with Xena back wasn't all that big.

We were walking towards Amphipolis to visit Xena's mother, Cyrene; dying makes you remember all the things you'd be leaving and home was always one of those things.

A day away from a meal not fish and a bed not on the grass, we found a family on the side of the road. An entire family. The whole gang. From grandma to second cousin. They were moving from one town to another, taking with them a wagon, two horses and a donkey.

They were attacked, or I should say their horses were attacked the night before we met them. Some big beastie took one look at those horses and thought, dinner.

That family took one look at the three of us with our great Argo and thought, the Gods have heard our prayers.

They should have been clearer in their wording, maybe. When they prayed for a horse to replace their own, they should have prayed that the owner was someone they could actually steal the horse from. They made the same two mistakes as those before them and those before them; being on the bigger side doesn't mean you're on the winning side. The other mistake? Well, a staff sure can look like a walking stick.

We raised our hands in greeting as one man stepped out from the rest of the group.

"Hey there!" he called.

Gabrielle answered and walked over to shake his offered hand.

It happened quick. Not even a seasoned warrior like me saw it happen. That man who called to us and looked to shake Gabby's hand didn't shake at all, but pulled her against his chest, she facing us, and his dagger against her throat. He held it so tight it creased her skin.

"Not a move there," he said. "I mean it. We just want your horse is all. No reason she has to get hurt."

The rest of the men stood behind him, holding branches sharpened to spears.

Xena raised her hands. I raised mine.

"Not a move," she said, "I promise."

Gabrielle swung her staff against the nose of her assailant. Brought her innocent looking stick across his back and dropped him to his knees. And all this time Xena sat there on Argo, not moving just like she had promised.

Gabrielle ran to Argo and grasped Xena's lowered hand.

"Let me see," Xena said.

A smiling, thin red line cut across her throat. Deep enough to break skin.

Xena pulled her sword and Gabrielle stopped her with a light touch to her knee.

"Xena," she said calmly, "I'm sure they have a reason. They were desperate. Down to their last dinar. And look, one of their horses has died."

The man with the dagger, the appointed leader of the bunch, dropped his weapon to the ground and nodded and nodded like Gabrielle was the goddess of wisdom herself. Athena, come down to explain how this was all some misunderstanding.

"All right then. What's your reason. And it'd better be damn good." Xena jutted her sword as she spoke, making the man more and more nervous.

"Well, you see... we were desperate! Down to our last dinar. And look," he pointed to the dead horse, "one of our horses has died!"

Xena made a noise in her throat, somewhere along an acknowledgement and a warning. The man chuckled nervously. I don't think Xena saw the humour.

"What're we going to do, Xena?" I asked.

She looked down to Gabrielle, like it was she who had raised the question. Gabrielle smiled and nodded.

"We're going to help them get wherever it is they're going," Xena said.

She swung off her saddle and handed the reins to Gabrielle. With a nod towards the wagon, she sent Gabrielle and I off to attach Argo beside the other horse. Xena, with her arm around the leader's shoulders like they were the best of friends, walked off into a dense patch of forest. They came back as we were cinching the last of the straps and that man's sorry face was housing one heck of a black eye. Neither of them said a thing about it the whole way to Mount Pangaeum.

The man with the black eye, his name was Alcaeus. He was the oldest brother. When his father died he became the head of the family. It was his decision to move. His decision to leave. His decision not to have someone stand watch over the horses that night. Gabrielle learned all this on our long walk to their new village. She could forgive so easily.

Now Xena, well Xena couldn't forgive as quick. But she knew everything there was to know about second chances. And Alcaeus was a nice enough guy when he wasn't trying to rob us.

We travelled four days and three nights with Alcaeus and his whole family. All twenty-three of them. Argo wasn't real happy about becoming some ordinary work horse. She was used to battles and victories and the spoiled weight of just one rider, sometimes two, but Gabrielle didn't weigh much. Pulling a wagon was a whole different story for Argo. But Xena would rub her down every night and whisper how great she was doing over and over.

I think poor Argo missed running the most.

When you're used to freedom, being tied down and told to slow down, slow down, slow down, takes a toll on you. Same with Xena.

The two of them would go off at night just to run. The pace of twenty-three, twenty-six us included, felt like eternity for them.

We slept away from Alcaeus' family, far enough to give both parties privacy, but close enough that Xena could watch over us all. Gabrielle always visited the other camp before all the children went to sleep. She'd tell stories around the fire, one lucky kid on her knee, the rest all scattered by her feet. Xena would be off pushing Argo faster and faster and I'd keep watch while she was gone. Mostly, I just watched Gabrielle and those children.

Xena came back early on the second night, caught me sitting at the forest's edge listening to Gabrielle. She didn't get mad, like I worried she would, but sat down beside me cross-legged with her chin on her fist. She looked like one of those kids.

