Disclaimer from the Author:  Copyright? Are any of these characters mine? Only the ones that didn’t appear in the series. The others are copy written to Studios USA.  This story is not to be posted or sold without the permission of the author Caina Q.  Fuller.  This story is meant to be enjoyed for private use only.

 

Sex? Implied, but not actually seen. There is a lesbian couple in this story, but there are no scenes of a sexual nature graphically described in this story.  Try to be understanding and keep an open mind about that. People 18 and older-for the original version of Studies In Light, visit The Bard’s Corner at AXIP (the Australian Xena Information Page). The version you are reading here is a different version from what some of you know. It has been modified for this site.

 

Violence:  It wouldn’t be a realistic Xena story without lots of blood and glory would it?  Relax parents, I’m kidding J. I don’t dwell on graphic gore in this story. 

 

Previous references: Studies In Light is a story that explores the darkness Xena falls into when she believes she has lost her best friend forever. This is her struggle to come out of the darkness and into the light that love brings in a healthy friendship. If you wish to understand every reference made in the story, you will want to visit Amphipolis Village to read “Stand By You”, as Studies In Light is a sequel to that story.

 

Well, that’s it everyone. Just to recap:  I don’t own the characters Xena, Gabrielle, Athena (as she appeared in Xena), Marcus, Lila, Ephiny, Eve, Joxer or any other character seen on the television show Xena Warrior Princess or Hercules:  The Legendary Journeys.  There’s no graphic adult content in the story, there is a lesbian couple in the story, there is violence but it’s not dwelled upon and gory, and this story is a sequel to Stand By You. Read on and I hope you enjoy.

 

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Studies In Light

Written by:  Caina Q.  Fuller ©

Cainaq@Yahoo.Com

 

 

Chapter One: The Separation Of Soul Mates.

 

Gabrielle lay on her back, staring up at the starry sky above. The day had been a long but usual one, filled with fighting and near death experiences, but she felt satisfied in a way she hadn’t known since before her ordeal with Apollo, the god of the sun. 

 

The anger she’d been nearly destroyed by after the rape had been like a cancer, eating away at her soul. In many ways it was still there, but Xena and Eve’s love was healing her in ways that she had never believed possible.

 

“Xena,” Gabrielle said. The word had barely been above a whisper that she could hear herself, but she knew her best friend, the Warrior Princess had heard her.

 

“Mmm?” Xena breathed her response more than she spoke it. She was sinking into blessed sleep, but she was more than willing to wake her battle weary body for her best friend.

 

“I feel whole again.”

 

The words brought Xena up out of her sleep with a smile. She’d been waiting a long time to hear her friend say these words, and now she had. An important moment was coming, a moment of finality to the horrible events that had nearly destroyed their friendship before.

 

Xena scooted over to Gabrielle and lay beside her, with her head propped up on one hand to comb locks of fine blond hair back from the Bard’s face with her fingers. 

 

“That’s good to hear. I was afraid I’d lost you Gabrielle.”

 

“You nearly did. The power of your love saved me.” Almost as an afterthought she added, “Eve’s too.”

 

“Eli works in mysterious ways.”

 

Gabrielle looked back up at the sky. The air was crisp, but Gabrielle welcomed the cool after the hot summer they’d just been through.  It seemed to clear her mind, making it easier for her to think.

 

“Not Eli alone. Perdicas and Solan, the visit with my parents…it all helped me to work through the pain and realize I was on the wrong path. I’m so fortunate to have you all in my life.”

 

They shared a few moments of comfortable silence before Xena broached the subject of one more person whom Gabrielle had once said played an integral part in keeping her soul from dying.

 

“What about Huron?”

 

Gabrielle continued to look up at the stars, seriously considering Xena’s question. 

 

“He was a bad man Xena, but I knew he wanted to do good. He had the potential to turn his life around if he would have met me when I wasn’t at my worst.”

 

“He loved you Gabrielle. His loved saved you from completely sinking into the abyss.”

 

Gabrielle frowned, not sure if she understood what Xena was talking about. “The abyss?”

 

“Mmm,” Xena said, turning onto her back. They made quite a striking pair staring up into the starry sky, together again, as they should be.  “You know, that darkness that takes root in your heart when you’re suffering in your worst pain?”

 

“Oh yes. I can definitely see how that could be called an abyss. I think once a person falls so far nothing can bring them out again.”

 

“I was lost in that same darkness once. Then I met Hercules.”

 

Gabrielle took hold of Xena’s hand. It was nice just to lie here like this, talking to her friend and feeling the love of their eternal bond of friendship warming her soul and healing her wounds.

