The following is a bit of alternative fiction based on certain characters from the Xenaverse. It is not meant to infringe on anyone else's rights. If you don't agree or disapprove, please go read something else.
To say that the villagers of Skula were angry was to put something so harrowingly deep into such mild terms as to be an unfit description altogether. They weren't just angry. They were ANGRY, furious, wrathfully driven, grimly excited and bloodthirsty.
This was why, when the trio arrived they were greeted with the sound of war drums beating and women chanting. That was their second clue that there was trouble. Their first clue had been Iovene, who had violently recoiled from the energy surrounding the village. It wasn't that she hadn't been involved in Amazon warring before. She had been part of the capitol too long to have missed that. Rather, it was the particularly virulent form that these emotions were taking.
She did a lot of quick fixing, centering herself and breathing deep and she made Kalai and Arete do it too, since she wasn't sure what they would be facing up ahead, and she knew these two were more "sensitive" now. For all they knew, they would be going into a battle ground. Fortunately, things hadn't quite degenerated to that point yet, but Iovene wasn't exactly in the best of shape by the time they realized it.
Finding Valona had been easy. Her heavy voice of wrath was carried by the wind itself to their ears and was scattered upon their consciousness, in such a way that there was no avoiding the knowing of her location. Right up front.
And there she was, arms waving, face hardened, a body so tense that Kalai was amazed that the woman could even move, let alone be doing all the gesturing she was engaged in. Eudora stood by her side, silent, unmoving, arms folded, unexpressive save for the straightlined frown that occupied her face and the fiery glint in her blue eyes.
At least no one had put the masks on yet. That would have been bad, for it would have meant that the course of the action had been set. But that didn't mean it couldn't happen in between the time they moved from one end of the village to the square.
So they hastened, but couldn't run into the fray, it was too crowded and there were too many irate women standing right where they needed to be. It was as if, for a moment, they were of one mind, each separate but joined, weighing the options of their experience and coming to a similar (or perhaps even the same) conclusion. They listened. They listened very carefully, very deeply and heard what was not being said, or rather what had been said long ago and moved on from.
Eudora had been kidnapped. That was a wrong indeed, but they wondered if it required the sacking of the neighboring village. They looked at each other, and using handsignals as ancient as the Amazon Nation, they made a plan.
Somehow one of them made it to the front. Arete's voice sounded out like a flute to Valona's brass and she pierced the air with her own staccato shout, "So, what seems to be the problem here?" She used her best, *I am the Queen's consort* and *I know what the heck I am doing* body language. (Only half of that body language told the truth. The rest was bravado.)
Valona's glare was dark and forbidding and she deliberately made the choice not to answer. She snubbed the consort, whom she considered weak and continued to shout to the crowd. (though if she had been paying any attention at all, she would have known the opposite to be true, but she had already made up her mind and so it was.)
Never mind that this would have pissed off the queen had she been present. Never mind that it hacked off Arete, whose large hands clenched into pummeling instruments of chaos. It didn't matter. For a small woman took offense (righteously. . .for the most part) and came barreling out from nowhere. They tumbled off the stand, much to Arete's, Iovene's and Eudora's consternation and began to wrestle and pummel and fight in earnest.
There was a moment when the whole thing could have become a terrible freeforall. It hovered in the air gleefully, watching and waiting. It was terribly disappointed.
Out of the ranks of the Amazons strode a tall form, raven hair fluttering in the wind, blue eyes flashing. With one hand she grabbed a small wrestling form and with another, the larger woman. She handed Kalai into Arete's rough care (arms wrapped tightly around a body that was still trying to lay in a few punches) with a grim smile. Then, strong arm still propelling Valona by the back straps she pushed the woman against the podium and with a voice so soft and dangerous that it made Valona quiver, she asked, "So, what seems to be the problem here?"
Stryfe slunk away in a snit.
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These pages were last updated: November 05, 1997
ŠNovember 05 1997