DISCLAIMER: Xena, Gabrielle, Melinda Pappas, and Janice Covington, as well as all other characters which originally appeared in the television series Xena: Warrior Princess, are the property of MCA, Universal, and Renaissance Pictures. Kaitlyn Velasquez is the sole property and creation of the author. Any resemblance, physical or otherwise, between Kaitlyn and the author is entirely intentional, although it is likely that much of it is actually just a figment of the author's imagination, brought on by a bout of wishful thinking. The authenticity of various aspects of the story was insured as much as possible, but this being the Xenaverse and all, the author humbly hopes that any inconsistencies and inaccuracies that remain will be forgiven. Despite the author's great love for Celtic history and lore, flagrant liberties were taken with the historical timeline and a few-okay, many-details of ancient Celtic culture in order to facilitate (or so the author hopes) the dramatic flow of the story. Again, the author hopes that this will be forgiven, as it takes place within the confines of the Xenaverse. "Deciphering the Rift" draws heavily on the content of the episodes "Maternal Instincts" and "The Bitter Suite," as well as "The Xena Scrolls." Any other cultural references are intentionally anachronistic, and utilized by the author in order to be a smartass. Special thanks to Justin Mansfield for his input on classical Greek, Taper Wickel for some of the folk ballads, and Rudy Radna and Elizabeth Germanio for beta reading and feedback.

SUBTEXT: Who said anything about subtext? In my world, there is no such thing. This may, of course, be due to my own personal biases and the way I want to perceive all this, but then again-it may not. At any rate, this story does concern romantic relationships between women, and if you don't relish that idea, you can always stop reading now, and save yourself the effort of complaining about it afterward. There's no sex in it (and some of you can stop reading now if that's what you're looking for), but the physical relationships between the characters are strongly implied. Again, if you don't like that idea, wander on along.

CONTENT/VIOLENCE: This story, as stated above, contains no sex. However, it does, or eventually will, contain high concentrations of archaeology, linguistics, and a whole lot of butt-kicking action. There will be several fight sequences containing detailed, somewhat graphic descriptions of violence. Smoking occurs quite often in the course of the story, Janice and Kaitlyn being who they are, but the author does respectfully remind you that it is rather a nasty habit and will most likely give you cancer and other icky ailments. Do I confuse you by switching between the first person and the third person in referring to myself as the author of this fic? Sorry. It all depends on what sounds better at the time.

LANGUAGE: Did a latrine explode somewhere? Hey, I can't help it. Janice is something of a potty-mouth, and so am I, which by extension naturally means that Kaitlyn is too . . . Profanity abounds in the following pages. You've been adequately warned. All that said, on with the story.
 

     Columbia, South Carolina, May 1943
     
      "Damn! Damn! Damn!"
      Janice Covington was not having a good day. Her Archaeological Research and Methods class, in its entirety, had been behaving exceptionally densely, first of all-not a good way to start the morning. She hadn't seen more blank stares on the faces of all those people she'd ever had occasion to knock out than she'd seen on her students' faces today. And then that fucking prick, Professor Mitchell, had had the balls to toss off one of his damn condescending little "lectures" about how a woman's place was in the home and all that misogynistic rot. Making pointed jabs about her at the faculty lounge, in the middle of lunch, in front of several of the more influential members of the department . . . Janice still wasn't sure what exactly he knew about her relationship with Melinda Pappas-or if he knew anything at all for sure-but his verbal barbs, most of which were aimed at her lack of a husband and her fierce independence, still made the tough young archaeologist very uneasy-a difficult thing to do.
      And now, to top it all off, she'd opened her desk drawer only to find an empty humidor. Not a single cigar was left, though she could've sworn that she'd have enough to last through today, at least. Just when she badly needed a few drags . . . Janice shut her eyes. "It figures," she muttered. At least she was done with her classes for the day, and all that was left was to straighten out a bit of paperwork. Then she could go home and just unwind, and try and forget about the whole day. Home . . . Just the thought made Janice relax a bit. She sighed heavily and set to work on the stack of papers in front of her, chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pen as she did. It was nothing much, really, just a few stupid faculty polls and a suggestion sheet or two; once she'd scrawled answers in all the blanks, and the ink was dry, she locked up her office and dropped them off in the main office on her way out to her car. Finally, some time to relax. But first, a side trip to the cigar shop . . .
     