 

“You were ready to come back into the light Xena. If you hadn’t been, even Hercules couldn’t have saved you.”

 

They were drifting off into a peaceful sleep when Gabrielle felt Xena’s body suddenly stiffen. The Warrior Princess sat up, wide awake and aware of danger.

 

“What?” Gabrielle asked.  “What’s the matter?”

 

“Trouble. It’s close.” Xena hopped to her feet, picking her sword and Chakram up as she stood.

 

Knowing Xena meant business with that kind of tone, Gabrielle followed suit, pulling her sai’s from her boots, which were above and behind her head. 

 

Gabrielle took up position behind Xena, prepared to face down anyone who would cross them. The Bard strained all her senses to detect what Xena was picking up on. Though her own senses have sharpened during her travels with Xena, they were nowhere near as keen as the warrior guarding her back. 

 

“I can’t hear anything,” Gabrielle whispered, but Xena shushed her anyway.

 

“I don’t hear anything either. I just feel something is coming. Get ready.”

 

Xena forced herself to relax and take in the sights, sounds and smells around her. Her warrior senses could hear her friend’s heart pounding with the anxiety that always comes before a battle, but the hooting of the owls and the song of the crickets had suddenly stopped.

 

The air blew in a continuous, soft gust, rustling through the leaves of the trees above them.  She could smell the sweet aroma of wild flowers and honeysuckle blooming in the bush. Somewhere close by there was the buzz of bees as they went about their work in their hive.

 

Argo II whinnied from somewhere in the trees, warning Xena that her own senses were picking something up as well. Was it a god? Ares perhaps?

 

No, Xena thought, straining to hear.  This isn’t a god.

 

Then she heard it. The familiar and unmistakable sound of human movement in the trees. It was coming from all around them.

 

“We’re surrounded Gabrielle,” Xena whispered.

 

“Should we make a run for it through the trees?”

“No. Not yet.”

 

Another equally familiar sound came to Xena. The sound of an arrow whizzing straight at them. Then another, and another.

 

“Get down!”

 

Gabrielle obediently dropped flat on her stomach as Xena used her sword to deflect the arrows flying at them from all directions.

 

Then suddenly there was silence again.  Xena forced her eyes to relax. With her vision out of focus she was able to see the dark forms of men in the bushes all around them.  They wore the red and white robes of the priests and followers of Apollo.

 

Once again deadly projectiles came flying from the trees. This time they were small throwing knives. She deflected them all, but even as they passed by she could smell the stink of the poison they’d been dipped in. If she or Gabrielle were cut…

 

When she’d deflected the last of the knives she tossed her Chakram into the trees. The satisfying sound of the disk cutting down one attacker after the other was like music to Xena’s ears. 

 

Xena called for Gabrielle. “Come here!”

 

Gabrielle stood and Xena wrapped an arm around her. Xena’s powerful legs propelled them into the trees. Below them the sound of the Chakram still cut through the trees.

 

She called to the weapon with her will, and it obediently returned to her. As soon as the threat of the Chakram was gone, men began pouring into the clearing where they’d made camp.

 

“Stay here.”

 

Xena’s words came out sounding more like an order than a request, but Gabrielle nodded and did as asked. She’d come to understand that Xena didn’t doubt Gabrielle’s abilities to defend herself in the least.  The warrior just wanted to go below and size up the situation first. If Xena got into trouble, Gabrielle would go to her side immediately.

 

Xena gave her trademark battle cry and leaped from the relative safety of the branch and landed next to the fire, sword drawn and ready to fight. 

 

Gabrielle couldn’t deny she was dismayed to see that their attackers were from Apollo’s temple. Even after all she’d been through at the hands of that bastard she was still being tormented by him in the form of his loyal priests.  

 

Xena handled them with ease at first, but they just kept coming from the trees in waves.  One right after another they charged from the bush until they seemed to swarm around the Warrior Princess like ants to honey.

 

Gabrielle found herself hoping desperately for Xena to retreat, but she knew it would take a lot more than fifteen to one odds for that to happen.  One of Xena’s flaws was her stubborn pride, which often caused her to fight when Gabrielle believed they should retreat.

 

“Xena,” Gabrielle said nervously, watching Xena take on guard after guard.  From Gabrielle’s viewpoint, she could see they weren’t about to give up. How many men were there anyway? She found herself wishing that Xena would just retreat now and save face later.

 

Finally Gabrielle got her wish. Xena leaped from the heat of battle and came to stand beside her on the tree limb.  “Well?”

Xena shook her head, breathless. “There’s just too many of them. We’re going to have to regroup. Come on.”

