Chapter Text
Gabrielle, as ever, used her soft voice to draw Xena out of her dark memories. “That was a lifetime ago.”
Xena, as ever, refused to let go of her guilt. “Feels like just yesterday.” Her bright eyes gazed upon her dim past, watched her soldiers fall to the dreaded Horde. “I lost half my men to those-” At last, she looked at her companion. “There’s a northern route. It’ll take us around all of this.”
Gabrielle reached out to lay a comforting hand on her friend’s arm and tried once more to reassure her. Gentle words fell on deaf ears.
The warrior princess muttered something inane back. “Come on,” she urged after a moment. “They’ll be around us by dark.”
Within seconds, her prediction seemed to come true.
Xena and Gabrielle crouched down at once, the former more concerned with escaping unnoticed while the latter couldn’t break her visual lock on the newcomers as they emerged from the tree line.
“Xena, look,” she exclaimed. “Have you ever seen a blond Horde girl?”
Perplexed, Xena stared at the beautiful woman in a light, tattered dress being led through a sea of brown at the river’s edge.
Quietly, it burbled.
The brunette pursed her lips. “I don’t think she’s Horde. …Look at her hands! She’s their prisoner.” In a usual reversal, she geared up to plunge into that which she meant to avoid.
“Xena, wait.”
The pair watched as two men dragged the blonde under some shade.
Harsh, guttural words traded between the people gathered there.
Xena’s hand twitched to her chakram when the khal grabbed the blonde’s collar to tear her dress apart then and there.
But the woman said something to the man, warded him off well enough with words that he eventually cut the rope binding her hands and stepped back from her.
“Maybe she is Horde,” Gabrielle muttered in a sort of question.
“I dunno. Something’s not right.”
#
When the moon was directly overhead that night, Xena cut a hole in the tent where she knew the platinum blonde was being held. She waved Gabrielle through it but stayed outside to keep watch.
The battling bard crept along the floor until she reached the pile of smelly furs that served as a bed. Gently, she covered pouty lips. “Ssh, ssh,” she cajoled when the woman jerked awake. “It’s alright. I’m here to help you.”
Daenerys blinked at her rescuer, and she nodded tightly. “Who are you?” she asked once her mouth was free to do so.
A soft smile beamed down upon her. “I’m Gabrielle of Potadeia.”
Light brows furrowed. “I have not heard of Potadeia. Is that in Westeros? Are you from my country? What’s your house?”
“Westeros? Potadeia is in Greece. And I have no house.”
The two women gazed at each other in confusion before Gabrielle finally shrugged. “Well, anyway, I’m here to get you out of here. Stay low, and follow me.”
Daenerys shook her head. “I’m not leaving. These are my people.”
“You’re really Horde?”
“Horde? We are no horde. We are the Dothraki, and I am wife to the great khal, Drogo, son of Barbo.” There kicked off her spiel of all her titles. Her jaw dropped when she got to the part about being Queen of Meereen. The city’s name had rolled off her tongue by rote, making her realized when and where she was.
Gabrielle broke the moment. “Do you want help or not?”
“Yes! Can you take me to Meereen?”
Doubtful green-blue eyes once more perused a pale face. “Is that a H- Dothraki city?”
“No, it is a trading port by the sea, in Slaver’s Bay.”
Gabrielle frowned. “I’ve never heard of either of those places, and I’ve been traveling these parts for years. My friend Xena- Xena! Come on!” With that, she grabbed Daenerys’s hand and began to pull her to safety. “We gotta go!”
“Alright…”
But Aggo seized Gabrielle as soon as she ducked out of the hole in the tent.
Xena lay unconscious in the dirt at her feet.
The battling bard only had time to scream her friend’s again name before being knocked out and tossed across the warrior princess.
#
Khal Moro laughed at Daenerys’s protests. “They are mine. I will bed them and put sons in their bellies!”
“You can’t! I have taken them as daughters, and they are under my protection!”
The man smirked. “You don’t have that power anymore, khaleesi.” But, he tutted his tongue and signaled to his men. “We will decide what to do with them alongside you at Vaes Dothrak.”
#
Gabrielle watched as Xena struggled hopelessly against the Valyrian steel chains Khal Moro had traded many fine horses for, days later.
She had broken out of everything else.
“Xena, Daenerys said they’ll free us after we get to Vaes Dothrak. She has a lot of power here.”
The warrior princess growled.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen!” Ares blazed in to taunt his old protege. “Now, say, ’pretty please,’ and I’ll get you out of this mess.”
“I’d rather die,” Xena snarled back, muffled by the gag in her mouth.
“Alrighty then!” the god of war cheered as if he were a gameshow host. “Have it your way. …But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” With that, he left as quickly as he’d arrived.
Xena growled once more and went back to writhing.
Gabrielle sighed.
#
Daenerys made sure Ser Jorah and Daario got Xena and Gabrielle away from the temple of the Dosh Khaleen before she set her plan into motion.
The two Greeks too watched in awe as Daenerys emerged from the burning building naked and unharmed moments after entering it.