Ancient . . . India, Actually (Surprise), One Trip From Greece Later
"I still can't believe you put the pinch on me," Gabrielle complained playfully as she and Xena wound through the marketplace.
"Oh, come on, Gabrielle, what was I supposed to do, huh?" Xena stopped to peer at a piece of tanned hide before deciding it wasn't up to par for armor repair. "I had to immobilize you long enough for Eli to get that demon out of you."
Gabrielle wrinkled her nose, trailing her fingers along a length of silk in a merchant's stall. "I still feel awful about frightening all those people like that." Why was it always demons with her? Dahak had been bad enough, but getting possessed by a demon who'd pretended to be a benevolent deity long enough to use her to manipulate an entire town seemed worse.
"That was not you," Xena insisted. "You can't be held responsible for what Tataka used your body to do."
"I guess . . ." Gabrielle didn't really want to talk about it; whether or not Xena was right, and she knew intellectually that Xena was on this point, those people had believed she was some kind of god. They'd worshipped her; she'd had men pledging their swords and lives to her service, which meant that some of them had died because of her. Really, she could have been glad they weren't talking about Xena's vision any more, but this wasn't exactly more cheerful.
She changed the subject. "Do you think Eli's going to handle this all right? Being a divine being?" There was a certain irony in their new friend, a charlatan of a street magician, turning out to be what Tataka made everyone believe Gabrielle was, and he hadn't taken it very well; he'd tried to run away, actually, and only come back in time to exorcise the demon from Gabrielle out of guilt. Still, she liked to think that meant there was hope for him going on to do great things.
"Mmm," was Xena's noncommittal reply. "Guess we'll have to find out."
"Guess so. Now, come on!" Gabrielle took Xena by the arm and tugged her toward a cluster of clothing stalls. "We came all this way to India, and I want to make the most of it."
She didn't have to look at Xena to know her best friend was giving her the narrow-eyed suspicious look. "Gabrielle . . ."
Gabrielle stopped and turned around to look chidingly at her. "I want to experience this place. Really live it. Not just wander through. So come on. What do you say we get with the local fashion?"
***
They'd finally settled on new outfits, which for Xena involved testing the combat-worthiness of her range of movement, when a procession moving through the marketplace caught their attention: a solemn-faced group of men carrying what looked like a shrouded body, and behind them another group of men bearing an elaborate litter. On the litter, a woman sat, solemn-faced as the rest of the procession.
Gabrielle and Xena were both intrigued, though Gabrielle could tell from the subtle shift of Xena's breathing pattern that someone suspected trouble might be coming.
Yes, as far as they were both concerned, it was definitely trouble when the mourners reached the funeral pyre, set the shrouded body atop it, then moved to seize the woman and throw her into the fire too.
It was local custom, they were informed by one of the mourners when Xena intervened and angrily demanded to know what the meaning of this was; more than that, it was law.
"Yeah, well, a law is about to be broken," Xena snarled, and of course that meant a fight was on. Custom or not, neither she nor Gabrielle was about to stand by and let a woman burn to death alive for no reason besides the fact that her husband had died. But two women against a marketplace full of armed and angry (somewhat justifiably, Gabrielle reluctantly conceded) men -- those weren't great odds when protecting a noncombatant, and in the end they were forced to retreat to an empty house and barricade the door.
Gabrielle was so busy finding objects to shore up the barricade that she didn't notice right away when Xena disappeared into the back room and the woman -- Naima -- followed after her. It was a house with two rooms, only one door, now pretty well buried behind a mountain of furniture, and no windows, so when she yelled for Xena and got no reply she had to go looking.
. . . there was no Xena. Just Naima, who'd shed her veil to reveal a number of intricate patterns drawn on her skin in some kind of dark brown dye. When Gabrielle wanted to know where Xena was, she didn't get an answer right away; Naima circled her, gesturing and chanting something Gabrielle couldn't make out.
Her second attempt to ask got her -- well, a light show, actually. Naima closed her eyes and seemed to fall into herself somehow, and the drawings on her skin glowed gold before they began to emanate patterns of light that wove around Gabrielle. It was completely entrancing, and she could have been thoroughly distracted . . . but that wasn't going to happen as long as she had Xena to worry about.
"There is a great evil in the future that is hunting Xena's soul," Naima relented, and explained. "It has found her. If it succeeds, Xena's karmic circle will end -- along with all the good of her future lives."