 

Xena grabbed a vine and wrapped an arm around Gabrielle’s waist. They were just about to swing to the relative safety of the forest when the most horrible sight Xena could ever imagine being cursed with seeing filled her vision.

 

Just as she’d been about to swing with Gabrielle, an arrow planted itself in the center of the Bard’s chest. Gabrielle looked down at it as if she were seeing something from a nightmare.

 

Xena could feel something integral to the life of her soul die as she looked into Gabrielle’s beautiful green eyes and watched the light that was her friend’s life began to fade.  Knowing she had only seconds of life left, Gabrielle gathered her remaining strength and said her parting words to the one she loved most in all the world.

 

“I love you Xena.”

 

Those four words took the last of Gabrielle’s strength, and right before her eyes the light that guided Xena through the darkness and evil of this world faded away…

 

***********

Gabrielle

***********

 

There was a moment of darkness after Gabrielle whispered her good-bye to Xena. The pain in her chest from the arrow became excruciating, and then suddenly there was a release.

 

Gabrielle opened her eyes and found herself in a world that was unlike any other she’d ever experienced before.  There was no end in sight, yet at the same time it seemed to engulf her very soul.

 

Depending on the way she focused on the world around her, she either felt like she was being crushed beneath the pressure of unknowable tons of water or floating free as part of the sky itself. 

 

She forced herself to see her surroundings as air, instead of water, and when she did that she could breathe again. The mists that surrounded her felt cool and wet on her naked flesh.  The wound in her chest was also gone.

 

“Sweet Pea.”

 

The sound of Aphrodite’s voice confused her more than it relieved her. How would Aphrodite find her in the after life? Then it occurred to her that maybe the voice she’d heard wasn’t the goddess of love after all, but something masquerading as her friend.

 

“Aphrodite? Is that you?”

 

Aphrodite came walking out of the mists before her, wearing her usual gauzy, see through dress.  She looked like a doll with her curly locks of blond hair and rosy cheeks. 

 

“We don’t have much time.”

 

“Much time? For what?”

 

Aphrodite came to her and wrapped her arms around Gabrielle. She could feel the love of the friendship she shared with the goddess, and it seemed to be magnified a hundred times in this magical place.

 

“Xena has fallen without you. You must go to her, before she falls without you.”

 

Gabrielle frowned and pulled back. Everything seemed to be suddenly muddled, and it didn’t help that Aphrodite was speaking in future and present tense at the same time.

 

“What do you mean she has fallen without me?”

 

“You’re her light Gabrielle. You’re her way through this life. You inspire her to be the best she can be. Without you she has/will fall.”

 

Gabrielle tried to wrap her mind around what Aphrodite was telling her, but she felt lethargic, and the feeling was only growing worse.

 

“You’re not making sense. You talk as if things have already happened, then you talk about the same events as if they have yet to occur.”

 

“You’re in my realm now. My resting place. Time has no meaning here, but I’m about to send you to a place where time does have meaning.”

 

In the mists before Gabrielle a light began to shimmer, growing brighter and brighter until it formed a crude passage in which she could make out the landscape of Greece. In the distance was a temple to Aphrodite.

 

“If you wish to save her you must save yourself. Go through the portal and you will learn all. Trust me. You must find me on the other side.”

 

Aphrodite suddenly faded away, leaving Gabrielle alone in the mist. She turned back to the portal and found it closing. Through her dazed fog Gabrielle heard Aphrodite’s words echo through her mind.

 

Trust me…

 

She made her decision and passed through the portal.

 

There was a moment when the disorientation reached its peak. Gabrielle was dimly aware that she was falling, but when she opened her eyes she was standing on the road leading toward the temple.  Her mind was clear and she was fully dressed in her usual outfit, complete with sai’s.

 

Gabrielle tried to collect herself and reason through what she knew. She’d been hit with an arrow and seemed to die. She’d went to some strange place and spoken with Aphrodite, but where was she now?

 

Once again Aphrodite’s voice rang through her mind, telling her to trust. Gabrielle took off for the temple. She knew she’d been told to find Aphrodite on the other side of the portal. Perhaps the goddess of love could clear the confusion of the past few moments.

 

*******

Xena

*******

 

Xena stared in numb disbelief as the Amazons danced around Gabrielle’s funeral pyre. They were honoring a fallen Amazon Queen, but it was an empty ceremony at best to Xena.

 

Xena had always believed that if she and Gabrielle didn’t fall together, then she would fall first. She never would have believed she would be saying good-bye to the one person who’d taught her the meaning of true love and joy.

