Gabrielle's FIN

   Clouds were sailing in the sky that was already darkening as the sun was reaching the skyline and was colouring nearby clouds with a dark rouge colour. Even though the heights of Mount Fuji were covered with perpetual snowfields, the approaching spring had already unveiled patches of ground lower at the hillsides covered with mounting shrubbery. Even the blanket of snow that had descended the previous night had been forced to give up in the warmth of the day.
    No one would come to these deserted hillsides, as there was nothing to come for. Or actually there was, but only a few people knew about that. Misuse of the knowledge might be fatal. In a place, which could not be found by chance, was the Fountain of Secret Force. If the ash of a dead person was scattered to its waters before the second sunset after death, he would be returned to life.

    With the approaching evening the weather had cooled so that a white blanket of hoar had enfolded the stones encircling the fountain. Gabrielle bended over them and lowered a jar near to the water level. The jar contained the ash of Xena. Gabrielle felt her eyes misting. Finally she could return Xena from the land of the dead back to the world of the living. She opened the lid of the jar and had one last look at the ash that once was the woman she had loved. The woman who had given her life to free 40000 souls. Soon they could be together again. She tilted the jar, but suddenly felt a hand pressing against hers. Around the arm was a gauntlet embroidered with familiar figures.
   They straightened up and Xena moved the lid firmly back on the jar.
   "No Gabrielle", said Xena with a hushed and gentle voice.
   "But Xena..."
   "No."
   Gabrielle didn't understand what was going on. Generally Xena's decisions were sensible even though it often became clear only afterwards. Was there something here she didn't understand? And if there was, why didn't Xena explain it? Now there was no time to waste. She didn't like the situation. She was dead-tired and felt an anger rising inside of her.
   "Xena, the sun is setting. I have to bring you soon back to life." She didn't like herself when she noticed that the anger clearly reflected in her voice.
   "No, not if it means condemning the souls of the 40,000 who were burned at Higuchi."
   "Aren't the souls free already?" asked Gabrielle with wonder and was irritated because once again she had not been let in on everything.
   "They're free from Yodoshi's grasp", answered Xena, "Akemi hadn't however wanted to tell me one thing as she was afraid that I wouldn't then come back to help. It was that for those souls to be released into a state of grace, they must be avenged. I must stay dead."
   Xena's voice was determined although it got softer towards the end. Gabrielle looked deep into the warrior's eyes and sensed a deep guilt, but also compassion of such kind the woman didn't normally show. She had always tried to hide her feelings into irony or action, and compassion had been shown only through actions.
   "I have to get my punishment", Xena continued, "and therefore I have to stay dead."
Gabrielle looked at Xena not believing what she had heard. If the woman stayed dead how could they be together? Xena had visited Tartaros a few times, but she had had a special relationship with Hades as she had helped the god a few times. Gabrielle believed that, being dead, Xena might be able to arrange her to visit there every now and then, but that would not be enough for her. She wanted to live with Xena every day. Couldn't the woman return to life and try to find a way afterwards to arrange peace for those souls?
   "But if I brought you back to life...", started Gabrielle, but Xena interrupted: "Those souls would be lost for ever."

    Gabrielle felt betrayed, as Xena was going to leave her. To set others ahead of her. She felt so bad that she couldn't look at her friend and turned away from her. She herself had also been ready to help others and risk her life many times. But she had done that in the belief that she would always survive and stay together with Xena. Or that they would both die and spend eternity together in Tartaros. But now she would not be able to be with Xena and sleep the nights in her arms and huddle against her safe body. She had loved to wake up every morning, since even in her sleep she had known what would be the first sight. Now she would have nothing to expect of the morning. Why couldn't Xena now return to life and take care of those souls when they would both be dead? Those souls had been dead for nearly half a century already, and to them waiting would only mean to continue in a state they surely had already gotten used to. But she wouldn't be able to cope without the nearness of Xena.

       "But, Xena..", Gabrielle started turning to Xena, but felt a strangling piece raising in her throat and her voice breaking, "but that is ... not right". Her voice didn't last when tears flooded her eyes. She tried to stop them, but that made it even worse and she began to weep. She had to continue by whispering: "I don't ... care. You are all that matters to me in the world."
   Gabrielle saw how the warrior's features softened even further.
   "Don't you know how much I wanna let you do this?" said Xena. "But I believe having found the reason for our travels together; I had to learn." Xena looked into her eyes as if in that way trying to force the words deep into her soul. She was surprised by the trails of tears trickling from the warrior's eyes as she continued: "I had to learn from you. To learn to understand what is the final, the good, the right thing to do." In spite of the tears the voice had been firm. "I can't come back." But now also Xena had difficulties to speak and waited for a moment before continued whispering: "I can't."

