Chapter Text
In that time long ago, I was nothing but a young farm girl with dreams of adventure. Potidaea was a small provincial town, windswept and serene. It perched on the edge of the woods with a road leading from a far off Back There Somewhere and onward to Someplace Else. I always liked to imagine back then, when I’d stand on that well-worn path, bales of hay in my wagon, that our little road led right on to Athens. Everyone knew everyone in Potidaea and my whole world lived inside.
Occasionally a traveller or storyteller, wise fortune teller or oracle would make their way up that long dusty road to our sleepy village; I always liked the storytellers best. My head was far off in the clouds those days, dreaming of a world I scarcely knew, far beyond the hills, roads, and streams I knew so well. They would ride in on a mule cart, merchant’s wagon, or trudging slowly by foot and set up shop for a day or two. I would rush away from tending the chickens, neglect my weaving and sit all day listening to their grand tales of adventure, or pestering the fortune teller if the line of my hand or bearing of the stars said I was destined for great things.
Sometimes I had dreams that I hoped were prophetic of battles, glory, poetry—but the night before I met Xena, I dreamt of nothing, and dark clouds blotted out the stars.
On that strange day following the moonless night, a traveller arrived in our village. Collecting the last of the day’s washing in the dying embers of the day I first spotted our mysterious traveller silhouetted against the brilliant sunset walking down the dusty road into Potidaea. She was tall and wore quite a lot of leather. She looked in quite poor health when you first looked at her, as though she had seen better days: run down and trudging down the road with only a walking stick, which she clung to like a lifeline.
We who dwell in small windswept towns must pay close attention to rumors that blow in from the North. Hospitality so freely given was treated with reticence when such whispers swirled and shadows played upon the walls. We of the small villages, where superstition is as real as the water flowing down our lifeblood rivers do well to listen when travellers bring tales of towns laid low by great plagues, monsters in the hills. But when was I known to listen?
Despite her poor countenance she cut an imposing figure in our village. She looked like no one I’d ever seen before. Her image conjured up things I’d heard bards sing songs of. A warrior cut down in the heat of battle making her daring escape, the last remaining of her band of brothers fighting til the last man—or perhaps a hero returning home to die. For a breathless moment it seemed that a character from legend had appeared to me, as if plucked from the mind of a great poet. But this figure swiftly passed from the realm of daydreams to the realm of reality, a shade passing back over the veil, when she approached my Uncle and began to speak.
At that moment, as I felt the spell being broken, I was craning my neck out as far as I could see down our small dusty road with rapt excitement, linen haphazardly folded in my arms. Upon completing her short request to my uncle, the woman promptly collapsed to the ground. Washing all but forgotten I rushed up the hill, heart in my throat to see this mysterious stranger face to face.
“What did she ask? Who is she? What happened to her?” I panted, somewhat out of breath from the trek up the hill to my Uncle’s home. Curiosity evident in my voice and hasty approach.
He fixed me with a kindly smile, well aware how excited I could be when the odd stranger made it into town. “She asked me only if we had a place to stay, an Inn or something of that sort.” At that he gave a short laugh.
Of course, we didn’t have an inn in those days, or even now: Potidaea is a very small village, and travellers and merchants would camp outside town, or be put up for a night or two in one of our homes. We were always quite hospitable. So when I saw a mysterious stranger, the most excitement we had seen in months, come staggering into town in need of a place to recover, I immediately volunteered.
“She can stay with us! I’m sure my parents won’t mind. We have plenty of space by the hearth, extra blankets. It's not that cold right now I can give her mine so Lila can’t complain oh surely she needs our help!”
My Uncle Alexander laughed again. “Surely there are other people you must ask first.” Knowing my penchant for rushing into things without consultation of my family, but it fell on deaf ears.
So soon had I glimpsed at the beautiful warrior up close, her bronze glinting in the last dying rays of sunset that the rest of the world was forgotten. I knelt down, the light still dancing on her hard, beautiful face, it took my breath away. Perhaps my Uncle said more to me I cannot know, for in that moment it was me and me alone with that beautiful warrior carved straight out of stone. It was as if she was plucked from my head as Athena was plucked from Zeus, a hero from my imagination placed right here amongst us in this unremarkable town.
