WARNINGS AND DISCLAMERS

Xena continued to follow the bard's trail and with a nearly full moon she was able to see well enough to make up some of the distance she'd lost the night before. By the time dawn was breaking the next morning Xena knew that she'd finally caught up with the elusive bard. It really surprised the warrior that Gabrielle had managed to evade her as long as she had. It seemed as though the bard had paid some attention to the lessons after all. Xena finally spotted Gabrielle walking ahead of her on the trail and sent Argo into a run to catch up with her.

Gabrielle heard the horse coming up behind her, but knew it was too late to hide no matter who it was. The bard gripped her staff a little tighter and turned to face whoever was coming at her in a hurry. When she turned and seen the dark warrior and golden palomino she knew her hopes of reaching the Nation before Xena caught up with her were now gone. She stopped and waited for the warrior to reach her. A flood of emotions and feelings came crashing down on the tired little bard as she watched Xena approach.

When Xena finally caught up with the bard she dismounted and turned to face Gabrielle.

"Hello Warlord!" the bard said plainly and bitterly.

Xena winced. "Gabrielle are you all right?" the warrior asked worriedly.

"As you can see I'm fine! Why did you follow me?" the bard said bitterness in her voice.

"Gabrielle you left without even telling me?" the warrior sounded hurt.

"Maybe you were too drunk to remember warrior, but the last time I saw you, you seemed a little occupied. I didn't think you would want to be disturbed by something as unimportant as my leaving." Gabrielle said a little hotly. The thought of the brown-haired woman still brought the jealousy boiling to the top and the hurt over the betrayal of the warrior.

"Ok maybe I deserve that, but you knew that I'd be worried until I knew that you were ok... especially after I found some things in our room... it made me worry that something might have happened to you." The warrior tried to explain.

"Well I thank you for your concern warlord! What could you possibly have found in the room that would make you fret over me?" The small woman's asked sarcastically.

"Gabrielle you have every reason to be angry with me for what I tried to do and then leaving you all alone in a place like that, but I am really worried. The skin of port I left in the room was nearly empty and I've never known you to drink port and I found these laying on the bed when I went to check on you." The warrior said pulling the bard's undergarments out of her bag and extending her hand toward the bard.

Gabrielle was just too tired to be embarrassed by being caught with her pants down so to speak and lied. "I left it for you warrior princess as a souvenir... I'm sorry, don't you like them. I'd exchange them for the one's that I have on, if I had any on. I'm afraid if I did have they wouldn't be any drier than those were when you found them." Gabrielle said bitterly. Actually she'd been upset and fairly intoxicated when she left and she forgot she didn't have any undergarments on. But hey... why admit that to her? The bard had had enough of this conversation and moved to go around the warrior.

"Gabrielle WHAT is that supposed to mean." The warrior replied confused.

The bard didn't answer, but kept walking; she really didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Hades Gabrielle, will you PLEASE talk to me?" The warrior said as she reached out and grabbed the bard by the arm.

Gabrielle yanked her arm free and turned angrily to face the warrior. The bard was tired, hot and thirsty and for the most part she was lost. "Xena you found me and as you can see I'm all right, what else do you want?" The bard replied hotly, then turned and continued walking with the warrior right beside her.

"Gabrielle I want to know what happened to you in our room that night." The warrior replied.

"I fail to understand why you or anyone else would care." Gabrielle said bitterly as she continued to walk.

"Whatever else you might think of me I really do care about you and I have to know that you're all right and that no one..."

"Warlord if you'd really gave a damn, you'd have been there yourself and you'd already know the answer and wouldn't have to ask." Gabrielle said in an amused voice. The bard guessed it was just the whole absurdity of the last few days, but it really was starting to look like some cruel 'joke' one of the gods were playing on them.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd want me around after what I didÖ what I tried to do to you. Besides the way I was still feeling it really wasn't safe to be around you. I'm really sorry for what I did to you and I'm sorry I couldn't come back to the room, but if I'd came back...." The warrior stopped finding it difficult to think about much less say.

Gabrielle stopped and turned toward the warrior. "Xena what would have happened if you'd came back to the room?" The bard asked sure that she knew the answer, but asked anyway.

"Gabrielle you know I was fighting the 'battlelust'. I would have raped you and taken your virginity and thrown it in your face." The warrior said with self-loathing and shame in her voice.