Because enemies from Xena's past weren't bad enough, apparently. Cutting right to the point, Gabrielle asked, "Who is her enemy?"
"I don't know. I had to send her there quickly -- to defend herself. I was not able to tell her much before she left," Naima replied.
There was only one thing to ask in response to that. "Send me there."
Naima's moment of hesitation was obvious, as much as it broke into her steadfast calm. "I'm not sure that's wise."
"This karma that you're talking about -- can you see mine?" Gabrielle persisted, moving within arm's reach of her. She had no idea what karma actually was, yet, but she'd worry about that after she got Xena back. "Can you see how much Xena's a part of that?"
Naima stared at her for several long moments, and Gabrielle wanted to squirm under the scrutiny. Finally Naima brought an elaborately henna-tattooed hand up to touch her cheek and nodded. "Yes. In many lives . . . past and future. You are right. But if you are to go, I must give you the weapon I could not give her. You must learn the mehndi."
A weapon? Gabrielle winced internally but nodded and replied hoarsely and without hesitation, "Teach me."
***
She'd never paid such intense attention to a lesson in her life, not even in Lady Ghanima's class, but Gabrielle stretched the limits of every mnemonic technique she'd ever learned to commit everything Naima taught her to memory. It felt like a century later and yet no time at all when Naima finally pronounced her ready to go and stood.
"Just remember, the key is the mehndi. Together, you and Xena must use it to trap the evil and bring it back to be destroyed."
Gabrielle swallowed and willed her breathing back to a normal rate. "I understand."
"Mendhi is the path to enlightenment. Feel it, don't try to understand it. Accept," Naima admonished, dropping to a whisper at the last word. Then, as she handed a small wooden box to Gabrielle, she continued in a normal tone. "This is to create the mehndi. It will be waiting for you in the future -- there, hidden in the wall."
By now they could hear yelling from the other side of the door; their pursuers must be getting ready to try and break it down.
"You are ready," Naima told her, her expression a wordless reminder that what Gabrielle was about to do was more important than her own safety here. "Tell Xena that the evil must be brought back and destroyed, here, where she's still powerful."
Gabrielle nodded and watched, again memorizing Naima's motions as the woman spread her arms, drew on the power the way she'd taught Gabrielle until the lines of the mehndi glowed, and created a glowing ball of light that enveloped Gabrielle.
***
When the disorientation wore off the first thing Gabrielle was aware of was a searing pain in her shoulder -- the all too familiar feeling of having a crossbow bolt extracted from it. The second was that she wasn't wearing a shirt -- and her reflexive squeak and attempt to cover herself with the shirt she found draped over the arm of the chair she was sitting in drew the attention of the old woman conferring with a warrior across the tent.
The old woman glanced at her with a disconcertingly familiar raised eyebrow. "Something wrong?"
"No. No, I'm fine," Gabrielle answered, and now that she could hear her own voice she realized -- was she a man? "I was just thinking of someone I need to find. What -- what were we talking about?"
"I was saying that Khindin's not afraid of your army. She lives off the fear of others," the woman explained. "She's more than just a warrior."
Gabrielle could have reacted to the mention of her army, but -- "A warrior? Khindin?"
The woman nodded. "I know this doesn't make much sense to you, but she's trying to recreate powers she lost long ago."
Whoever Khindin was, it must be Xena in this future incarnation. This . . . didn't do anything to debunk Gabrielle's theory that Xena was a Jedi. "Is she still tall . . . black hair . . . a particular warcry when she attacks?"
"Leave us," the woman commanded the warrior with her, and he complied with an alacrity suggesting that whoever this old woman was, she had more than earned his respect. Leaning on her cane, the woman hobbled across the tent and put a hand on the arm -- muscles defined in a way that only came from wielding a sword frequently -- of the body Gabrielle currently inhabited. "Gabrielle."
And suddenly, she realized who she was talking to. But -- "Xena? Is that really you?" She almost giggled, and it sounded absurd in this voice. "Naima didn't tell me that you'd -- you'd look so different."
The woman who was Xena chuckled warmly; it didn't sound the same, but it had the exact same effect on Gabrielle that it always did: a warmth spreading from somewhere deep inside her. She pointed toward a brass shield lying nearby, polished to a high shine, so Gabrielle could see their reflections in it. "So do you. Your name is Shakti. You're the leader in this land."
"This is my karma. This is my reincarnated soul?" Gabrielle repeated, somewhat incredulously. She was a soldier, and the leader of an army, in her next life? "Naima sent you here. You have to defend your soul against a great evil. I don't know what that is."