I must have rushed down that hill with such great speed flying to my parents and beloved sister Lila who had since gathered around the open door collecting up the washing I had haphazardly flung about looking out with great curiosity as to where I had gone off to.
“Injured…needs.. Place to recover…Warrior.. I’ll give up my blankets!!” I panted out excitedly.
“Ai, another of her strays.” My Mother said with resignation.
“A warrior? Where is she from? What did she do? A poor sign in such a season…” My Father muttered.
Suspicions ran rampant in our little town and deserting soldiers were viewed with great suspicion by the villages they came across, and it was not uncommon for such encounters to end in looting or violence. Let alone the stranger’s sickly pallor and far sicklier demeanor, who could know what she was an omen of? Never mind the reports of plague. I felt nearly overwhelmed with emotion, I could feel this chance slipping through my fingers like sand.
“Oh please we must help her! Our harvest has been good. Who else will take her? I want to know everything about her oh please!”
My parents, generous as they were, gave a small sigh and reluctantly my Father said. “We can spare the space. It's never good to leave a traveller alone at night.”
My Mother nodded. “But she should be on her way in a day or two… You know how suspicious people have gotten...”
“Oh thank you! Thank you! I know she will be so grateful it’s very fortuitous to help a stranger in need!”
“I’m not sharing my blankets!” Lila added as I dashed off up the hill before they could change their minds.
In the time it had taken for me to plead with my family and arrange her lodgings, the stranger had already begun trying to salvage some of her pride. I had heard warriors were very proud, very ashamed of their weakness; and this warrior was no different. She clung to her walking stick, trying to pull herself off the ground with sheer force of will. By the time I reached her, she stood tall, swaying slightly and gripping tightly to her walking stick. She looked down at me, a figure no doubt as strange to her as she was to me, illuminated by the last rays of the setting sun. It almost took my breath away. She had a look that was hard to forget, still quite intimidating despite her sickly countenance: clad in leather and with a far-off dark look in her eyes.
I approached her, self-conscious for a moment—feeling quite small and plain—and extended our family’s offer. “We have no inns but my family would be happy to lodge you while you recover.” I told her.
She nodded tersely. “Thank you.” Clearly not one for many words, her voice sounded rough but it burned itself into my mind.
She moved to follow me, slowly and laboriously like every step hurt. I saw her stumbling again and offered out my shoulder so she could brace herself. She thought for a moment, regarding me, perhaps weighing if her pride or balance mattered more to her, though I will never know. But as soon as that moment passed, she reached out her hand and held onto me. She felt like she was carved from stone: impossibly sturdy, cold and heavy, and yet so weak on her feet she needed my own shoulder to guide her. It felt like when I’d seen our beloved plough horse hobbled by a stone. A creature immeasurably strong and vast, invincible in the fields, turned into a shell of herself with one wrong step.
I also felt giddy beyond belief that a touch of the outside world had come right to my doorstep—and that she needed my help. We walked back to my house slowly, each step deliberate, and I could feel her body pressing into my back and her hair brushing my cheek.
My parents and sister opened our door trepidatiously and took long suspicious looks at our new guest. They had made up a makeshift bed close to the hearth, and I helped our guest lower herself onto the blankets. I felt her powerful muscles flex under the leather, my hand lingering on her stomach for a moment perhaps too long; and she gave me a strange dark look. I pulled my hand away like it was on fire, but the impression of that second skin lingered on my fingertips.
Somehow the moment she actually entered our house, it was like a spell was broken. My previously nervous family jumped right into fussing about and making sure she was comfortable. They offered porridge and herbs. My sister Lila, so excited, even offered the blanket from our bed. But all were politely declined. Realizing there was little else they could do, they moved away and retired to bed. I began to follow them, but catching a last look at her in the final glows of the embers from our hearth, I realized I hadn’t even asked the stranger her name. I crept back over the dirt floor, the shadows long in the dying light.
“What’s your name?” I whispered to her as if it was a terrible secret, my voice betraying my nervousness and awe.
She looked up for a moment, surprised, her eyes cracking open again to study me.
“Xena,” she said simply, her voice a bit husky as if from disuse.
“That’s a very nice name! You know me! I’m Gabrielle. Well, um, I hope you sleep well… I hope you’re comfortable… Where have you been? What stories do you have to tell?” I stumbled for a moment as I realized how tired she looked, and felt immediately embarrassed.