      Sitting in the lavishly furnished study of the sprawling estate she shared with Janice, Melinda Pappas pushed her glasses up further on her nose and took another, closer look at the scroll she was translating. As soon as this one was done, she'd have a chance to get to that new set of still-unopened scrolls that she and Janice had acquired, surprisingly, from a dig they'd done over the summer in Britain. What documents which were, to all appearances, written in Linear B were doing in the British Isles, they as of yet had no idea, but as soon as this scroll was translated, they'd have a chance to find out. Just a few more lines-with any luck, she'd be finished before Janice came home.
      With a sigh and some difficulty, Mel turned her attention away from thoughts of Janice, and back toward the last few lines of the scroll, written in the now-familiar hand of the Amazon bard Gabrielle.
      Gabrielle. Janice's ancestor, and, in some way, her own as well; they could never be quite sure which of them took after her more. It was a recurring joke between Mel and Janice that the nature of Xena and Gabrielle's relationship made tracing their own respective lineages a bit tricky. Mel couldn't help but smile when she recalled a conversation she and Janice had had, shortly after becoming lovers . . .
     
      "By the gods, you are beautiful," Janice had whispered, trailing the tip of her finger down the taller woman's nose. "Your grace, your tenderness, that quiet, intense strength I never knew you possessed . . ." Her voice, breaking with emotion, had failed her then, and instead of speaking further the archaeologist had simply pulled her lover into a fierce embrace.
      "My goodness, Janice, such eloquence," Mel had replied, blinking back tears of happiness as she wrapped her arms around the blonde woman. She had laughed softly. "And such expressiveness! I never would have expected that from you, you know." She'd smiled. "You must get that from Gabrielle."
      Janice had laughed and given Mel a playful shove. "And you know just how to get me going, you big Southern oaf, you! You had to have gotten that from Xena."
      The two of them had shared a hearty chuckle at that, then fallen silent. Then, in a more serious tone, Janice had continued, "Hey Mel . . . did you ever think that . . . well, since Xena and Gabrielle were married and all, and we're both descendants of theirs . . . does that make us, somehow, um . . ." Here the archaeologist, usually so tough and outspoken, had trailed off, embarrassed.
      Mel had simply had to smile at that. This was the true Janice Covington, the one she knew and loved; both the gentle, caring woman, and the gruff exterior behind which she usually hid. It was in this that she felt the most privileged-nobody else knew the true depths of the archaeologist's soul; nobody else had earned that level of Janice's trust and love. It was in moments like these that she felt sure that there was nothing else in the world that she would ever need.
      "Janice, love," she'd replied, fixing the shorter woman's bright green eyes with her own intense ice-blue orbs, "three thousand years does much to dilute one's bloodline, you know . . ."
      Janice had laughed softly. "Yes, you're right, Mel. It shouldn't really matter by this point in time, should it?" Drawing her lover even closer to her, she had whispered into the glossy black waves of Mel's hair: "Funny how things come full circle round, given enough time, isn't it, sweetheart? Mel, there is no doubt in my mind that you and I are soulmates, just as Xena and Gabrielle were . . . They were destined for each other, and so are you and I."
     