"Alti," Xena answered, the benevolent old woman's face set in grim lines. "The great evil is Alti."
"But --" Gabrielle was still having trouble adjusting to this reincarnation thing. "I thought you killed Alti."
"Her evil just moved on to its next life. And this time, it not only has her spirit, but the strength of a warrior. That's why the mother of peace had no success with Khindin."
"The mother of peace?" echoed Gabrielle, confused.
The bewildered, sheepish smile on Xena's face was heartbreaking. "Me."
First things first, though: Khindin had just taken a lot of captives, and -- as always happened in these situations apparently, no matter what bodies they were in or what lives they were currently living -- there was no way Xena or Gabrielle would leave the to suffer. So, naturally, they had to formulate a plan.
"Xena, the mendhi is the key," Gabrielle pointed out, making sure to emphasize that before they got too deep into planning. "It's the only way we can bring Alti back to our world. We have to use it, so you can defeat her there."
Xena gave her that nod that meant she was listening, and factoring that into the plan, but going ahead full steam anyway. Good thing they were alone in the tent; the men outside wouldn't have known what to do with Arminestra, the Mother of Peace, making battle plans. "We capture her, and her men will take revenge. We'll have to set them free at the same time."
"I'm sure your mind is as sharp as ever, but --" Gabrielle looked pointedly at the cane Xena was leaning on so heavily. "How?"
"That's a good question."
And one, Gabrielle realized, that meant she would have to take point on the fighting. She didn't like that idea any more than ever, but if she was a warrior in this lifetime . . .
She was beginning to suspect that she'd never be able to get away from the cycle of violence.
***
Gabrielle led Shakti's army -- her army, and that was still the strangest concept -- toward Khindin's encampment, pausing every now and then to make sure that Xena, hobbled by Arminestra's body, could keep up. Shakti's lieutenant had been entrusted with the task of finding the house where the mehndi kit had been hidden in their last lifetime, but until then he was staying close to Arminestra's side, and Gabrielle couldn't help wondering what he would do if he ever realized their revered Mother of Peace had been the Destroyer of Nations in a past life.
"You know," she murmured to Xena as they crouched behind a pile of rubble, "if this doesn't work it all ends here. Everything. Us, our souls . . ."
"We don't have any choice," Xena answered. "It's funny -- here, you're the warrior. The hero."
"Xena, in this lifetime the Mother of Peace would be a goddess to me," Gabrielle insisted. "That's a hero."
Xena smiled at her then, the wistful kind of smile that only Gabrielle ever saw in rare unguarded moments; it looked like it belonged on Arminestra's face. A movement out past their hiding place caught their attention and they shared a silent nod of understanding before Gabrielle put her hand on the hilt of her sword and signaled the men.
Xena caught her arm. "Be careful."
What a role reversal; they'd experienced this exact moment so many times, but this was the first time Gabrielle had ever been the one to have to hear the request and respond with a nod, knowing that what she was about to do was anything but.
She rose to her feet and led the soldiers into the attack.
***
The first objective had been successful: they’d freed the prisoners. The second, retrieving the box with the mehndi kit, had come at a price; Shakti’s lieutenant succumbed to a crossbow bolt in the process of delivering it to Xena.
That was where things started to fall apart, and that was why Gabrielle and Xena came to as prisoners.
“We don’t have much time,” Xena told her, holding out the box. They didn’t -- Alti intended to have them publicly executed as soon as the stakes were built. (Well, on the one hand, it wasn’t the crucifixion of Xena’s vision.) “Alti just left. If we’re gonna bring her back to the past and beat her, you’d better start painting.”
“What if I don’t remember everything Naima taught me?” Gabrielle asked, feeling the dusty but smooth wood of the box in her hands. It was intricate work, and she hadn’t had much time to learn it in the first place . . .
“Don’t try to think, Gabrielle.” The confidence in Xena’s voice both calmed and warmed her. “She said the mehndi was the path home; just trust that. Let it happen.”
There was really nothing else she could say to that; Gabrielle surrendered herself to Xena’s faith in her, her memory of what Naima’d shown her, and her belief in what they had to do. Naima had told her that her karma and Xena’s were intertwined in many lifetimes, and maybe that was why with the two of them working together, feeding off each other’s energy, the lines felt instinctive.
***
With everything she’d seen in Fandom and on her travels with Xena, very little should surprise Gabrielle any more, but she wasn’t used to the sensation of the henna-dyed lines on her skin glowing gold and coruscating into a brilliant ball of light that catapulted herself, Xena, and Alti back to their own time.
