Wellspring of Wishes

CHAPTER TWO

Masked women surrounded them brandishing all manner of weapons: clubs, staves, swords and short daggers. Unlike the feathered masks of  Melosa's tribe this group of Amazons used leaves and ferns to distort their features and create the designs on their masks. The varied greens were no doubt better camouflage in the thick forests. Ephiny and the others had mostly plains and mountains with sparse foliage.

One of the Amazons grabbed for Argo's reins and the horse backed up and reared. A club shot out, aimed for the mare's forelegs thrashing in the air.

"No!" Xena flipped up and over the Amazons between her and the golden horse. Her fist shot out and she knocked away the wooden weapon before it could shatter the war-horse's legs. The Amazon swung at her head viciously. Xena backhanded the masked woman and growled. "No one... touches... my horse!" BRinging her hip around in a roundhouse kick, she dropped two more Amazons. Others stepped into their places. Xena planted her back leg and raised her fists.

"Stop!" Gabrielle moved toward two who launched themselves at Xena, short staffs in their hands. "We're no threat!"

The warrior stopped the swinging weapons just short of her head. With one staff in each hand she missed another when a third Amazon swung from behind and hit the warrior in the back. Xena dropped to her knees, releasing her hold on the Amazon weapons and catching herself on her spread hands, cringing from the blow to her kidneys.

Gabrielle pushed her way to Xena's side and knelt, watching protectively as Xena regained her breath. "Are you all right?"

"I... I'm ... fine." Xena waved Gabrielle off and braced her hands on her thighs. She kept her head down so the bard would not see that the Amazons had succeeded in raising her anger.

The nearest Amazon spoke. "You're trespassing."

Gabrielle looked up at the speaker. "We didn't see your markers. I'm sorry. We meant no harm. We didn't know there was a village out this way."

Another demanded, "Who are you?"

"I'm Gabrielle." The bard put a hand on Xena's shoulder, feeling the tension coiling in the sleek muscles, and hoping she could talk their way out of this. She hated losing the gentle woman to the warrior. "This is Xena."

"Gabrielle? Xena?" Another woman stepped forward, pulling her sister Amazon back a few steps. "We've heard of you."

"Then you know we wouldn't..." Gabrielle spoke as Xena came to her feet. With the warrior's hand held firmly, Gabrielle stood straighter.

"You're Queen Gabrielle of the Corinthian Amazons?"

Surprised, Gabrielle answered quickly. "Yes." Xena put a hand unseen on her lower back. "Since last autumn."

A broad-shouldered Amazon removed her mask as she stepped forward. "Melosa was a friend." A woman of middle years, lean features and a sharply angled nose, her face was framed by curling thick mahogany hair. "A good friend." Gabrielle realized in an instant that this was the queen. The bard curtsied and smiled warmly as the woman took her hands. Xena nodded her head briefly in acknowledgement of the woman's position. "I am Queen Felice."

"I'm sorry about the markers. We didn't know." Gabrielle tried to talk fast, seeing the still wary looks on several faces, including the queen.

"What brings you to Thrace? Corinth is a long journey."

Xena stepped forward tired of standing silently. "That would be our business."

"Xena, please?"

It was the 'please' that started dissipating Xena's anger. Then she looked up at Felice, who regarded her with a distinct measure of anger. "We've heard of you Warrior Princess. Not all of it good. I could have you and your queen shot for your presence here."

Xena squared her shoulders. "You could." But you won't. Queen Felice and the Warrior Princess stood fiercely quiet for a long time, each eyeing the other. Xena realized as the other Amazons began to circle them, that she was inviting trouble. Gabrielle's hand on her arm reminded her this wasn't a time for battles. She relaxed her shoulders, and took a step back.

"Can you tell us how to get out of your way?" Gabrielle asked, desperate to find a way out of their predicament.

"You will come to the village." Felice wasn't asking.

"No. Thank you," Xena responded, touching Gabrielle's arm even as she saw the bard's eyes light up. "We've already set camp."

"The Corinthian queen sleeping on the ground?" Felice responded, gesturing around. "There are many wild animals."

"No more than we have seen in our travels."

Felice and Xena both fell silent, gazes warring, weighing and conveying the sense of determination inherent in both. Finally, the Thracian queen nodded. She looked directly at Gabrielle, but spoke to a point behind her somewhere. "Marta."

A slender Amazon, hair the color of a dusty trail, stepped forward, brushing past the bard with a feather-light step. She looked at her queen and dropped her chin in a reverential nod, grasping her mask in her hands. "Yes?"

Felice momentarily shifted her gaze. "Map the area." She spoke now to Gabrielle. "You may follow it in the morning out of the valley, or to our village." Resolutely she kept her eyes from the dark warrior standing at the bard's shoulder.