      The sound of a slamming car door snapped Mel out of her reverie. She looked out the study's window to see Janice clamber out of her pickup truck, her attaché case under one arm and a lit cigar clamped in her teeth. She looked a bit agitated, judging from the vigorous drags she was taking on the cigar. Leaning against the pickup for a few minutes, eyes shut, the archaeologist vented the day's frustrations on the rapidly diminishing cigar. Finally-not a moment too soon, as far as Mel was concerned-Janice tossed the cigar butt aside and turned, walking to the front door.
      As the door clicked open, Mel glanced down at her translation and was pleased to see that she'd finished it just in time. A quick final run-through to check the quality of the translation convinced her that it was good, if not excellent. The primary translation was the bulk of the work, though, and smoothing out the last wrinkles could wait. With a smile, she got up and went to meet her archaeologist.
      "Hey honey!" Janice called, tossing her battered fedora to the hat rack with casual ease, and leaning her attaché against the wall. A grin flickered across her face as she saw Mel emerging from the study, a matching grin on her own face. "Hey," Janice whispered as the Southerner pulled her into a warm hug.
      Mel held Janice tight, feeling the shorter woman's body relax in her embrace as waves of tension flowed from her. "Had a hard day?" she asked, brushing a kiss across the top of Janice's head.
      "Oh god, have I ever!" With that, the archaeologist buried her face in Mel's shoulder. "You don't want to know," she added, her voice muffled.
      "Well," Mel replied, her voice full of barely contained excitement, "I do know of one thing that might cheer you up a bit." At this, Janice smiled and snuggled up close to her lover.
      "Do you now?" she purred.
      "Janice Covington!" Mel gave her friend a light shove and a teasing look. "Don't tell me I spent all day getting this scroll translated, just so you could come home and ignore it completely!"
      A crooked grin spread across Janice's face. "Well, I wasn't planning on ignoring it, exactly . . . but do you have any idea how just the sight of you makes me forget how awful today has been? Gods, Mel, but I love you!"
      Mel smiled and leaned down, brushing her lips against Janice's. "I know, darling. And I love you too, you know. Now come on . . . I'm sure you'll want to read what I've just finished translating!"
      "That would be great," Janice murmured, in between the kisses she was receiving from an enthusiastic Mel. "But how about some dinner first? I'm starving! And all of a sudden, I have this insane craving for nutbread . . ."
     
     

      Once the dishes were washed and put away, Mel and Janice retreated to the study, where several sheets of paper, covered in the translator's meticulous handwriting, lay next to a partially unrolled scroll. "I warn you," Mel began, "it's not exactly the most cheerful story in the world."
      "That's okay," Janice replied, pulling a leather desk chair up next to Mel's own. "We both know life isn't all roses and songs anyway. Experience with that sort of thing kind of runs in the family, you know," she added with a chuckle. "Let's see, what have we got here?"
     
     * * *
     
      Ephiny's voice echoed into the darkness in a keening, haunting song as we stood in the center of the village that night, two souls hurting seemingly beyond all human power to express, two hearts aching with losses so devastatingly alike that they repelled each other with ungodly force. Bathed in the flickering, sordid light of the fires leaping from twin funeral pyres, Xena and I stood, gazing into the flames, reaching so deeply into the cores of our own pains that we began to lose sight of each other.
      Side by side we stood, so close together, and yet so vastly torn apart.
      "If I had just done what you said, when you told me to do it, they would still be alive," I whispered, looking up at the warrior. Her features were set like stone in the sickly red light of the flames, and she did not turn to face me. "Kaleipus, and Solan . . ."
      "No," she cut me off, in a pained whisper. She faced me now, and my heart wrenched painfully in my chest-those eyes, like chips of blue marble, fixed me with a penetrating glare, twin whirlpools of turmoil in an otherwise vast, unmoving sea. To think that I had done enough to bring a look like this into the eyes of the one I loved more than life . . . She spoke again, her voice commanding and intense. "Don't you even speak his name."
      "Xena . . ."
      "No," she repeated. "No, you lied to me! I trusted you, and you lied to me." She turned away from me again to gaze into the flames, and as she spoke her next words, I could taste the bitter tang of them in the chill night air. "And now Solan is dead."
      With those words, I felt myself torn from my moorings, as my beloved Warrior Princess withdrew from me the last bit of her trust, my most valued possession-for no one else had earned Xena's trust in the way that I had. I reached out to her emotionally, pleading, searching for a way for her to let me in, but found myself turned away every time. Waves of fear and loss washed over me anew, as I struggled with my conflicting emotions. I knew Xena well, better than anyone, and to my sorrow I knew that this time, there was nothing within my power that could turn her. Once I had acknowledged this, I gripped my staff tightly, as if trying to impart my own pain into its unfeeling wooden substance. Time and space between us was sundered now, torn apart by our past.
      "I love you, Xena," I said brokenly, through the tears that blurred my vision of her beautiful face. And with that, I surrendered, and turned to walk away, leaving those four simple words to echo within the cavernous depths of the freshly-opened Rift . . .
     