"All clear?" she asked.

"Uh, I guess so." Truth was, I hadn't been listening for snapping branches or the cries of hungry animals. Only thing I heard was Gabrielle.

"There's room next to Gabrielle," I told her.

She shook her head and kept listening, happy to be tucked away in the shadows.

Even though Xena was there when Gabrielle wrote the story, even though she was the hero and knew how everything ended, she still gasped at all the surprising parts, smiled at all the happy and laughed at all the funny. She laughed so loud that Gabrielle heard. She didn't look our way, just smiled and continued her story a little louder so Xena and I could hear better.

The story ended and Gabrielle started bouncing kids on her knee and answering questions about the great Warrior Princess. Was she as strong as ten men? Maybe even twenty. What was her favourite colour? Green.

We left them with a final glance and Xena joined the last of my watch.

"Why'd you agree to help these people?" I asked her. "I mean, look what they did to Gabrielle."

"Because Gabrielle was right, Joxer. These people are desperate. And desperate people will do desperate things, especially when it comes to family."

I slowed to think about her words. It was true, Gods know I'd do more than threaten a few people if I was in Alcaeus' place. If Xena or Gabrielle were in trouble...why, I'd challenge Ares himself, all of Rome, anybody if it would help.

"They're sure lucky they met us and not somebody else."

"Why's that?" she asked.

"Well, if it was somebody else, maybe they would have fought back and it wouldn't just be that horse dead on the road."

She stopped suddenly. "I knew Gabrielle could get out of it. But if she hadn't...if something had gone wrong." She shook her head and looked up at me, her face as sad and dark as night itself.

The forest was quiet all around. Gabrielle's voice called out to us and Xena walked towards her, possessed as if the sirens were singing her forward.

Alone, I rethought what I'd said. They weren't lucky they met us. They were lucky they met Gabrielle. I remembered the look on Xena's face when she pulled her sword. How quickly it tamed with Gabrielle's touch. Desperate people will do desperate things, Xena had said. I ran to catch up.

---

Gabrielle loved me once. She was in love with me, and I with her. It was the hardest time of my life, having that which was nothing more than the fallacy of Cupid's arrow. Fallacy of Cupid's arrow? Good huh? I think I'm getting better at this whole bard thing.

I should have known something was wrong from the beginning. Gabrielle loved Xena. Not me. I knew that, but when she looked at me that way, spoke to me like I was some great lover and not some great loser, I let myself forget.

Every moment with her was torment and beauty. The harder she fell for me, the more I let myself pretend it was all real. I pushed aside the inevitable truth that Gabrielle would awaken from my dreams. She'd go back to loving Xena and I would be left with bitter remembrances of an impossible future.

Cupid came and put things right. Everyone loved exactly who they were supposed to.

Gabrielle laughed after, said the idea of us was ridiculous. And it was, I guess. She walked off to lay out her bedroll. Xena followed her, but not before touching my shoulder. She didn't say anything, but I understood. I'm sorry.

I stayed awake that night alone by the fire. Xena came back near dawn and sat beside me.

"Joxer," she said.

"It's okay, Xena. It was all just some stupid spell. Nothing to get upset about. How can you miss something that wasn't real, right?"

"It was real to you."

I looked at her, shame in my eyes.

"It's all right," she said, "You'd have to be cold as stone to be around Gabrielle and not love her."

"You won't tell her?"

"Never."

We sat there, both loving her silently and sure.

And though no arrow pierced my heart, a hole still lay there. Some nights I wish she'd never loved me, never kissed me, never given me that hope. But then I feel her there against my lips and smile. To have had my love returned, even if just for those few false hours was enough for me to live and dream.

---

As a warrior, you worry what will happen to you after you die. Not about Tartarus... but here. Your body. Will someone claim it as treasure? Evidence of their great victory. Or for bounty? Your blood for coin. Drip for drip.

It's silly to worry, but you do. You hate to think about yourself laying in some field getting eaten by crows. Forgotten. You always worry about being forgotten.

We were headed north of Somewhere, just east of Nowhere when we found him. I still see him sometimes when the leaves move like they're feeling the air or when birds fly off the ground in great dark clouds. I'm not scared when I see him, just lonely.

Xena saw him first. I was walking up ahead, leading the way, scouting for danger, when I could no longer hear Argo's hooves against the gravel and dirt.

"What's going on?" I yelled.

Xena pointed beside me; I screamed and jumped back, falling to the ground.

The tree would have been real beautiful any other day. The sun was setting behind it, outlining all the green in great shades of orange and yellow. The branches were higher than high and thick and strong. Dozens of birds stared down at us. The whole tree was watching.

