Room 218, Wednesday Afternoon
Gabrielle had guessed that she'd arrive back in Fandom just in time for the start of the new semester; it had been a rough guess at best, time in her world making no sense at all running as oddly as it did compared to Fandom time. So, checking the calendar (yes, she knew how to read those, just go with it) as soon as she got back to her room, she let out a tiny groan when she realized she was back a few days ahead of schedule.
It had been a lot longer for her, naturally: half a year or so, she estimated. She looked it, too: older, a little more tired, her hair a few shades lighter, her bilious green sports bra cut a little smaller -- and in a new style -- and a little tighter if just as hideous a shade of green as before. The edge of a new scar, a jagged-looking gash, was visible on her thigh just below the hem of her skirt; she'd bulked up a little, too, or at least gotten a lot more definite muscle tone -- it'd been a strenuous several months home.
Naturally, infiltrating a beauty pageant (the latest of Salmoneus's ridiculous schemes) to get to the bottom of intrigue between three rival kings whose consorts were competing against each other had only been the start of it. Things had gone way, way downhill really fast after that when Gabrielle got kidnapped (again), Xena had to rescue her, and gotten knocked headfirst into a tree by a swinging log trap.
It'd meant Gabrielle, limping from a stab wound to the leg, had had to cart her dying companion halfway across the continent to Mount Nestis, through blizzard conditions at the end of the trip, in search of a healer named Niklio ("only he can help," Xena had said in her half-delirious state), and gotten there just in time to agree to Xena's whispered promise to take her body back to Amphipolis and bury her next to her brother. Just in time to be too late.
It'd meant hitching a sledge to Argo and hauling Xena's body halfway back across the continent, fending off every mercenary and petty thug in Greece, because she'd be damned if she'd let anyone claim the bounty promised to whoever could get a hold of the Warrior Princess's corpse.
It'd meant a detour to the Amazon village, finding out Queen Melosa was dead, and -- faced with the possibility of ceding rule of the tribe to Melosa's prodigal adopted daughter Velasca and her excessively warlike ways -- deciding to take up the mask of Queenship that was, by her possession of the Rite of Caste, lawfully hers . . . deciding to honor Xena Amazon-style with a funeral pyre, then take the ashes to Amphipolis. But as all plans of theirs seemed to do, that went awry in an unexpected and insane fashion when Autolycus, the King of Thieves, showed up to steal Xena's body.
Possessed by Xena herself to do it.
That had ended up with Gabrielle in full Amazon regalia, wakeboarding away on the coffin as Argo dragged it away, only to end up in prison, along with Autolycus, Ephiny, Solari, and all the Amazons who'd refused to accept Velasca's forceful takeover of the tribe. Then a prison breakout, and a trip to the Temple of Helios, chased by Velasca and her sympathizers, to get the ambrosia that would bring Xena back.
They'd succeeded despite Autolycus's broken arm, by virtue of Xena possessing Gabrielle's body not dirty for once and sending Velasca plummeting onto a bed of spikes, but that trip had gone awry when a tiny spare bit of ambrosia had fallen just within the dying Amazon's reach.
As if it wasn't bad enough they'd ended up stuck with a crazed warmonger of an Amazon, obsessed with Gabrielle, bent on revenge, and now a god, the only chance they had of defeating her was to break a resurrected Callisto, equally insane and immortal thanks to some insane scheme of Hera's, out of the cave where Hercules had trapped her, and bribe her to help by promising her ambrosia. That had opened up more old wounds more painfully than Gabrielle had really been prepared for, and she wasn't proud of admitting that she'd felt more than a little satisfaction at watching both Callisto and Velasca plummet into a stream of lava.
She had a lot of stories to write down, actually: helping Ulysses Odysseus Ulysses wtf writers finally get home from the Trojan War, having to foil some insane scheme of Aphrodite's that involved Joxer and an enchanted bell that turned him into a dashing hero (and how ridiculous was that? It was Joxer), getting kidnapped yet again and this time nearly burned alive as a sacrifice, stopping an old friend of hers from getting executed for a murder he didn't commit, getting besieged by the Horde at an Athenian outpost, ending up stuck on Cecrops's ship for a while, and landing right in the middle of the chaos when Cupid's son Bliss got a hold of his bow and arrows. (And now she was really wondering about the Aphrodite in Fandom, who didn't seem anywhere near as flighty, vain, and vapid as the one she'd technically just met for the first time.)