“Sorry, you look tired—um, well, good night! I won’t stand here jabbering around too much longer, OK, um, sleep well!”
I rushed out, face burning, hasty to make my exit, and closed the door tight behind me. Lila was standing right there. She had been peering out to watch me. Immediately she began peppering me with questions about our guest. Xena. The name kept playing in my head—Xena, Xena, Xena—the name seemed to offer endless possibilities. I began undressing for bed and Lila kept talking.
“Do you think she's a soldier? Or some kind of mystic… Did you see what she was wearing? Was she injured? Is there blood? Do you think she’s a god in the guise of a mortal woman, a monster here to spirit away girls that disobey their parents? Do you think she could carry the plague?”
“Lila, how could she possibly be all those things? I think she will tell us when she’s feeling better. I bet she has incredible stories of her adventures.”
“Oh, you and your stories. I bet you will scare her away with all your questions and she will get so tired she runs away, never to be seen again!”
I threw a pillow at her and laughed. “Go to sleep, Lila, I bet she can hear us… shhh!” I made a large mock shushing gesture in the lamplight and crawled into bed.
Lila drifted off quickly, but I couldn’t sleep. My mind was spinning with thoughts of Xena. How she looked surrounded by the fiery sunset, how she felt leaning on me, an ancient strength weakened by something I could not guess. Had she been in a war? I could see someone like her rushing off into a battle out of legend. She seemed like someone who would stand out almost out of place, out of time, unique wherever she stepped foot. Perhaps there already were legends about her. My thoughts began to fragment into discordant images and snatches of thought as the veil of sleep descended.
I drifted off into a fitful rest. My dreams bled into each other: an ancient warrior back to claim ancient blood, a shadow weaving through the village with the shape of a beast, but I swore sometimes it looked like a woman. I saw it crawl through our window and look at Lila, and I know I dove in front of her—and awoke with a yell to a pitch-black silent room. Lila slept still soundly, undisturbed by whatever troubled my dreams. I fell back asleep, but when my dreams drifted to more pleasant things, the shadow played around at the edge of my visions. I dreamt of adventure and a great rushing river, but the shadow still skulked. I dreamt of something very silly I cannot remember, but I know that when I awoke to the roosters and Lila shaking me, I still felt a chill. It was as if there was something beside me just at the edge of my vision tickling at the corner of my eye.
The sunlight could not burn away all the lingering chill my dreams had left me with, and the morning felt strangely different to me then. Even the air I breathed felt changed somehow, that my foggy breath in the dewy morning cold might coalesce into the shapes of the shadow that had stalked my dreams.
I crawled reluctantly out of bed at Lila’s chidings and began to help with the morning chores. Of course, farmers rise with the sun; and yet Xena slumbered on. A strange presence, roused by neither the stoking of the fire, nor crowing of the rooster. My curiosity mounted as the morning wore on. As I fetched water from the well, my mind was on Xena; when I fed the chickens, my thoughts drifted to Xena: what kind of person was she, was she ill, would she awaken when I returned? The day wore on but Xena could not be woken. My chores were marked by a sense of anticipation, and yet also lingering unease. As I milked the goats my mind conjured up further fantastical explanations for her seemingly endless sleep: she was stabbed by a poisoned dagger, she had fallen under a curse to sleep for 100 years. While I spun stories with my head in the clouds, the village gossip took on a more serious tone.
I may of course be remembering such things through the ever disreputable veil of time, for it has been many years since these events unfolded in my sleepy village. But I remember quite strongly on this day, or perhaps in the days that followed, when events became yet even stranger, that I spent my morning hours of chores dogged by questions. Someone, perhaps a cousin or a neighbor, asked after the nature of our guest’s injuries, her restful habits. Still further questions from more villagers upon my hanging of the washing: if I knew the fate of a village not too far from us, though also not too near it could simply be a coincidence. Fever, she said; beasts, he said. Of course such questions meant little to me then.
With the midday sun high in the sky, my day almost half spent, as I tended the fire I heard a rustling and shifting beside me. I saw the stranger stir for a moment like a cat out of the corner of my eye. She lay, a bit disheveled but just as striking, in the warm light of day that bathed her face.