     * * *
     
      "Wow," Janice breathed, daring, for the first time in five minutes, to speak. "Wow," she repeated again, finding herself at an utter loss for words. "Holy shit. I never realized how things could . . . that they . . . what happened?"
      Mel shook her head. "I only wish I knew. The frustrating thing is, this is easily the seventh or eighth time I've come across references to this 'Rift,' and I haven't found any information to explain it any further!"
      "Well," Janice replied thoughtfully, her green eyes narrowing, "maybe that next set of scrolls might possibly have an explanation in store."
     
     

      In the basement room that had been converted into something of an archaeological laboratory, Janice sat hunched over the ancient scrollcase, and set about trying to remove the thin layer of dirt in which it was still encrusted. With painstaking care, she brushed away at the dirt, knocking it away in minute portions, trying every last shred of her patience in the process. She squinted at it critically for a while, then sat back and took a deep breath, rubbing the back of her neck.
      "I've got most of it," she remarked. "Most of the dirt is gone now, and there's only one last thin layer left, though removing it carefully is going to be a bitch. I've knocked off enough now to be able to get a good feel for the case, though."
      "And?" Mel prompted, moving forward to ease the tension in her lover's neck, pressing and kneading skillful fingers into the taut muscles.
      "And . . . mmm, yeah, that feels good . . . best I can tell, it's, well, this is odd, but it looks like it comes from sometime past 450 AD. Real rough estimate, but that's-"she consulted her notes-"about the right time period for the rest of the stuff unearthed at that dig, apparently. I could be wrong. We'll have to have it double-checked."
      "450 AD?" Mel repeated incredulously. "But . . . that doesn't make any sense!"
      "Yeah, I know, it's a good several centuries too new," Janice replied, rubbing a hand across her forehead. "It really wasn't that far down, you know. We found it in one of the upper strata. But on the other hand, the design of the case is perfectly right for Xena's time period, and-"she paused to brush some more dirt off the case-"the writing on here is . . . hang on a sec . . ." She trailed off again, bending over the scrollcase in concentration, focusing all her attention on clearing the ancient soil from the engravings. "Well, I'll be damned."
      "What is it?" Mel leaned over to take a closer look, and answered her own question out loud.
      "It's in Linear B."
     
      Mel leaned over the scrollcase, squinting at it through her glasses. Her fingertips brushed against the etchings in its surface as she took in the writing. "It'll need to be cleaned off a bit more, I think," she remarked, "but look . . . I can definitely make out some writing here . . ." She ran a gloved finger underneath a line of script. "See?"
      "Yeah, I can see," Janice answered, around the handle of the bristle brush still between her teeth. "What the hell does it say, anyway?"
      "Qa-si-re-wi-ja ma-ka-ta," Mel read out loud, haltingly. Her eyes lit up.
      "Uh?" The archaeologist's eyebrow went up.
      "Basileia Makhetes, in classical Greek."
      "Meaning?"
      Mel locked her gaze intensely with her friend's as she spoke, slowly, deliberately, her voice full of awe. "Meaning, 'Warrior Princess.'"
      The brush clattered to the floor as Janice's jaw went slack. "What's the rest of the line?"
      Mel shook her head. "Can't quite make it out yet. Can I please have that brush, dear?" she asked, gesturing daintily toward the fallen utensil. As a still dumbfounded Janice picked up the brush and handed it to her, the aristocrat uncovered the rest of the inscription on the side of the case.
      "An Account From the Lives of Gabrielle of Poteidaia and of the Warrior Princess, Xena," Mel translated out loud. "Passed on in the tradition of the Line of Rhonwyn." She stopped, confused. "Rhonwyn? That's not a Greek name at all."
      Janice leaned back in her chair and stretched. "Sure as hell ain't," she agreed.
      "Why, Doctor Covington," Mel drawled in a teasing rebuke. "What language for a professor to use! If your students heard you now!"
      "Sweetie," Janice shot back, in an imitation of Mel's own voice, "believe me, if they're unlucky enough to be slacking off in my class, they have! Besides which, I'm an archaeologist, not an English professor." Her green eyes twinkled amusedly at the Southerner.
      They both laughed. "So who's this Rhonwyn, then?" wondered Mel. "I've never heard of her, not even once, in any of the Xena Scrolls."
      "Me neither," mumbled Janice thoughtfully, pressing her fingertips together and resting her chin on her thumbs. "My best guess is, well, it's a Celtic name alright, though I'm no expert at that. Great . . . another mystery to solve. First this 'Rift,' now whoever the hell this Rhonwyn person is." She cast a glance in the direction of the scrollcase, then turned to Mel, a smile spreading slyly across her face.
      Mel knew that smile well. It was Janice's "I think I can smell an adventure just waiting to happen" expression. "Shall we open up the case, then?"
      The smile on Janice's face broke out into a wide grin. "Mel Pappas, I thought you'd never ask!" She pulled over a tray full of implements, leaned over the scrollcase, and got to work.