It was a lot of stories to write down. But that first one . . . that would be the hardest one to tell.
[OOC: Just establishy for now! Sorry for the tl;dr but I had canon catchup writer's block all term. *frown*]
It had been a lot longer for her, naturally: half a year or so, she estimated. She looked it, too: older, a little more tired, her hair a few shades lighter, her bilious green sports bra cut a little smaller -- and in a new style -- and a little tighter if just as hideous a shade of green as before. The edge of a new scar, a jagged-looking gash, was visible on her thigh just below the hem of her skirt; she'd bulked up a little, too, or at least gotten a lot more definite muscle tone -- it'd been a strenuous several months home.
Naturally, infiltrating a beauty pageant (the latest of Salmoneus's ridiculous schemes) to get to the bottom of intrigue between three rival kings whose consorts were competing against each other had only been the start of it. Things had gone way, way downhill really fast after that when Gabrielle got kidnapped (again), Xena had to rescue her, and gotten knocked headfirst into a tree by a swinging log trap.
It'd meant Gabrielle, limping from a stab wound to the leg, had had to cart her dying companion halfway across the continent to Mount Nestis, through blizzard conditions at the end of the trip, in search of a healer named Niklio ("only he can help," Xena had said in her half-delirious state), and gotten there just in time to agree to Xena's whispered promise to take her body back to Amphipolis and bury her next to her brother. Just in time to be too late.
It'd meant hitching a sledge to Argo and hauling Xena's body halfway back across the continent, fending off every mercenary and petty thug in Greece, because she'd be damned if she'd let anyone claim the bounty promised to whoever could get a hold of the Warrior Princess's corpse.
It'd meant a detour to the Amazon village, finding out Queen Melosa was dead, and -- faced with the possibility of ceding rule of the tribe to Melosa's prodigal adopted daughter Velasca and her excessively warlike ways -- deciding to take up the mask of Queenship that was, by her possession of the Rite of Caste, lawfully hers . . . deciding to honor Xena Amazon-style with a funeral pyre, then take the ashes to Amphipolis. But as all plans of theirs seemed to do, that went awry in an unexpected and insane fashion when Autolycus, the King of Thieves, showed up to steal Xena's body.
Possessed by Xena herself to do it.
That had ended up with Gabrielle in full Amazon regalia, wakeboarding away on the coffin as Argo dragged it away, only to end up in prison, along with Autolycus, Ephiny, Solari, and all the Amazons who'd refused to accept Velasca's forceful takeover of the tribe. Then a prison breakout, and a trip to the Temple of Helios, chased by Velasca and her sympathizers, to get the ambrosia that would bring Xena back.
They'd succeeded despite Autolycus's broken arm, by virtue of Xena possessing Gabrielle's body not dirty for once and sending Velasca plummeting onto a bed of spikes, but that trip had gone awry when a tiny spare bit of ambrosia had fallen just within the dying Amazon's reach.
As if it wasn't bad enough they'd ended up stuck with a crazed warmonger of an Amazon, obsessed with Gabrielle, bent on revenge, and now a god, the only chance they had of defeating her was to break a resurrected Callisto, equally insane and immortal thanks to some insane scheme of Hera's, out of the cave where Hercules had trapped her, and bribe her to help by promising her ambrosia. That had opened up more old wounds more painfully than Gabrielle had really been prepared for, and she wasn't proud of admitting that she'd felt more than a little satisfaction at watching both Callisto and Velasca plummet into a stream of lava.
She had a lot of stories to write down, actually: helping Ulysses Odysseus Ulysses wtf writers finally get home from the Trojan War, having to foil some insane scheme of Aphrodite's that involved Joxer and an enchanted bell that turned him into a dashing hero (and how ridiculous was that? It was Joxer), getting kidnapped yet again and this time nearly burned alive as a sacrifice, stopping an old friend of hers from getting executed for a murder he didn't commit, getting besieged by the Horde at an Athenian outpost, ending up stuck on Cecrops's ship for a while, and landing right in the middle of the chaos when Cupid's son Bliss got a hold of his bow and arrows. (And now she was really wondering about the Aphrodite in Fandom, who didn't seem anywhere near as flighty, vain, and vapid as the one she'd technically just met for the first time.)
It was a lot of stories to write down. But that first one . . . that would be the hardest one to tell.
[OOC: Just establishy for now! Sorry for the tl;dr but I had canon catchup writer's block all term. *frown*]