Among Friends

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.

It's easy to start a war when you have gods on your side. With Ares whispering in his right ear and Velaska in his left, Aulix felt invincible. The god of war promised him immortality through history, while Velaska promised him all the wealth and women he could want. Their combined efforts were enough to fill him with a firm belief that he was sure to win. Then there was the violently powerful Electra, who would fly down from the sky, bringing the shattering noise of chaos in her wake. It pleased Velaska that it should be so. The dark Goddess was, after all, the Goddess of Chaos.

Still, Aulix, was cautious in his own way. The priest, whose son was lost into the hands of those bitches, had cast the stones, and the fates had decreed that the mighty Aulix's first battle would be a win. It was an astonishingly bloody, easy and total win. As first true battles go, (and not some silly little skirmish) it was the best.

Electra had blown holes into the ground bigger than his body, and then spiked vicious currents through any Amazon foe who tried to walk the path towards his men. Then his army, made beserk by the Goddess, had screamed down into the first valley and had crimsoned the field. The air reaked of the copper of the Amazon's defeat.

It had been the most beautiful thing Aulix had ever seen. He only wished he could have been in the Amazon villages to hear their impotent wails. 'Too bad for them,' said his gleeful heart, 'The Gods were on his side.'

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In the dark, the bodies were noiselessly carried away. If there were tears, they mixed with the rain's sorrow. Mud slurped against their boots and muffled grunts were the only indications that their sacrificed sisters were being returned to their homes.

The battle had been timed perfectly, with Jacosta's foreknowing, or rather her utter understanding of her brother, and Iovene's weather sense. Aulix had been drawn out to grasp an irresistable prize of fertile land and poor defenses on the Amazon's side. It had been a resoundingly bitter victory for the Amazons, as Athenian spies mixed into the enemy's army. Who would look for men on Amazon land?

Gabrielle's heart had broken into tiny little pieces with each strike of lightening, each plunge of the sword. These were deaths upon her head. Her hands, though all she'd done was watch, were spotted with blood. She'd watched till her final Amazon fell, with surpassing bravery. She could almost hear the words that fell from the Amazon's lips, "For my Sisters..." The woman had not gone to Hades' realm alone, the sword she buried into the soldier's heart made sure of that.

It might as well have been in Gabrielle's own.

The only thing that kept Gabrielle standing, breathing...was that Xena was there with her...watching the battle unfold with keen eye, holding the Queen with gentle arms. They'd witnessed together, each from their own space. The Queen for her people, the warrior for the weaknesses.

Gods, after watching the storm that came in the battle's wake, Gabrielle only hoped there *were* weaknesses.

Her lips prayed numbly past the sodden cold, "let there be something..." She felt Xena's warm hold pull against her to lead her away. It was spare comfort, for the warrior's own face was bleak and the sword on the Queen's shoulder weighed down upon her. Gabrielle feared, though it had only been a battle, she'd witnessed the end of the Amazon's small nation.

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These pages were last updated: October 15, 1998

İOctober 1998

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