The wind blew the leaves and the legs of that dead hanging man. His boots hit together like he was nervous to be meeting us. I'd never seen anything like it, never seen a man die this way, and by his own choosing no less.

Xena and Gabrielle jumped off Argo and stood beside me, all our eyes on that one man. What are we going to do? I thought to ask, but refrained. It was obvious what we would do.

They started rummaging through saddlebags and gathering proper sticks. I didn't ask to help.

I stepped closer and closer until I stood before him, arching my neck up to meet his face. His eyes were open like he was surprised, maybe that he'd done it or that it had worked. I think he wanted to see everything before he saw nothing. That's what I'd want.

I've seen death before, I was no stranger to a corpse. But those bodies were bodies, bloody, cut and dead. This man...this man did not look dead, and if it were not for the rope around his neck and the red raw flesh beneath, I could convince myself he was alive and waiting patiently. Maybe waiting for us.

Xena climbed the tree and perched herself where the birds had sat. The rope cut quickly under her dagger and she held it, held him, until Gabrielle and I could reach and lower him to the ground.

"Close his eyes," Gabrielle said, "Close them. Please."

I was grateful of her request. His eyes bore into all of us as we laid him on the crude sled. Shy under his gaze, Xena carefully brushed her palm over his face and he slept.

We saw our own mortality and were frightened.

I am ashamed to admit, but I left Xena and Gabrielle to finish covering and securing the body. I needed reprieve from death. Slowly and crudely, I carved my name into the trunk of a tree. Not his tree, but another. It was like every tree and part of the collective forest. No one would take great notice of this particular tree. Riders would ride by. Walkers walk. And runners run. One person might see my work, see my name and that was enough.

We would not leave him behind, would not bury him without ensuring someone was notified. Family. Friends. Anyone who would remember.

It wasn't easy, but we took him with us.

Behind Argo, the sled dug two deep lines that followed us from town to town. Last in our grim parade, I walked slow and heavy. This wasn't a grand adventure, like our others, but a necessary one.

We made reasons for him while we walked, for why he'd done what he did. We needed reason to understand. Three towns and we would get no answer.

No one had seen him before or even had a guess at who he might be. All families were whole. Everyone accounted for. He did not belong to any of them.

There were no other towns nearby, no possible locations that we could rationalize dragging that man any further. The smell alone was enough.

We found a nice spot. We dug and dug until it was night and our arms screamed and said, 'no more'. I'll remember the way the dirt fell. The way the white shroud disappeared until only one speck remained, then no more. Brown, all brown.

A pile of rocks marked his grave. And despite our best intentions, grass would grow over, the rocks tumble and he would be forgotten.

---

You could measure the years through Gabrielle. Every season her hair got lighter and lighter until it was no longer reddish, but blonde. She grew up faster than a lot of people; being on the road so young does that. Makes you older, inside and out, before the Fates had spun it.

Gabrielle was always real lost in those early years. She kissed a lot of boys trying to figure herself out. Told herself she was in love with each of them; I met her when she was older.

One day, she told me she left home because her parents had had this idea of who she should be. It's hard to grow up, she said, when your life's already been lived for you. Mistakes and scrapes are life's way of showing your character.

Xena came along, saved Gabrielle's village and gave that girl from Poteidaia a chance to walk a different path. That didn't stop Gabrielle from trying to prove herself, though. She didn't care one bit about what other people thought of her, just Xena.

The two of them went off to India and Gabrielle found a new path, one with peace and love...and a haircut. They discovered their eternity together. Life after life. And I wondered if was I there in their forever, or just passing through this one brief time.

I had nightmares of them long after I'd last seen them. I knew they needed my help, I could feel it, and set off to find them. I knew where to walk, what paths to take, as if someone was pulling me forward, my armour attached to string.

No nightmare would rival what I saw. Their bodies, my friends, hung on display like Caesar's great trophies. My friends! My friends...

How long did they hang there? How long until they died? Was it the cold that killed them or the slow bleeding wounds on their hands and feet? Oh Gods. How long...

If I had been there with them, what futures would we have retold?

How naive, how naive! I am no great hero! What good would I have done? My presence would only guarantee my death, helpless to stop their own.

Their new friends, Eli and Amarice, stood watch before I arrived. They loved Xena and Gabrielle, but not like me. No one would love them, miss them, more than me.

"I'm going to take their bodies back to Greece," I told them and they helped without hesitation.

We would kill, risk life, our own if needed. They would lie together, side by side; I know that's what they would have wanted.

We took shelter with their bodies to hide from Romans and worsening weather. Numb, I could not feel, I could not think.

How I wish the things I might have done. The things I might have said.

I fell to my knees and wept and wept.

They looked so cold I longed to warm them. My lips against their own, my warm breath against their cheeks.

Wake up.

Wake up.




the end.



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