“Oh! You’re awake!” I exclaimed, and immediately felt foolish, suddenly quite aware we were the only two souls in the house. Xena tilted her head upwards in seeming confusion, still getting her bearings about her.
“It appears so... And who are you? I seem to have had quite a strange dream.”
“I’m Gabrielle, we met yesterday. This is my house, my family’s house. You passed out in my village last night and we took you in. Well, I begged them to take you in. I’ve been so excited to meet you! You’re Xena, right? You said so last night, unless that has changed… anyways, I’m glad you’re awake—do you need food? I also had a strange dream.” It all tumbled out of me so fast I had forgotten how to breathe.
“Funny that, dreams… No, I won’t be needing any food, Gabrielle, but thank you for your concern.”
She seemed quite terse but had politely ignored my embarrassing outburst, so I bravely pushed forward, desperate to know more about our strange guest. She had begun to sit up slowly, clearly still in pain.
“Do you need any help? Are you injured? Are you ill?”
“I’ll be fine in a few days, comes with the territory. Be out of your hair soon. Tell your family thanks for the warm bed.”
“Of course! Make yourself at home. We are very hospitable in Potidaea, you're the talk of the town.”
“Am I now?”
“Yes, well, we don’t get many visitors around these parts… especially ones that collapse dramatically, covered in impressive armor.”
“Ah, yes...”
She looked off for a minute in silence, clearly wanting the conversation to end. I felt a pang that it was to be over so soon, but I didn’t wish to bother her too much or drive her away. So I left her to that silence, only the crackle of the hearth between us as I tidied.
Statuesque, still clad in her leather, she sat silent as a stone gazing at the hearth. As I swept, I kept stealing glances at her. I felt drawn inexorably towards her for reasons I could not fully understand. The firelight and the sun danced in the reflections in her eyes, but something in the way I saw the light catch those eyes reminded me with a start of the shadow from my dreams. What had she said about dreams… My Grandmother always said dreams told you what you wanted to hear and what you didn’t. When I dreamt of long journeys and wondrous adventures, I had hoped I held the gift of prophecy. Today I was not so sure.
By sunset, word had spread. Lila had spoken to her; my parents had spoken to her; curious neighbors had popped in to say hello, offer her food, herbs, their expert opinion on recovering from mysterious maladies. Xena remained quiet but polite. I hoped foolishly that she had spoken the most to me, but I wasn’t sure. Everyone had something to say: some thought it odd she hadn’t eaten a bite, others thought she looked too strong to be in this condition, others still thought she was close to death. Yet still more talked of a strange wind blowing from the North and dreams of creatures in the night. A neighbor said her daughter’s cousin’s best friend, who of course was also a neighbor, had thought she was attacked by wild beasts in the night. This greatly alarmed people, but stories of such nature spread rapidly in a town that small and rarely had much truth to them. The anticipatory atmosphere of gossip in those early, heady days let stories travel fast and truth follow far behind.
At dinner Xena politely declined all that was offered to her. My mother and father fretted over her how skinny she looked, the pallor of her skin, the slow languid way she still moved across the room. They insisted she take porridge or broth, and she just as insistently told them she had no need. Only small sips of wine passed her parched and cracked lips. She politely excused herself and thanked us again for our kindness and hospitality, but I could see in their puzzled looks this was not enough to assuage the growing doubts that had settled in my parent’s minds. I of course was still starstruck, privately hoping she was in fact a god in disguise, testing our generosity—ready to grant me some great and noble quest if I passed muster. You, dear reader, can see how far off in the clouds my mind was back then.
After dinner as we tidied the hearth, mysteriously Xena stood and spoke.
“Though I cannot take your food, I would do well to gather herbs found best in the moonlight… an old remedy.”
“Of course, of course,” my mother said kindly, but I knew from how she held her hands she was unsettled. Our guest still remained maddeningly vague on what ailed her as she left the cottage. I heard my parents muttering about the strangeness of it all, appalled at a guest that would take no food. Their misgivings were heard by me and me alone as I crept beyond the threshold.
I stole out into the night after Xena, my eyes searching the moonlit horizon for a shadow in the shape of a woman. I cannot tell you then exactly what it was that drew me so inexorably towards her. Only that I was being pulled desperately, frighteningly, into her orbit. The shadows of the trees, the shapes of the hills remained unchanged in the cool night air as I watched for any movement, any sign of Xena and her strange night wanderings.