The bard chuckled silently to herself. "Xena I have trouble believing that you'd have raped me or anything else, despite the 'battlelust'. You couldn't finish what you'd started, so I don't think it would have made any difference if you'd come back to the room.

"Gabrielle just be glad that I didn't come back to prove you wrongÖ you wouldn't have been the first." The warrior warned.

Gabrielle was a little surprised by the admission. "Xena you've never told me much about your time as a warlord and I respect your need for privacy about such things. I'm not even going to pretend that I have any idea what you've been going through... I've never had battlelust. You're the only warrior and warlord I've been around very much and I've never seen you act like this before." Gabrielle confessed.

"Gabrielle I would have hoped that you never had to see what a person with 'battlelust' was capable of. I never wanted you to have to experience it... especially from me. I lived through many days of battlelust as a warlord and I know what I'm capable of and that's why I tried to warn you. I thought I had control of it until I seen what those men had done... had tried to do... what they said they intended to do... I just lost it. You'll never know how sorry I am that I then turned on you. You didn't deserve that." Regret was evident in the tone of the warrior's voice.

"Xena I might have a bruise or two on my arm from your strong grip, but I assure you that I'm fine. I really have someplace I'd like to go..." Again Gabrielle turned and started down the path.

"Gabrielle you still haven't told me what happened to you that night in the room... I've never known you to drink; so will you, at least, tell me who drank the port?" The warrior was still worried about what might have happened to the bard in her absence and if it did it was Xena's fault for taking the bard to such a place and again failing to protect her.

"Is that what all this is about? You're worried about your missing port and who drank it? I'll get a job in the next village I come to and I'll replace your port warlord. Can you trust me that long to return your property to you?" the bard questioned.

"Gabrielle I'm not worried about the port. I wouldn't care if you'd poured it out the window." The warrior replied with growing frustration at not being able to get any answers about that night from the bard.

Gabrielle just shook her head and kept walking.

Xena had just about hit her limit of patience with the smaller woman and had to know what had happened to Gabrielle. Xena again stepped up behind the bard and this time grabbed her roughly and spun the bard around to face her. "Gabrielle I have to know, was there anyone else in the room with you last night?" the warrior asked angrily.

The bard nearly doubled over with laughter. When she looked up into the warrior's face the bard had tears rolling down her face as she continued to laugh. "That's a good one Xena... I'll have to try to remember it. I was probably the only one in that whore house who was alone."

"Gabrielle why won't you tell me what happened, why would you have drank all that port?" The warrior questioned.

The bard just continued laughing and walking down the path.

"Bard you will stop and answer my questions." The warrior said threateningly.

Gabrielle stopped dead in her tracks and studied the ground at her boots for a few minutes. "All right warrior princess I'll give you the answers you're wanting if it will end all the questions. Do I have your word on it warrior?"

"All right Gabrielle if that's the way you want it, but don't expect me to quit following you until I know that you've safely gotten to wherever you're going." The warrior said with a defeated sigh.

The small honey-blonde bard with the jade green eyes turned and looked the warrior straight in the face. She studied the warrior's face trying to judge why she was so interested in how the bard had spent that night. At this point she didn't know if she should laugh or cry. She also wasn't sure that Xena would want to know the truth and depth of her feelings for the warrior. The warrior still thought of her as a little 'girl'. Maybe if the warrior thought she wasn't a virgin any more, and that the bard was no longer such a little 'girl'--virginity in tact, maybe she'd quit trying so hard to protect it for the bard.

Xena watched the jade green eyes examining her and could see that Gabrielle was putting a lot of thought into her answer, but wasn't expected the response that she finally got.

"Ok Xena here's what you want to know. My undergarment was a casualty of the lewd and erotic noises that I was subjected to listening to from my own bed. They got so wet and uncomfortable I took them off. The sounds coming to me in my room from that prostitute barn were starting to take their toll on my senses, so I drank your port trying, unsuccessfully I might add, to knock myself out so I wouldn't have to hear it any more. When that failed to work... I borrowed your phallus and joined in the fun... who knows warrior it might have been more fun with you. The gods know it wasn't the way I'd ever pictured losing my virginity but... You have your answers... now please go away and leave me alone." The bard having finished her tale turned and again headed off toward what she hoped was the Amazon Nation and a place to hide for a while.

² Copyrighted January 1998 by DelShannon