 

A strong hand came to rest on Xena’s shoulder, and she looked over to find Varia standing beside her.  Xena was struck by the younger woman’s ability to change from stoic warrior to soft woman in a moments notice. The light of Gabrielle’s burning pyre reflected in Varia’s dark eyes the pain tearing Xena’s heart to pieces.

 

“I will miss her Xena.” 

 

The words were nothing more than a whisper, yet they thundered in Xena’s ears.  Her nerves felt raw, and everything seemed too loud and too bright to her. She hadn’t felt this way since her beloved brother Lyceus has passed on countless years before.

 

Now all she wanted to do was crawl into some small, private place and lay there until she died. How could she face life without her soul mate? Her best friend had meant everything to her. It was ludicrous to even consider trying to live alone or with someone else.

 

“Xena?”

 

Xena could tell from Varia’s voice that her name had been spoken more than once.  “I’m sorry.  What was that?”

 

“I said why don’t you eat something?  I’ve been watching you since you came to us yesterday. You haven’t touched a bite of food.”

 

Xena shook her head no. The idea of food only served to make her feel ill.  She turned from the dancing Amazons and wrapped her arms around her body. Their song was too loud, too sad. She had to get away from it all.

 

“Come with me. Please,” Varia said, tugging on Xena’s arm.

 

Xena allowed Varia to pull her away from the service and into the steam hut where the Amazon’s carried out every ritual from blood-sacrifices to Artemis, to relaxing after a day of battle.  Apparently the Queen had prepared for Xena’s arrival ahead of time.  The place was stifling inside, and sweat began to pour from every poor in Xena’s body.

 

Without invitation, but with practiced skill, Varia began to pull Xena’s armor and leathers off until she stood naked before the young Queen.

 

“Lie down.”

 

Xena was too tired to argue the point, so she followed Varia’s order and lay down on the massage table in the corner of the room.  Once she was comfortable Varia coated her hands in oil and began to rub Xena down.

 

Immediately Xena could feel her body begin to relax. She hadn’t realized she’d been so tense. She allowed Varia’s hands to massage away the pain in the muscles of her back. It felt so good she could feel herself drifting off to sleep.

 

“Talk to me Xena.”

 

Xena found herself chuckling.  It was an empty laugh, full of bitterness and ire instead of amusement.  “You’ve never been one for talking Varia. You’ve always been a woman of action.”

 

“True. But I know that Gabrielle was always ready for a good talk. I can be too.”

 

“You’re not Gabrielle, are you?” Xena’s tone came out sharper than she’d wanted, but she did nothing in the way of an apology.

“I could be.”

 

Xena knew Varia meant the statement innocently enough, but hot anger still flooded her chest, making her body tense up again. 

 

“No one will ever take Gabrielle’s place Varia. No one. Do you understand that?”

 

Xena sat up and searched for her clothes. She needed to get to some place quiet and cool so she could think. 

 

Varia realized she’d made a serious blunder that could cost her the tentative friendship she’d built up with Xena over the past few months.  She came to stand before Xena, trying to calm her down.

 

“Xena wait.”

 

“No. I don’t need a massage.”

 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I’m trying to replace Gabrielle. I just wanted to be your friend, that’s all. You need someone to stay close to you now more than ever. If you’re going to continue your fight for good, you’re going to need help. I could be that person to fight by your side.”

 

“You’re Queen of the Amazon Nation. Why would you want to leave all of this behind to follow me?”

 

“Because you and Gabrielle made a real difference in this world Xena. I want to be a part of something like that too. I would make a great partner if you’d just think it over.”

 

Xena sighed, feeling deflated. She’d over reacted to Varia’s overture to expand their friendship. “I know you didn’t mean anything Varia, but I’m not looking for a replacement sidekick. Excuse me. I need to be alone to think.”

 

Xena left the hut and ventured into the night. Varia’s suggestion to replace Gabrielle in her role as Xena’s sidekick had raised questions in Xena’s heart.  Now that Gabrielle was gone, there was no longer any doubt that if something didn’t happen soon she would fall apart the same way Gabrielle had after Apollo’s attack.

 

Xena also remembered her promise to Gabrielle. A promise, it seems, she’d made a hundred life times before not to become the monster she’d been before she’d changed her ways. With the bitterness growing in her heart would she be able to keep that promise?

 

Xena vowed that she would do all in her power to stay in the light, but in her heart she knew it was only a matter of time before she fell back into the abyss of hatred she’d been lost in before she’d found Gabrielle.

 

“I’m lost without you Gabrielle.”

 

Xena continued on into the night, not knowing where she would end up, or what she would do when she got there.

 

The End of Chapter One.