There was one more problem they hadn’t anticipated, either: bringing Alti back to their own time meant they’d brought back the powers she possessed in this lifetime, namely her ability to psychically inflict pain on her victims by making them live through visions or memories. Gabrielle didn’t know what images she was inflicting on Xena to throw her around the square like that without even touching her, but she didn’t care; she adjusted her grip on her staff and charged in.
She didn’t even have a chance to get in a single blow before Alti snapped her staff in two and began to beat her savagely with the pieces, but that pain was only the beginning.
“What’s she told me about you, little girl?” Alti rasped, clamping her fingers around Gabrielle’s throat. “Has she told you about my powers? Has she told you about this?”
And with the searing midday sun beating down on her, Gabrielle shivered with a bone-deep cold.
Herself, hair cut short, tied to a cross laid out on the ground as Roman soldiers knelt over her and snow fell in wind-driven swirls . . .
Turning her head to the side to see Xena similarly bound, lips moving weakly as she struggled to form words . . .
One centurion placing a piece of wood across the palm -- still decorated with the elaborate henna patterns -- of her hand as the other passed a heavy hammer to him . . .
Xena whispering to her, barely audible over the wind: “Gabrielle, you’re the best thing in my life.”
She could draw strength from that. She could take that promise, and use it to withstand Alti’s torture, and she --
The centurions placing the tip of an iron spike against her hand and letting the hammer fall.
-- screamed in pain, blood suddenly pouring from the palms of her hands.
“Give me that pain!” Alti hissed, right up in Gabrielle’s face. She twisted her fingers up in Gabrielle’s hair and hoisted her into the air, adding a whole new level of pain. “Give it to me!”
Another nail, this time poised above her bound feet, and the ringing blow of the hammer.
She was dimly aware of Alti nodding sharply and then Xena screaming in agony like she’d never heard Xena scream before, but that was drowned out by her own howl when searing pain shot through her feet followed by the hot rush of blood. She thought she was going to black out from the pain when something whistled overhead, slicing cleanly through her hair -- Xena’s chakram! -- and letting her drop to the ground. Gabrielle promptly doubled over on herself, both out of pain and out of the desperate need to warm up from the all-too-real cold of the vision.
It wasn’t until she heard Xena yelling for her that she realized that Naima had stepped into the square and -- done something, she wasn’t sure, but Alti had backed off.
“Naima’s not Alti’s enemy!” Xena shouted to her. “It’s the mehndi!”
Gabrielle watched the lines on Xena’s skin begin to glow again, felt the ones on her own do the same. Naima had both hands outstretched, golden light pouring out of her hands to bind Alti in place; Gabrielle blocked off the pain that came from getting to her feet and extending her own hands to follow Naima’s lead.
She’d never felt anything like this before, never consciously been a vessel for this kind of power, and it was all so overwhelming that she only barely realized Xena had managed to destroy Alti by channeling the golden light into the form of her chakram and hurling those at Alti, one after another, until two finally found the mark.
Afterward, all they could do was cling to each other.
***
Her hair was a ragged mess, even with as sharp as the chakram was, and Gabrielle decided to have it cut short instead. Yes, even after what Alti had shown her.
“You know it was like this in that vision,” she pointed out gently to Xena as they headed out of town and down the road.
“I know,” Xena answered, a shadow crossing her face. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Xena, Alti was evil,” Gabrielle argued. “Why should we believe anything she showed us? If the mehndi contains truth, I wish there was some way we could do that again, just to really know.”
“Naima could’ve told us.” It was halfway a joke; after the fight with Alti, their new friend had -- ascended, somehow, if Gabrielle had to describe Naima’s disappearance.
“Yeah . . .” Gabrielle sighed. “There’s so many things I wish I’d asked her, about what this all means . . . you know what she said? That your karma and mine -- they’re intertwined.”
Xena got that look on her face, the one that said this conversation was threatening to get a little too philosophical for her. “Maybe it’s not the first time we’ve walked down this road, huh?”
Gabrielle laughed and reached out to catch Xena’s hand with her own. “Maybe it won’t be the last.”
[OOC: Adapted and slightly tweaked from X:WP 4x15, “Between the Lines,” NFI/NFB/OOC-okay. Ugh, sorry for the tl;dr but this episode turned out to be annoyingly difficult to recap. But it’s pretty. Because we all know platonic BFFs habitually paint henna tattoos all over each other’s bodies in settings like this.]
