Seeds

Xena watched Gabrielle, biting at her own fists in her grief. Sitting in the sand, on the desolate edge of town, with a strange black veil pulled over her head. She was rocking a little.

When had they ever been so distant – when had they ever been so very near, with just a step in between them – and that step impossible to take. There was a wall of fire, a chasm, a whole world that separated them. Xena found herself stretching out a hand, but pulled herself back. Gabrielle couldn’t see her, in her grief, and it was better that way anyhow.

It made no sense, none at all. Eli had stood helpless in front of the god of war, and then had fallen, begging Gabrielle all the while not to bear arms in his defence. And so she had obeyed; and so he had died. What sense could that ever make, except to underline Ares’ point; the only power was the sword?

Gabrielle hadn’t wanted to hear that, but Xena didn’t care any longer. She didn’t care if she were proving Ares’ point, by finding the blade that would kill him. It hadn’t taken much to find, either; a few questions to the local Amazon tribe yielded the answer she’d wanted to hear. And now – she weighed the dagger in her hand – she held the power, all of it.

For a moment Xena shuddered. She’d given up the chance to kill gods already, with the chakram of light. She’d had a moment there when she could have killed Ares, outright. No god of war to bother them, ever, not with threats, not with strange words of desire. And Eli, and so many others, too, would be alive.

And she could have killed him before, too. He had stood before her weak and defenceless, mortal, more than once. And she’d had the hind’s blood which had killed Callisto – with enough left to have wiped out Ares as he crouched in his own temple, watching what he’d engineered.

Watching Gabrielle mourn alone made her forget why she’d ever hesitated. Ever, ever.

It was about the second time Eli had failed her, Gabrielle mused, sifting sand through her fingertips.

The first time had meant that she had killed a half dozen guards before being crucified on top of a frozen mountain. She'd made her decision, then; Eli's way didn't work for her.

He'd accepted that. So why had he asked her something so impossible? When he knew that she wasn't ever going to lay aside her weapons? Had it been a test, had he meant her to rescue him?

Lift a dagger against a god? How could she have ever defended him, anyway?

She'd done what he'd asked, so then why did she feel as though she'd failed him, and he'd failed her? It made no sense - except if she accepted Ares' words as truth.

Gabrielle shuddered. She remembered when Xena had been driven mad, that she'd said that the worst part was that Ares started to make sense to her.

Maybe she was mad, then.

The wind whipped at her veil, pulling at her short strands of hair. The sun beat down on her from above, and it felt as though the whole world were at war with her.

She stayed where she was, however; she stayed still, and soon it was quiet again.

He was too easy to kill.

Once it had taken little to encourage Xena to kill; any slight irritation had prompted her to swing her blade. A man dead was very much the same thing as a man alive, for both were forgotten. A death was a success, for it meant something begun was finished. She had conquered; and always, she liked to win.

Somewhere along the line, she had discovered that a sword dripping with blood wasn’t winning after all. And that it was even more satisfying to conquer herself – her urges to kill, to let fury reign – than to lead a lifeless kingdom.

So now it took a great deal to induce her to kill. Generally if it were a choice between her life and a villain’s, she’d let him die; and always, if there were a threat to Gabrielle’s life, the slight barriers she had set up inside – those flimsy walls between what she believed and what she truly wanted – fell crashing down.

So what a fool he was, firstly to threaten Gabrielle’s life, and then to threaten her own.

Her hand was so close to his throat that she felt it constrict when he realised what it was. Not any blade, but the dagger of Helios. Not any threat, just the ultimate one. He swallowed, tensed, froze. He could have disappeared, and afterwards she wondered whether it had been fear or an odd kind of courage that prevented him.

Something very rare and precious disappeared when Eli had died, Xena realised, her hand firm around the blade's hilt. Not just words, not just a kind of joyous exuberance. Something had trembled into being - something quite new. A possibility.

She opened her mouth to speak, but the words weren't there for her. Gabrielle had pulled herself up, was at her shoulder, and she wanted to turn to her, knowing that her friend would see in her eyes the things she couldn't make clear. But she had a blade pressed against a throat - she was supposed to be killing someone.

Maybe, this was the reason. Gabrielle waited, her shoulder nudging Xena's as she stared up at the god of war. Perhaps this was what Eli had planned all along. For Xena to take out the god of war. Then peace would reign, and everything he spoke of would come true.

Maybe without Ares there was the possibility of peace.

Except last time the world had been without a god of war no peace had come from it. And Eli had never encouraged Xena to kill Ares, when she'd previously had the chance.

So Eli had seen that possibility even with Ares around. Even knowing that he'd die, and he'd never see it - he believed that there was the potential for something great in a small idea. Maybe he was the seed, maybe he'd just had the seed of an idea. And it had to be buried before it could bloom.

She laid a hand on Xena's arm just as Xena lowered the blade.

"Even you." Her voice was low and incredulous, as she stared directly at Ares. "He saw the possibility - even in you."

Ares opened his mouth, and closed it again. When he finally disappeared, Xena spun around and held her friend in the tightest embrace she could. The dagger fell to the ground, unnoticed; its blade reflecting the sun, the sky, and the brilliant hues of the flowers amongst which it lay.

...h.o.m.e...
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