Marta pulled parchment from the sack slung on her shoulder. Gabrielle saw several other scrolls tucked in the bag and took a closer look at the only other bard she'd ever seen among Amazons. Marta's eyes were bright, intent on the paper as she sketched the pool, several nearby landmarks and then the entry to the village. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and then looked up again.

"Here," Marta paused, pointing to a series of dark blocky indicators on the map. "These are our sentry posts. If you get lost, they'll show you... if you give them the map." She held the parchments to Felice who quickly sketched something. Marta handed the map to Xena and Gabrielle. "Queen Felice's mark grants you the protection of the Thracian Amazons."

Gabrielle nodded. "Thank you." Gabrielle studied the chaotic series of loops and peaks. There was very little likelihood anyone could forge such a design, the bard decided. "Do you have many villages?"

Felice replied, "Over a dozen through the region."

"But how do you..." Gabrielle felt Xena's warm hand on her arm. "Well, I shouldn't keep you." She took a step back. "Thank you for the map."

"You're welcome." Felice pulled Marta back, put two fingers to her lips and issued a short whistle. More women dropped from the trees and the entire group, some 30 Amazons in all, strode away from the spring, surrounding their queen, who was just barely visible over all the other heads, near the center of the marching mass.

Closing her mouth, realizing she'd stared with astonishment as the Amazons left, Gabrielle scanned the trees overhead. How could so many Amazons conceal themselves in the branches? She sighed. Xena too had been watching the Amazons leave their spring-side campsite. Starting to sit down, Xena turned at the bard's sigh. "What?"

"I wish I wasn't so afraid of heights. Travel through the trees looks so much more... I don't know... secret."

Xena smiled and put her arm around the bard's shoulders, hugging her briefly. "I like you down here with me."

Gabrielle's face filled with a warm flush and the warrior kissed her tenderly. The bard's hands drifted up and circled Xena's neck. She murmured into the kiss.

"Hmmm?" Xena nibbled the bard's lips and pulled back.

"I said, how about another bath." She licked her lips in invitation.

Xena looked in the direction of the departed Amazons and noticed a lone Amazon perched in a tree close by their spring camp. She disliked the idea of putting on a show for the sentry, obviously posted to keep an eye on them. "Could we postpone that?"

The bard looked around. "We aren't going to have any visitors. The Amazons were it. They've left."

"Not all of them," the warrior replied, gesturing to the tree. Gabrielle looked up and blushed. "Let's get out of the line of sight. She might just leave."

Gabrielle's smile widened at the lift of the warrior's eyebrow. She laughed when she was scooped into a cradle hold, and a deft hand stripped away her skirt once again.

Sliding Gabrielle into the water, Xena stood alone on the bank for only a moment, to pull her body from the leather gambeson. She then strode into the water and regathered the bard tenderly in her arms. The warrior looked up and found that their sentry had shifted to keep an eye resolutely on the campsite, not on the spring. Soundlessly, she chuckled.

"I could get lost out here," Gabrielle murmured, laying her head back on the rocky side. Xena's teeth grazed her pulse point. The bard shivered in response. She looked up at the canopy of trees and thought about the Amazons again. "I really would love to see the world from up there someday."

"Up in the trees?"

Gabrielle nodded. "Birds... Mmmm... I don't know. It just seems like it'd be perfect."

Xena sat back, but left a lingering hand on the bard's body. "Do you trust me?"

Gabrielle sat up. "That's a silly question."

"I'd like to show you." She nodded toward the sentry. "She'd never expect it."

"Up there?" Gabrielle shivered; Xena's eyes were luminous in the moonlight. The spring gurgled around them. She smiled. "I trust you."

Xena's smiled broadened and then she stood in the center of the spring. "C'mere." Gabrielle pulled herself to Xena's side. The warrior's blue eyes scanned the canopy intently. Finally she looked down into the bard's upturned face. "Ready?"

"Now?" Gabrielle flushed and put her hands in Xena's.

"Yep." The warrior lifted the bard's hands around her neck. "Hold on." Reflexively the younger woman tightened her grip as Xena's body gathered beneath them. Gabrielle closed her eyes. In a single flex of her knees, Xena launched them to the limbs above. Her hands remained beneath Gabrielle's bottom until they were steady on the thick limb. Xena shifted carefully then stood still. "Open your eyes," whispered Xena in the deep voice of invitation that never failed to melt the bard's insides like hot wax. Firm hands slipped around her stomach, slowly turning her around until she rested back against the warrior's chest.