"Oh, come on, Gabrielle, what was I supposed to do, huh?" Xena stopped to peer at a piece of tanned hide before deciding it wasn't up to par for armor repair. "I had to immobilize you long enough for Eli to get that demon out of you."
Gabrielle wrinkled her nose, trailing her fingers along a length of silk in a merchant's stall. "I still feel awful about frightening all those people like that." Why was it always demons with her? Dahak had been bad enough, but getting possessed by a demon who'd pretended to be a benevolent deity long enough to use her to manipulate an entire town seemed worse.
"That was not you," Xena insisted. "You can't be held responsible for what Tataka used your body to do."
"I guess . . ." Gabrielle didn't really want to talk about it; whether or not Xena was right, and she knew intellectually that Xena was on this point, those people had believed she was some kind of god. They'd worshipped her; she'd had men pledging their swords and lives to her service, which meant that some of them had died because of her. Really, she could have been glad they weren't talking about Xena's vision any more, but this wasn't exactly more cheerful.
She changed the subject. "Do you think Eli's going to handle this all right? Being a divine being?" There was a certain irony in their new friend, a charlatan of a street magician, turning out to be what Tataka made everyone believe Gabrielle was, and he hadn't taken it very well; he'd tried to run away, actually, and only come back in time to exorcise the demon from Gabrielle out of guilt. Still, she liked to think that meant there was hope for him going on to do great things.
"Mmm," was Xena's noncommittal reply. "Guess we'll have to find out."
"Guess so. Now, come on!" Gabrielle took Xena by the arm and tugged her toward a cluster of clothing stalls. "We came all this way to India, and I want to make the most of it."
She didn't have to look at Xena to know her best friend was giving her the narrow-eyed suspicious look. "Gabrielle . . ."
Gabrielle stopped and turned around to look chidingly at her. "I want to experience this place. Really live it. Not just wander through. So come on. What do you say we get with the local fashion?"
***
They'd finally settled on new outfits, which for Xena involved testing the combat-worthiness of her range of movement, when a procession moving through the marketplace caught their attention: a solemn-faced group of men carrying what looked like a shrouded body, and behind them another group of men bearing an elaborate litter. On the litter, a woman sat, solemn-faced as the rest of the procession.
Gabrielle and Xena were both intrigued, though Gabrielle could tell from the subtle shift of Xena's breathing pattern that someone suspected trouble might be coming.
Yes, as far as they were both concerned, it was definitely trouble when the mourners reached the funeral pyre, set the shrouded body atop it, then moved to seize the woman and throw her into the fire too.
It was local custom, they were informed by one of the mourners when Xena intervened and angrily demanded to know what the meaning of this was; more than that, it was law.
"Yeah, well, a law is about to be broken," Xena snarled, and of course that meant a fight was on. Custom or not, neither she nor Gabrielle was about to stand by and let a woman burn to death alive for no reason besides the fact that her husband had died. But two women against a marketplace full of armed and angry (somewhat justifiably, Gabrielle reluctantly conceded) men -- those weren't great odds when protecting a noncombatant, and in the end they were forced to retreat to an empty house and barricade the door.
Gabrielle was so busy finding objects to shore up the barricade that she didn't notice right away when Xena disappeared into the back room and the woman -- Naima -- followed after her. It was a house with two rooms, only one door, now pretty well buried behind a mountain of furniture, and no windows, so when she yelled for Xena and got no reply she had to go looking.
. . . there was no Xena. Just Naima, who'd shed her veil to reveal a number of intricate patterns drawn on her skin in some kind of dark brown dye. When Gabrielle wanted to know where Xena was, she didn't get an answer right away; Naima circled her, gesturing and chanting something Gabrielle couldn't make out.
Her second attempt to ask got her -- well, a light show, actually. Naima closed her eyes and seemed to fall into herself somehow, and the drawings on her skin glowed gold before they began to emanate patterns of light that wove around Gabrielle. It was completely entrancing, and she could have been thoroughly distracted . . . but that wasn't going to happen as long as she had Xena to worry about.
"There is a great evil in the future that is hunting Xena's soul," Naima relented, and explained. "It has found her. If it succeeds, Xena's karmic circle will end -- along with all the good of her future lives."
Because enemies from Xena's past weren't bad enough, apparently. Cutting right to the point, Gabrielle asked, "Who is her enemy?"