r>       After an hour of painstaking work loosening the scrollcase's cover, Janice finally decided that it was safe to open it. Glancing at Mel, she asked, "Close the door, will ya, sweetie?" As the translator acquiesced, her blonde partner checked the installed wall gauge to insure that the room's temperature and humidity were at safe levels. The wrong temperature, or the wrong level of moisture in the air, and the integrity of the scrolls' parchment could be in danger. "Okay, it's clear . . . we should be safe opening this up."
      Getting up to circle the table and get a good grip on the scrollcase, Janice nodded at Mel. "Go ahead. Pull off the cover." She bit her lip, unconsciously, nervous and excited at the prospect of learning more about her family history. About Mel's family history. About their family history. Her eyes were fixed on her partner's every move as Mel grasped the case's cover and slowly, gingerly tugged on it, loosening it carefully bit by bit.
      Finally, after an agonizing two minutes that seemed like ten times that, the scrollcase's lid came loose in Mel's hand, and Janice rushed around to her friend's side to get a view of its contents. Sure enough, the case was fairly well packed with scrolls.
      "Y-e-s!" Janice hissed through her teeth. "We've hit the motherlode!" Excitedly, but with the practiced restraint of her line of work, she began to ease the scrolls out of the case, using the various implements in her toolkit. "Amazingly well-preserved," she remarked, muttering around the pair of tweezers clenched between her teeth. "Real high-quality parchment, too . . . definitely more advanced stuff than the rest of the Scrolls were written on, assuming these really are a part of the Scrolls."
      "Good lord, Janice, would you hush up and pick out a scroll so we can see what's on it?" Here the Southern belle's eager translator side kicked in, and she fidgeted impatiently as she watched Janice work.
      "All right, all right, all right!" The archaeologist laughed and put down her tools just long enough to wrap her arms around Mel and give the taller woman a warm hug. "You're so cute when you get into that super-translator mode of yours, you know that? Let's see what we can dig up here." She winked rakishly, and Mel groaned at the pun.
      Working slowly, Janice separated one of the scrolls from its companions, then set about the delicate job of unrolling it. Although she didn't realize it, both she and Mel were holding their breath, waiting to see what new insights the scroll would reveal. The sight that greeted them, once the task of unrolling the parchment was done, was certainly a great surprise.
      Both the archaeologist and the translator stared at the scroll, dumbfounded. Instead of the familiar, elaborate ideograms of Linear B, the page before them was covered in lines of an elegant calligraphic script that, while it closely resembled the Roman alphabet, was all but unreadable to the two.
      Mel was the first to speak. "Oh . . . my lord," she whispered, surprised.
      "What the hell is that?" Janice yelped. "You may be the expert on ancient Greek here, Mel, but even I can tell for sure, this sure as hell ain't it."
      "No . . . it certainly isn't." Mel's blue eyes narrowed as she stared at the scroll. "So what is it exactly? And what is it doing in that particular scrollcase?"
      Janice only shook her head slowly. "That's what we're going to have to figure out now. This little puzzle of ours is getting more complex all the time."