    Gabrielle felt all the strength vanishing from her legs. Her head was so full of thoughts, that she couldn't turn them into words anymore. She sat down on a stone and looked at the sun that had descended behind the mountain so that only the upper part of it was visible, like a narrow sickle on the mountain. It looked like her life that also felt like being pulled into darkness. Xena had clearly said that she could not return. There was a basic principle in question. Even though Xena had always had principles, Gabrielle had often been disappointed when the woman had killed even where there had been no battle. Even murdered. She remembered that she had never been able to do the same, although she had sworn to do that a few times and had even had a dagger in her hand, only one strike away from fulfilment. Xena had risked her life many times when helping others but had in those cases trusted her surviving skills and actually not sacrificed her life for others. Except in her case. Xena had been ready to die for her without hesitation, just as she herself had been for Xena. And now her friend was to abandon her life for people who were already dead. Only to give them peace. And said that she had learned it from her. When she a long time ago had left her hometown to travel with the warrior she admired, she had wanted to learn everything from her. She had learned to respect and appreciate her more than anyone else and had never believed that she herself would be acting as a teacher to her hero. The opinions of others had never meant much to Xena. The Warrior had decided what was bad and what was good by herself and had acted according to that.

    It was only now that Gabrielle noticed how much the woman had changed. In the end they had given each other very much. When they had met they had been total opposites to each other. How had they gotten along so well together? There must have been something. To her surprise Gabrielle now noticed how much she herself had also changed. She truly was nearly a full warrior now. How had they managed to stay together in the distant past? Actually she knew the answer to that, even though she had not very often said it out loud, not even to herself.
   She had always respected Xena. Then why not now? How could she demand someone else to give up their own principles for her own sake? What right did she have to hold on to her own needs? If Xena would abide by her request, the woman would abandon something she herself had taught her. Xena had just now shown great strength. Whereas she herself had just been ready to abandon her own principles. She knew Xena's feelings for her and therefore the woman had just made one of the most difficult decisions in her life. A decision that was a great accolade for the principles she - the earlier bard - had taught.

    After realizing these facts she felt herself calm down and now the subconscious brought into her awareness that the woman had been sitting by her side the whole time she had been deep in her thoughts. She turned towards her friend. It could now be her last chance to say something she had said many times before. But perhaps never as earnestly as she now felt it.
   "Xena, I love you. How can I live without you?"
   "I will always be by your side. Always."
   A faint smile appeared on Xena's face. Same smile that had often appeared when they had been talking with each other at the camp-fire. When all the pieces of their lives had been in the right places and they had been together. It seemed to prove that what Xena was saying was the final truth. She tilted towards her friend and leaned her head against the woman's shoulder and cheek. She had done that many times before. It had given her a safe feeling when her life had called for tears. She tried to commit this feeling to her memory so that always when required she could close her eyes and dig into the same feeling. Soon there would be no such moments any more.
   They sat watching the crescent sun. There was a hole in the dark clouds just at the Sun's location, like it had been pressed between the mountain and the clouds. The crescent shortened fast, for a moment it was like a small shining gem at the hillside that then died away. A shining gem like this moment.
   Gabrielle felt how the brace at her side weakened and the warmness of her friend's body faded away. She guessed that the woman she loved had just finally left the world of the living. She looked at her side and there was no one anymore. She still wanted to hear the woman's name and hoped that her friend could still hear her.
   "Xena", she whispered very quietly and looked at the darkening sky.

   On her return journey she had not had the luxury of travelling flying as a bird. She had now used several days for that journey, but couldn't remember nearly anything about it and didn't even know how she had found her way back to the ship. For the whole journey she had reminisced the years with Xena, but also the years of her childhood and adolescence. After all, she had now got many things in her mind into order. And she had decided to continue the work Xena had done. She was not yet able to do the same, but after understanding how much she had learned, she didn't doubt she wouldn't still learn much more. She could do that. And the day she wouldn't manage to stay alive she would get to Xena. She had nothing to be afraid of.

    The wind was nearly stagnant and the ship was swinging very weakly. She was content having got to the ship before nightfall. She looked towards the sunset but had to imagine the sun, as light clouds blanketed the sky. This way she could bring back an evocative of an evening with Xena a few days back. Especially as her ash was now in the jar that was in her hands. The woman really was with her as promised, even though she had not meant it this way. She would take Xena's ash back to her home village. But now the jar was still her connection to the woman and she felt it so strongly that she said:
   "A whole life of journeying has brought you to the farthest lands, to the very edges of the Earth."
   She flinched when she felt a faint touch on her shoulder. But unexpectedly it felt natural that it'd be Xena. When she turned around the woman continued her sentence with a soft voice: "And to the place I'll will always remain - your heart."
   Gabrielle felt like something good had just really entered her heart. She felt like it had extended even up to her face and she smiled sparklingly to the woman who had come to her side. She again had everything she needed in her life. The setting sun would not stay hidden. It would rise again tomorrow.
   "So, where to, now?" asked Xena.
   "I think we should go south, to the land of the Pharaohs. I have heard they need a girl with a chakram", said Gabrielle checking that the weapon was at her belt and that she could grab it without looking at it. She turned around smiling to look at Xena and made sure that the woman had noticed her using the same sentence as the woman herself had used before their journey to Japan.
   "Wherever you go", said Xena with a soft voice, "I'm always at your side."
   "I knew you'd say that", answered Gabrielle and gave a short happy laugh. Xena did the same, put her hand over her shoulders and kissed her hair. They stood looking at the sun that was just setting, but still peeked shortly from behind the clouds. Gabrielle was just about to tell Xena what the sunset would always remind her of, but when she turned her head, she noticed that she was alone on the ship's deck.

   

   

 

 

 Xena was permanently harmed during the production of
this motion picture, although she kept her spirits up.