"I don't know. I had to send her there quickly -- to defend herself. I was not able to tell her much before she left," Naima replied.
There was only one thing to ask in response to that. "Send me there."
Naima's moment of hesitation was obvious, as much as it broke into her steadfast calm. "I'm not sure that's wise."
"This karma that you're talking about -- can you see mine?" Gabrielle persisted, moving within arm's reach of her. She had no idea what karma actually was, yet, but she'd worry about that after she got Xena back. "Can you see how much Xena's a part of that?"
Naima stared at her for several long moments, and Gabrielle wanted to squirm under the scrutiny. Finally Naima brought an elaborately henna-tattooed hand up to touch her cheek and nodded. "Yes. In many lives . . . past and future. You are right. But if you are to go, I must give you the weapon I could not give her. You must learn the mehndi."
A weapon? Gabrielle winced internally but nodded and replied hoarsely and without hesitation, "Teach me."
***
She'd never paid such intense attention to a lesson in her life, not even in Lady Ghanima's class, but Gabrielle stretched the limits of every mnemonic technique she'd ever learned to commit everything Naima taught her to memory. It felt like a century later and yet no time at all when Naima finally pronounced her ready to go and stood.
"Just remember, the key is the mehndi. Together, you and Xena must use it to trap the evil and bring it back to be destroyed."
Gabrielle swallowed and willed her breathing back to a normal rate. "I understand."
"Mendhi is the path to enlightenment. Feel it, don't try to understand it. Accept," Naima admonished, dropping to a whisper at the last word. Then, as she handed a small wooden box to Gabrielle, she continued in a normal tone. "This is to create the mehndi. It will be waiting for you in the future -- there, hidden in the wall."
By now they could hear yelling from the other side of the door; their pursuers must be getting ready to try and break it down.
"You are ready," Naima told her, her expression a wordless reminder that what Gabrielle was about to do was more important than her own safety here. "Tell Xena that the evil must be brought back and destroyed, here, where she's still powerful."
Gabrielle nodded and watched, again memorizing Naima's motions as the woman spread her arms, drew on the power the way she'd taught Gabrielle until the lines of the mehndi glowed, and created a glowing ball of light that enveloped Gabrielle.
***
When the disorientation wore off the first thing Gabrielle was aware of was a searing pain in her shoulder -- the all too familiar feeling of having a crossbow bolt extracted from it. The second was that she wasn't wearing a shirt -- and her reflexive squeak and attempt to cover herself with the shirt she found draped over the arm of the chair she was sitting in drew the attention of the old woman conferring with a warrior across the tent.
The old woman glanced at her with a disconcertingly familiar raised eyebrow. "Something wrong?"
"No. No, I'm fine," Gabrielle answered, and now that she could hear her own voice she realized -- was she a man? "I was just thinking of someone I need to find. What -- what were we talking about?"
"I was saying that Khindin's not afraid of your army. She lives off the fear of others," the woman explained. "She's more than just a warrior."
Gabrielle could have reacted to the mention of her army, but -- "A warrior? Khindin?"
The woman nodded. "I know this doesn't make much sense to you, but she's trying to recreate powers she lost long ago."
Whoever Khindin was, it must be Xena in this future incarnation. This . . . didn't do anything to debunk Gabrielle's theory that Xena was a Jedi. "Is she still tall . . . black hair . . . a particular warcry when she attacks?"
"Leave us," the woman commanded the warrior with her, and he complied with an alacrity suggesting that whoever this old woman was, she had more than earned his respect. Leaning on her cane, the woman hobbled across the tent and put a hand on the arm -- muscles defined in a way that only came from wielding a sword frequently -- of the body Gabrielle currently inhabited. "Gabrielle."
And suddenly, she realized who she was talking to. But -- "Xena? Is that really you?" She almost giggled, and it sounded absurd in this voice. "Naima didn't tell me that you'd -- you'd look so different."
The woman who was Xena chuckled warmly; it didn't sound the same, but it had the exact same effect on Gabrielle that it always did: a warmth spreading from somewhere deep inside her. She pointed toward a brass shield lying nearby, polished to a high shine, so Gabrielle could see their reflections in it. "So do you. Your name is Shakti. You're the leader in this land."
"This is my karma. This is my reincarnated soul?" Gabrielle repeated, somewhat incredulously. She was a soldier, and the leader of an army, in her next life? "Naima sent you here. You have to defend your soul against a great evil. I don't know what that is."