Finally, I caught sight of her slinking smooth as water through the tall grazing grass. I picked up my feet and trundled after her, aware how quiet the night was and how loud my panting and heavy footfalls were. She moved far faster than I would have thought possible in her condition. She slipped through the grass soft and nimble, as the breeze made it dance in the moonlight. She stopped for a moment, looking around, and confidently dove into the edge of the forest on the outskirts of town. Panting, I continued behind her on a mission. I was certainly making a racket and making myself quite conspicuous, but curiosity overrode my trepidation and I ran into the trees after her.
Though I knew this forest like the back of my hand, it looked quite different under cover of night. Few of us ever went out alone; lamp oil was too expensive for a casual midnight wandering, and we knew the wolves that circled the village waiting to pick off a sheep or two from the flock would surely not object to the taste of a foolish farm girl. The full moon had allowed me to follow after our guest quite confidently, but the moment I entered the trees, darkness completely enveloped me. My senses cut off, I stopped to listen, straining to hear her footfalls or perhaps a branch breaking as she moved by. Yet all I could hear was the breeze creaking the trees, the scurry of mice and the hoot of a distant owl. I felt suddenly quite alone.
“Be careful out here, young Gabrielle, you never know what lurks in the woods after dark.”
At that I loudly yelped, realizing Xena had come up behind me and I hadn’t a clue. She seemed to walk quiet as a cat.
“It’s quite cold out here, isn’t it?” I tried to sound nonchalant.
“Indeed, and yet here you are out looking for...?”
“Oh, you know me… Night wanderings... Nightmares… I wondered where you went off to.”
“Well, I would think that my herbal remedies can remain a family secret.”
“Oh don’t worry, you can keep your secret, but I am very good at hunting for herbs and mushrooms! I could help, you know, seeing as I’m already here.”
“You are very persistent.”
“My mother tells me that all the time.”
“Does she?”
“Oh, you know, from time to time.” Trying to sound nonchalant, I started groping for moss on the tree branch I’d once collected for the village healer.
“I wouldn’t pick that if I were you: deadly poison, killed the entire ruling council of Pella, wiped them clean out. I hope you aren’t planning to poison me. Have I been that poor of a guest?”
I dropped the moss like a hot coal and turned to face Xena, but she was crouched down picking something. Had she even been watching me, or was she just messing with me, I wondered to myself. She caught me staring and turned slowly to meet my gaze. As the moonlight hit her eyes they flashed like a cat’s.
“How do you know so much?” I said, and with sudden boldness asked. “Who are you? Are you a soldier? A healer? An oracle? Are you on an adventure?”.
“I’m from somewhere far away and I’m headed someplace further. I won’t trouble your family long. I thank you for the hospitality but I will be on my way soon.”
At that something seized me. “You can’t just disappear! I hardly know you! You don’t know what it’s like waiting around for something to happen!” I knew I sounded desperate, almost pathetic, but this stranger with knowledge of plants who carried strange weapons and could move through unknown woods like a tiger felt like she had leapt out of my imagination. I still wasn’t sure if she was real or if she would slip through my hands again like water.
“Oh, Gabrielle, you have been very kind.” She moved closer to me, her hand gripping my shoulder. “But where I’m going…” She trailed off obliquely, thinking better of what she had perhaps intended to tell me. I held on to her every word but she said no more. She had turned back to the ground plucking herbs. I must have marveled then how she could tell useful from worthless from poison in the dark-shadowed forest. I may have crouched beside her and tried to watch her or kept my distance observing, mesmerized. But I know for sure I soon felt something creep up my leg.
As I watched Xena, so strong and sure crouched amongst the litter of the forest floor, I stood absolutely stock still. My discomfort turned to terror as something began making its way slowly towards my knee. I would like to say I am not easily frightened, but I remain persistently perturbed by things that creep upon the ground and then try to creep upon me.
“Xena…” I whispered. She seemed to not hear me. I hesitated before saying her name again not wanting to make a scene. She seemed the type unbothered by almost anything, so my simple fear of things that creep and crawl would surely seem quite embarrassing to someone as traveled and stoic as she. But as I worked out a second choked “Xena…” her body turned around like a bolt. I felt her hand on my leg before I even saw it shoot out. She seemed to have limbs in every direction and muscles that flowed as fast as water. I gasped—her hands were cold and damp from the earth and I could smell the earthy vegetation that clung to her. As one of her hands clasped my calf, the other had a snake winding and coiling its way around it.
