All Soul's Night.

Disclaimers in Chapter One. Note: The author sincerely apologizes for having taken so long, but getting hit by a car and suffering protracted angst and anxiety is guaranteed NOT to be conducive to writing.

It is said by some cultures that certain souls are destined to find each other no matter their form. The bitterest enemies in one life become the most passionate of lovers in the next. A poet who once courted a maiden might becomes the subject of their suitor's music when they rejoin.

Only forms and roles change, never the essence that is them.

What, then, would come of a meeting of such essences, unclothed of their corporeal forms and drifting in that nameless place as far from death as it is from life?

That place where the choir of lost voices forever weaves its eternal song.

******

Xena remembered...

...when the air was filled with the smoke and scent of ruin, her eyes misting with the tears she had shed in sorrow in over twenty winters.

The child she cradled in her arms could not have been even a single moon old. She was so small and perfect...and so completely still and silent. Xena's senses were all so alive from the battle raging about her, she'd *felt* the babe breathe her last, her heart still...all while still a dozen paces away.

Xena lost herself to her rage then, her sight consumed by fierce red and entire form alight with her sire's fire. Her sword, swung with but one hand while her other cradled the infant, sliced through raider after raider after raider. Leather, cloth, flesh, and bone were all cleft as though no more solid than the air itself.

When she emerged from her rage, long after the last of the attackers had fallen, Xena was the only thing left living in that wasted village. Gathering herself, she set about burying the villagers deep into the hard soils they had toiled over in life, that their death might nourish that which had nourished them. This proved difficult work, and sweat eventually glistening across her brow and sleek muscles.

The infant she buried last, as though the child might awake as if from its afternoon nap with delay...or she might simply stave off the inevitable good-bye. With a single kiss to the nameless child's smooth forehead, Xena covered the tiny body, her tears moistening the stubborn dirt.

Xena did no such favors for the raiders who had caused this tragedy. She left their torn bodies for the scavengers who even then stalked nearby. Hungry as they might have been, these were not foolish creatures and knew better than to risk themselves where a presence far wilder and deadlier than they stood. They waited until it was far away before coming forward.

Xena cared nothing for the wise caution of scavengers. Her only thought as she left the dead village behind was to seek out her lost half, the brilliant and eternal noonday sun to her equally eternal night.

She had left her bard many a season ago, arrogantly believing herself the stronger one. Now? Now she would happily serve the daughter of Bacchus as a serving wench, or a pleasure slave, *anything* Gabrielle would have her as. The daughter of Ares (may *he* burn in whatever realm awaits the passage of gods) knew herself too weak to live on without her stronger half.

She would rather fell upon her own sword than live another moon alone.

******

Gabrielle remembered...

...music and colors filled the air. Ceaseless chatter, impossible to either listen to or completely escape, hammered her hearing and thoughts mercilessly. The effort it took to just remain standing was almost too much, and *she* of all things seemed to be the star attraction.

Dignitaries in fine dress, their breasts weighted down with metals and ribbons, and courtiers of both sexes fairly gravitated towards her, the celebrated storyteller and actress. They listened attentively to her relating some half-remembered tale of...somewhere. Her voice worked entirely of its own volition.

Gabrielle knew many here saw her as little more than a potential conquest, or an evening's amusement. Centuries of performing on the stage had taught her the folly of expecting too much of her audience. She was there to amuse and distract. Yet, Gabrielle never gave up the hope that some might take away the lessons she sought to impart them, and so she persisted.

Still, she had been alone, adrift, for years now. The loneliness had only become harder to bear, not easier, with each passing season. Oh, there was never a lack of companions, though each to a one only had designs for her wealth. That was expected, so it didn't hurt (too much) when she found them out.

What hurt was so few of them were...honest...about it.

Millennia of life, and her optimism proved every bit as stubborn as her will to live. She supposed it was an admirable quality. Still, one could take only so many disappointments before the whole, sad game got too tiring to play. Gabrielle had lost count of how often she'd considered finding a driad bone and retiring from the stage. What point was there to continuing?