"Alti," Xena answered, the benevolent old woman's face set in grim lines. "The great evil is Alti."
"But --" Gabrielle was still having trouble adjusting to this reincarnation thing. "I thought you killed Alti."
"Her evil just moved on to its next life. And this time, it not only has her spirit, but the strength of a warrior. That's why the mother of peace had no success with Khindin."
"The mother of peace?" echoed Gabrielle, confused.
The bewildered, sheepish smile on Xena's face was heartbreaking. "Me."
First things first, though: Khindin had just taken a lot of captives, and -- as always happened in these situations apparently, no matter what bodies they were in or what lives they were currently living -- there was no way Xena or Gabrielle would leave the to suffer. So, naturally, they had to formulate a plan.
"Xena, the mendhi is the key," Gabrielle pointed out, making sure to emphasize that before they got too deep into planning. "It's the only way we can bring Alti back to our world. We have to use it, so you can defeat her there."
Xena gave her that nod that meant she was listening, and factoring that into the plan, but going ahead full steam anyway. Good thing they were alone in the tent; the men outside wouldn't have known what to do with Arminestra, the Mother of Peace, making battle plans. "We capture her, and her men will take revenge. We'll have to set them free at the same time."
"I'm sure your mind is as sharp as ever, but --" Gabrielle looked pointedly at the cane Xena was leaning on so heavily. "How?"
"That's a good question."
And one, Gabrielle realized, that meant she would have to take point on the fighting. She didn't like that idea any more than ever, but if she was a warrior in this lifetime . . .
She was beginning to suspect that she'd never be able to get away from the cycle of violence.
***
Gabrielle led Shakti's army -- her army, and that was still the strangest concept -- toward Khindin's encampment, pausing every now and then to make sure that Xena, hobbled by Arminestra's body, could keep up. Shakti's lieutenant had been entrusted with the task of finding the house where the mehndi kit had been hidden in their last lifetime, but until then he was staying close to Arminestra's side, and Gabrielle couldn't help wondering what he would do if he ever realized their revered Mother of Peace had been the Destroyer of Nations in a past life.
"You know," she murmured to Xena as they crouched behind a pile of rubble, "if this doesn't work it all ends here. Everything. Us, our souls . . ."
"We don't have any choice," Xena answered. "It's funny -- here, you're the warrior. The hero."
"Xena, in this lifetime the Mother of Peace would be a goddess to me," Gabrielle insisted. "That's a hero."
Xena smiled at her then, the wistful kind of smile that only Gabrielle ever saw in rare unguarded moments; it looked like it belonged on Arminestra's face. A movement out past their hiding place caught their attention and they shared a silent nod of understanding before Gabrielle put her hand on the hilt of her sword and signaled the men.
Xena caught her arm. "Be careful."
What a role reversal; they'd experienced this exact moment so many times, but this was the first time Gabrielle had ever been the one to have to hear the request and respond with a nod, knowing that what she was about to do was anything but.
She rose to her feet and led the soldiers into the attack.
***
The first objective had been successful: they’d freed the prisoners. The second, retrieving the box with the mehndi kit, had come at a price; Shakti’s lieutenant succumbed to a crossbow bolt in the process of delivering it to Xena.
That was where things started to fall apart, and that was why Gabrielle and Xena came to as prisoners.
“We don’t have much time,” Xena told her, holding out the box. They didn’t -- Alti intended to have them publicly executed as soon as the stakes were built. (Well, on the one hand, it wasn’t the crucifixion of Xena’s vision.) “Alti just left. If we’re gonna bring her back to the past and beat her, you’d better start painting.”
“What if I don’t remember everything Naima taught me?” Gabrielle asked, feeling the dusty but smooth wood of the box in her hands. It was intricate work, and she hadn’t had much time to learn it in the first place . . .
“Don’t try to think, Gabrielle.” The confidence in Xena’s voice both calmed and warmed her. “She said the mehndi was the path home; just trust that. Let it happen.”
There was really nothing else she could say to that; Gabrielle surrendered herself to Xena’s faith in her, her memory of what Naima’d shown her, and her belief in what they had to do. Naima had told her that her karma and Xena’s were intertwined in many lifetimes, and maybe that was why with the two of them working together, feeding off each other’s energy, the lines felt instinctive.
***
With everything she’d seen in Fandom and on her travels with Xena, very little should surprise Gabrielle any more, but she wasn’t used to the sensation of the henna-dyed lines on her skin glowing gold and coruscating into a brilliant ball of light that catapulted herself, Xena, and Alti back to their own time.