Flexing her hands on the warrior's wrists, the bard opened her eyes to tiny slits and noticed the trunk of a tree just out of reach of her hand. She looked out on a sea of green leaves, intermittently broken by the occasional spot of night sky, where stars twinkled and the moon's light glittered. "It's beautiful. It all looks close enough to touch," murmured Gabrielle. The cricket song and cicada chatter seemed closer too. It really was a world apart, except for their eavesdropper, whose presence kept Xena from completely relaxing.

Xena's voice was a silky caress against her ear. "If you wanted to touch it, I'd find a way."

Surprised by the open earnestness in the warrior's voice, Gabrielle looked over her shoulder up into the warrior's eyes. Silence spoke loudly between them, and she finally broke it with a sincere whisper: "I love you. Forever."

Xena squeezed the bard's stomach gently and buried her face in the fragrant tumble of blonde hair. "Thank you," she paused as her emotions grabbed her throat and forced her to a whisper, "for coming back into my life."

Before a lump in her own throat choked off her breath, Gabrielle found herself thoroughly kissed, as the warrior breathed passion into a single explosive point of light, which burst from behind Gabrielle's eyes. Desperation burned down to tenderness as lips sought to remove tears from each other's face. Arms squeezed, afraid to let go of the moment or each other.

It was a crazy idea, but Xena did it anyway. Xena controlled their position while helping her partner experience an exquisite lack of control. Gabrielle completely forgot where they were precariously perched. Her body absorbed Xena's touch and scent until the moon began its descent. When the bard's passion washed over her fingers, Xena's own dampened her center. Their mingling scent and those of the leaves around them drowned her senses. Cricket song filled the night, lifting her up lighter than air. The warrior hadn't felt such peace in ... a lifetime. She smiled and hugged the bard more tightly as she braced them and dozed.

The wind tickling her face awakened Gabrielle during the night. She laid still watching Xena sleep. She was glad the last few days had been mostly uneventful. There had been no exhausting attacks from road thieves, or stumbling across people with hero-

sized troubles. Realistically, Gabrielle knew trouble was going to be hard to continue avoiding. The tension at the beginning of their meeting with the Thracian Amazons had been palpable. Thank the goddess Felice seemed very reasonable. Intruders on Amazon lands could be killed on sight not visited and welcomed to stay. "If we visit the Amazons here for a bit, maybe I can prolong the peacefulness."

"Hmm?" Xena opened her eyes and rubbed the bard's cheek dreamily. "What?"

"Could we take up Felice on her invitation?"

Xena chewed her lip thoughtfully. "You really want to?"

"I just thought we could prolong this little vacation we've found."

"Vacation?"

"Yeah." Gabrielle chuckled as she ticked points off on her fingers. "We've had no thieves, no threats, and no monsters. That's as good a vacation as any." She pointed to the ground. "Besides, I think this is the first area where we're both new."

"You mean a place where The Warrior Princess doesn't have a history."

Knowing where her partner's mind had drifted, Gabrielle sought to sway her from the depression she knew was coming. "Don't start thinking that. I like... no I love traveling with you. I love you. It might just sound like words, but where you go, I go. Whatever happens to you happens to me. That's all there is to it." Gabrielle leaned close and brushed her lips gently over the warrior's.

Xena, who had remained quiet through the bard's words, put her hand to her lips in a daze after the bard pulled away. There was a flash in her mind of another time, similar words. And a less than happy ending. She shook her head.

Gabrielle gently cupped her palm on the warrior's cheek. "I don't know if anyone else ever said something like that to you before. Maybe Marcus or Borias. But Xena I believe in us." She leaned back to gauge the reaction to her words and felt her balance shift.

Faster than the sensation of falling came, it was quelled when the warrior's quick hands snapped her back against the tree trunk. "Ready to get down?" Xena asked as the bard swallowed several times.

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

Brushing the bard's cheek with the back of her hands, Xena kissed her nose before answering, "As you wish." The warrior wrapped Gabrielle up hugging her to her chest. "Hang on." She reached around Gabrielle and put both hands on the tree limb. "You might want to close your eyes."

Glancing at the ground so far below and back up in disbelief at the smiling warrior. "You're not!" Seeing no denial, Gabrielle closed her eyes tightly and buried her face against the warrior's chest. A sick swinging sensation later, she felt the warrior's bare feet hit the ground and the impact rumbled up through their bodies. When Xena straightened and pulled Gabrielle's arms from her neck, the bard reluctantly lowered her feet and found the ground herself.

"Go where I go, hmm?" Xena tapped the bridge of Gabrielle's nose with a gentle fingertip.

"Show off." Gabrielle smiled and hugged the warrior in profound relief as she looked up at the tree limb where they'd spent the night. She glanced toward the tree where Xena had pointed out the Amazon the night before. "Did we lose our shadow?"