I yelped again in surprise, losing what little composure I still had left. “What’s that?”
“It seems a snake was getting cold tonight and tried to make its home on your warm ankle.” Xena got up, still holding the snake, and put it in front of me. “No harm, it's just a little whip snake.”
“No venom?” I asked, still slightly breathless.
“None.” She grinned a little and opened the snake's jaws, revealing only a small row of teeth. “No fangs, no venom.” The snake continued to coil around her arm as she offered it to me.
“I.. Uh..” I looked down at it, still trepidatious, but thought: would Perseus be able to slay Medusa if he was afraid of a harmless little garden snake? Would I be able to set out from my village holding onto fears this childish, or camp on the cold wet ground if I feared snakes coming out of the grass? So I thrust out my arm. Xena held her still-cold arm up to mine and let the snake move slowly over to coil itself about my arm.
“It likes your warm blood, you know. You run hot even on a damp cold night.” I felt her cold arm brush me as the snake moved fully from her arm to mine. It was a strange sensation, the cold scaly thing moving up and down my arm. I stared at her for guidance.
“It does?” I sounded squeakier than I hoped.
“Oh, yes. Many things that slither about in the night do.” She gave me a weird grin.
“Can I put the snake down now?” It was beginning to approach my shoulder and I felt I had conquered my fear quite enough for one night. My arm grew stiff with discomfort as it slunk along my arm.
She didn’t reply, but put her hand on my shoulder. The smell of the herbs on her was even stronger than before. She reached out and grasped the snake with her other hand. I shivered a bit as I felt the snake's muscles twitch and uncoil from my arm like a living rope. She held the snake in her hands absentmindedly before placing it down into the leaf litter below. It slithered off unperturbed.
“Do you have all the herbs you need?”
“Almost…” She remained maddeningly vague.
“Could you show me what you’re looking for?” I asked, sounding stupid to myself. “Maybe I could help.” She didn’t respond, just returned to her strange motions in the underbrush: crouching and picking, sometimes sniffing the various plants she picked and placing them in a pouch on her belt.
This continued for some time. I split my time between staring at her working and gazing up at the moon through the trees, seeing what shapes the tree branches would make. After what seemed like an age, she suddenly got up and said it was time to go. And just like that, with just as strong a sense of purpose, she turned right back around, seemingly knowing the way better than I.
She led me back, picking her way through the underbrush, wading through the tall grass. She seemed to become even stronger, more sure of herself in the moonlight, with not a shadow of her earlier illness. Her hands smelled of herbs. She settled herself quietly onto her bedroll as I crept into my bedroom, hoping to not wake Lila.
“Where were you?” Lila asked accusingly. Of course she was still awake, she was always so nosy. I never did anything without her finding out.
“Collecting herbs… with Xena.” I tried to sound nonchalant.
“With that head of yours,” Lila said, “you might wander off and get eaten by wolves, and we would be none the wiser til daybreak!” We both shivered as she brought up this possibility.
“We were very safe. Xena’s quite strong, you know.”
“Yes I’m sure she is. The Gods only know where she got all those scars or what she wants with this village.”
I was surprised with her accusatory tone.
“You know our Aunt Phoebe’s chickens were eaten by something last night,” continued Lila. “You shouldn’t be out there… in the dark.” Lila was never one to heed the warnings of our parents or believe every tall tale. Where was this coming from?
“Oh look at you, little miss rule-follower. Were you so worried about the wolves when you snuck out last month with Pelius the goatherd?”
“That’s different and you know it!”
“OK, OK, I won’t sneak out with tall dark strangers into the woods—only boring goatherds I’ve known since diapers.” I meant it in jest but as soon as I said it we both felt I’d said something more true than we really knew.
It hung in the air for a moment before Lila hugged me and said, “Well I’m just glad you’re ok.”
With that I changed quietly into my night linens and crawled into bed with her. Though thoughts of the snake, the smell of the herbs on Xena’s hands, and the luster of the full moon still played in my head.