Yes, she had wealth, position, property, off-spring to carry her legacy. And none of it gave her a single decent reason to continue this farce of a life. Her children were all established enough to survive whatever came their way. The money and properties meant less to her than a pebble found on the side of a road.

Gabrielle continued for the same reason she hadn't sought the bones of a driad. True, most of her companions were simply seeking an easy life at her expense. But, without fail, any moment she considered ending her existence, there would be one who came to her not for their own benefit, but solely for her's. They would be her comfort and her strength, giving all that was needed and asking nothing of her. It was solely for these few that the Ancient bard endured and would continue to endure the tricks and falsehoods whispered in her ears by the rest.

But that night was different, her strength draining from her as if bleeding from an open wound. Those few who sustained her were not the cooling night to her fiery day. Deep and enduring as they were, they were not the one she had lived and loved for so long. Perhaps all those centuries with her lost warrior had given her some of fire that had burned so fiercely in the warrior's blood. Gods knew she'd drank enough of her warrior that some mixing of them was inevitable.

But she, Gabrielle, immortal bard, was not one who could long stand such fire within her. She compensated by releasing it on the stage. But there was another sort of release, one she denied herself for far too long. It was a bizarre sort of self-inflicted torture, but necessary and one never compromised on. She was many things, but Gabrielle would never do the harm such a joining would to another, however willing they might be.

Her story done, Gabrielle made her excuses and took her leave. It was, she was sure, a violation of some unwritten rule these people lived by and would make her the talk of many a tea luncheon tomorrow, as if wearing jeans to this absurd function weren't reason enough. As it was, Gabrielle knew she needed to leave, to have Max drive her about until she was driven to mind-numbed exhaustion that she could sleep through night, lest she show these peacocks surrounding her what she *truly* thought of them!

Perhaps she might find a momentary distraction of her own out there on the streets. Perhaps, but Gabrielle considered it no more likely than she might find her dead warrior awaiting her on the street corner.

******

When the essence of darkness and of illumination do finally meet, what might happen? Simply, nothing...and everything.

Darkness is nothing without the light to give it boundary, just as illumination is undefined unless limited by the shade. And so the passions a warrior must be tempered by the gentleness and teachings of a bard, just as the teachings of a storyteller must be given vigor by the warrior's passions. For one to exist without the other leaves the warrior defenseless against the seeming pointlessness of death, and make the bard's lessons nothing but empty air.

Joined together, all things are possible.

Here, in this place where the eternal choir sings, the warrior and the bard remembered themselves.

Here their essences did join once more. Met and mingled, knowing each other as intimately as they now knew themselves, until each only began with the other. Such as it had always been.

There are no words to describe what came of it, no more than mere words might describe the beauty of sunrise or a winter's morning to the blind. Imagine such things for yourself, and that will be enough.

******

Xena opened her eyes to the familiar dim light of dawn, her foggy sight confronted by an equally familiar pair of clear emerald eyes.

"Good morning," Gabrielle murmured, a weak smile the only sign of the heaviness and vague pain suffusing her every inch.

"Good morning," Xena murmured, capturing the woman's lips with her own.

Their tears mingled, their eyes not once breaking contact throughout. The kiss eventually broke when Gabrielle let out in involuntary moan of discomfort. Xena moved to get off the bed, only to be stopped by Gabrielle's hand on her arm and the unspoken plea in her eyes. The tired grip on her arm ended Xena's momentary hesitation. She lay back down, maneuvering one arm over Gabrielle's supine form, unwilling to close her eyes until Gabrielle did so.

They drifted off once more, this time without pain or objection, and slept the day through. The only disturbance was Xena needing to get up twice to relieve herself; Gabrielle did not wake either time, but tossed and turned as a child might when plagued by the Horse of Ill Nights, quieting only when Xena returned. They lay side-by-side, pressing close, shifting and rearranging against each other in perfect synch.

If either dreamed, they were only peaceful ones.

Madrigail looked in on them several times, shooing away Marcous and others who came calling, determined nothing would disturb either of them until morning. Then, she promised herself, then they'd *really* be in for it!