Xena, who was in the process of pulling on her leathers and settling the chakram on her hip whisked it at the tree. Both heard it bounce back, whizzing through the wind as it returned. No startled Amazon, and only a few birds, took flight from the old oak.

The bard shook her head in silent laughter. They turned together and caught sight of the orange light dappling the sky. Dawn was just beginning. Their small private clearing looked surreal in vivid shadows and sharp streams of light. Bard and warrior moved to the ember remains of their fire.

Within the hour the pair was leading Argo along the forest path. Gabrielle held Xena's hand as they walked side by side. In her other hand, she held the map Marta had drawn the previous evening. "Looks like if we take the next break in the path to the right we'll find their first sentry post."

"Probably the one that spotted us and alerted the village to our presence last night," remarked Xena, studying the map over the bard's shoulder. "Still want to do this?"

Gabrielle nodded. "Just a short visit. Consider it cementing diplomatic relations. I am an Amazon queen after all."

Xena smiled and rubbed the bard's shoulder. "Yes, you are." She paused for a moment. "Are you happy?"

The bard stepped back. "Why do you ask?"

"I know you like traveling with me. But what would you do if the Amazons needed you to stay with them?"

"Ephiny's doing fine. She's worlds better at it than I am anyway."

"She's always said she's only ruling until you return."

Gabrielle considered that. "She knows how I feel." She rubbed her hands over her arms. "Why bring it up now?"

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

"What I'd do if you accept your full responsibilities."

Gabrielle shook her head and said brightly, "You'd be right with me." A terrible thought struck the soft face, causing a frown. "Wouldn't you?"

Xena looked around their path and spotted a large rock broad enough to sit on. "Come here." She pulled Gabrielle down on her lap, leaving Argo standing quietly in the middle of the dirt path.

"Xena?"

"I'm sorry, Gabrielle." The warrior brushed the bard's hair back from her shoulders and swallowed before meeting her eyes. "But I don't think I could stay."

"Wouldn't you want to?" Gabrielle asked.

"I want anything you want for yourself, believe that."

"After all we've been through? Why?" Gabrielle swallowed and nodded. "Tell me you'd stay. I'll believe you."

Xena sighed, feeling terrible. The bard was right. After everything, why was Xena even suggesting separation? Unable to discuss with Gabrielle her fears, she tried to end the conversation which hurt the bard. She felt so clumsy. Why did I even say that? She wanted to kick herself. "Well, it won't come up, will it? So, we'll just forget about it."

Gabrielle bit her lip feeling the tears sting at the back of her eyes. "Tell me."

Xena knew the Amazons would take care of the bard. Her own presence would not be accepted, not after breaking Ephiny's arm, and stealing away their queen while in a murderous rage. Once a loose catapult, always a loose catapult. "I want you to be with you... as long as it's possible."

The bard nodded. "What do you see, Xena?"

"When I look at you? Everything."

The bard shivered, shook her head and clarified her question. "No, when you look at the future. What do you see?"

Xena shook her head. "I try not to go there very often."

Gabrielle bit her lip, holding back the disappointment with the barest threads of resolve. "But you can't stop thinking that you'll die before you get old." Xena remained silent unwilling to be as brave and say the words. But she nodded. Gabrielle put her arms around Xena's shoulders and hugged the warrior tightly. She ran her fingers through the older woman's long lustrous dark hair. "No matter what happens, Xena. To you, or to me, I'll do my best to see you to old and gray."

They'd both passed to the other side, and returned. But instinctively they both knew the gods' grace would cease eventually and the next trip across the Styx would be the final one. Xena's hands came up around the bard's waist. The two sat there for a long time, trying to adjust to their relationship, to take solace in its seeming strength. "We can make it through anything," Gabrielle whispered, her voice filled with conviction.

Not sure whether or not that was really true, Xena could only nod into the tumble of  blonde hair. "Anything." Pulling herself together, she lifted her head, firmed her resolve and leaned back to look into Gabrielle's face. "Then let's get you to these Amazons, shall we?" Xena lifted the bard in her arms and stood, setting the younger woman carefully on her feet on the dirt path. "We'll ride in like the queen of the Corinthian Amazons deserves."

A short whistle summoned Argo. Xena gave Gabrielle a leg up on the mare's back and then vaulted into the saddle behind her. Xena's arms wrapped around her, Gabrielle took a deep breath and let it out slowly along with the odd feelings from their conversation. Underneath them, Argo gathered herself and started an easy canter.

They covered the remainder of the distance to Felice's village within a candlemark. Xena watched the activity as scouts and outposts transmitted their arrival. Felice, accompanied by Marta and a small band of well-armed Amazons, strode out to the center of the village as Xena pulled Argo up and stopped.

Chapter 3

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