There was one more problem they hadn’t anticipated, either: bringing Alti back to their own time meant they’d brought back the powers she possessed in this lifetime, namely her ability to psychically inflict pain on her victims by making them live through visions or memories. Gabrielle didn’t know what images she was inflicting on Xena to throw her around the square like that without even touching her, but she didn’t care; she adjusted her grip on her staff and charged in.
She didn’t even have a chance to get in a single blow before Alti snapped her staff in two and began to beat her savagely with the pieces, but that pain was only the beginning.
“What’s she told me about you, little girl?” Alti rasped, clamping her fingers around Gabrielle’s throat. “Has she told you about my powers? Has she told you about this?”
And with the searing midday sun beating down on her, Gabrielle shivered with a bone-deep cold.
Herself, hair cut short, tied to a cross laid out on the ground as Roman soldiers knelt over her and snow fell in wind-driven swirls . . .
Turning her head to the side to see Xena similarly bound, lips moving weakly as she struggled to form words . . .
One centurion placing a piece of wood across the palm -- still decorated with the elaborate henna patterns -- of her hand as the other passed a heavy hammer to him . . .
Xena whispering to her, barely audible over the wind: “Gabrielle, you’re the best thing in my life.”
She could draw strength from that. She could take that promise, and use it to withstand Alti’s torture, and she --
The centurions placing the tip of an iron spike against her hand and letting the hammer fall.
-- screamed in pain, blood suddenly pouring from the palms of her hands.
“Give me that pain!” Alti hissed, right up in Gabrielle’s face. She twisted her fingers up in Gabrielle’s hair and hoisted her into the air, adding a whole new level of pain. “Give it to me!”
Another nail, this time poised above her bound feet, and the ringing blow of the hammer.
She was dimly aware of Alti nodding sharply and then Xena screaming in agony like she’d never heard Xena scream before, but that was drowned out by her own howl when searing pain shot through her feet followed by the hot rush of blood. She thought she was going to black out from the pain when something whistled overhead, slicing cleanly through her hair -- Xena’s chakram! -- and letting her drop to the ground. Gabrielle promptly doubled over on herself, both out of pain and out of the desperate need to warm up from the all-too-real cold of the vision.
It wasn’t until she heard Xena yelling for her that she realized that Naima had stepped into the square and -- done something, she wasn’t sure, but Alti had backed off.
“Naima’s not Alti’s enemy!” Xena shouted to her. “It’s the mehndi!”
Gabrielle watched the lines on Xena’s skin begin to glow again, felt the ones on her own do the same. Naima had both hands outstretched, golden light pouring out of her hands to bind Alti in place; Gabrielle blocked off the pain that came from getting to her feet and extending her own hands to follow Naima’s lead.
She’d never felt anything like this before, never consciously been a vessel for this kind of power, and it was all so overwhelming that she only barely realized Xena had managed to destroy Alti by channeling the golden light into the form of her chakram and hurling those at Alti, one after another, until two finally found the mark.
Afterward, all they could do was cling to each other.
***
Her hair was a ragged mess, even with as sharp as the chakram was, and Gabrielle decided to have it cut short instead. Yes, even after what Alti had shown her.
“You know it was like this in that vision,” she pointed out gently to Xena as they headed out of town and down the road.
“I know,” Xena answered, a shadow crossing her face. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Xena, Alti was evil,” Gabrielle argued. “Why should we believe anything she showed us? If the mehndi contains truth, I wish there was some way we could do that again, just to really know.”
“Naima could’ve told us.” It was halfway a joke; after the fight with Alti, their new friend had -- ascended, somehow, if Gabrielle had to describe Naima’s disappearance.
“Yeah . . .” Gabrielle sighed. “There’s so many things I wish I’d asked her, about what this all means . . . you know what she said? That your karma and mine -- they’re intertwined.”
Xena got that look on her face, the one that said this conversation was threatening to get a little too philosophical for her. “Maybe it’s not the first time we’ve walked down this road, huh?”
Gabrielle laughed and reached out to catch Xena’s hand with her own. “Maybe it won’t be the last.”
[OOC: Adapted and slightly tweaked from X:WP 4x15, “Between the Lines,” NFI/NFB/OOC-okay. Ugh, sorry for the tl;dr but this episode turned out to be annoyingly difficult to recap. But it’s pretty. Because we all know platonic BFFs habitually paint henna tattoos all over each other’s bodies in settings like this.]