Meme Fill #2 - "Solidarity"
In my writing meme post, spikeface asked for:
Eve (Xena: Warrior Princess)
Here you go, my dear, hope this meets with your approval.:)
Disclaimer: This all belongs to Renaissance Pictures and Universal. I wish I could say it was all mine. Truly I do. But I'm just borrowing this wonderful world with all due respect.
Rating: Teen
Category: Eve, angst, missing scene
Set during "Who's Gurkhan?". Thoughts while on the boat sailing out to find Gurkhan. Dialogue is taken from the episode and is therefore not mine.
SOLIDARITY IN DARKNESS
by
LadyRowan
Copyright (c) 2011
She leans against her mother's arm, feels the tails of their hair mixing in the ocean wind.
She knows she cannot truly remember, cannot remember travelling cradled in her mother's saddle, sleeping nestled in Xena's arms, trekking over rough trails tied to her mother's back. But when she leans against Xena's bare arm, and the scent of the mountains is sharp in her hair, there is something deep, something primitive and warm that stirs in Eve's belly. Something of safety, and love, and home. She doesn't wish to name this feeling. She only follows the sensation like a candle in the night, and tangles her fingers with her mother's calloused hand.
Xena's touch is powerful and warm.
"She doesn't have what it takes to kill in cold blood," Eve says as they watch Gabrielle. "Do you think I inherited that talent from you, Mother?"
There is an unnerving ease in the moment, a depth of understanding. Eve can be both who she is and who she once was when she speaks with her mother.
In Eve's life, the distinction is clear, there is a neat and clean dividing line to which she can cling. There was Livia. And now there is Eve. One was a power hungry murderess. The other is a force for kindness and peace.
But her mother...her mother is Xena. She has been Xena every step of the way. She has grown and changed and learned but she embraces each step of her life as her own. She slides in and out of traces of darkness and she makes no apologies for such transgressions. She never pretends to be something she is not.
Sometimes Eve is almost jealous. The feelings sneak upon her, and afterward she feels cold and unclean and wants to be the pure messenger she knows she has been chosen to be.
"You certainly had a gift," her mother says now, gaze gentle and wistful and bittersweet and proud. The past tense is comforting, but the solidarity in darkness is confusingly warm.
Eve can capture no fleeting sensory memories of her infancy with Gabrielle. But she knows Gabrielle was once the soft and innocent one. The voice of nonviolence against Xena's rage. She knows she should be more comfortable hand in hand with the woman now contemplating crossing the line into murder. The woman who works for peace and love and tolerance. But she sits shoulder to shoulder with the former warlord, who shares perhaps more than her flesh and blood. And she feels no desire to move.
*****
Eve (Xena: Warrior Princess)
Here you go, my dear, hope this meets with your approval.:)
Disclaimer: This all belongs to Renaissance Pictures and Universal. I wish I could say it was all mine. Truly I do. But I'm just borrowing this wonderful world with all due respect.
Rating: Teen
Category: Eve, angst, missing scene
Set during "Who's Gurkhan?". Thoughts while on the boat sailing out to find Gurkhan. Dialogue is taken from the episode and is therefore not mine.
SOLIDARITY IN DARKNESS
by
LadyRowan
Copyright (c) 2011
She leans against her mother's arm, feels the tails of their hair mixing in the ocean wind.
She knows she cannot truly remember, cannot remember travelling cradled in her mother's saddle, sleeping nestled in Xena's arms, trekking over rough trails tied to her mother's back. But when she leans against Xena's bare arm, and the scent of the mountains is sharp in her hair, there is something deep, something primitive and warm that stirs in Eve's belly. Something of safety, and love, and home. She doesn't wish to name this feeling. She only follows the sensation like a candle in the night, and tangles her fingers with her mother's calloused hand.
Xena's touch is powerful and warm.
"She doesn't have what it takes to kill in cold blood," Eve says as they watch Gabrielle. "Do you think I inherited that talent from you, Mother?"
There is an unnerving ease in the moment, a depth of understanding. Eve can be both who she is and who she once was when she speaks with her mother.
In Eve's life, the distinction is clear, there is a neat and clean dividing line to which she can cling. There was Livia. And now there is Eve. One was a power hungry murderess. The other is a force for kindness and peace.
But her mother...her mother is Xena. She has been Xena every step of the way. She has grown and changed and learned but she embraces each step of her life as her own. She slides in and out of traces of darkness and she makes no apologies for such transgressions. She never pretends to be something she is not.
Sometimes Eve is almost jealous. The feelings sneak upon her, and afterward she feels cold and unclean and wants to be the pure messenger she knows she has been chosen to be.
"You certainly had a gift," her mother says now, gaze gentle and wistful and bittersweet and proud. The past tense is comforting, but the solidarity in darkness is confusingly warm.
Eve can capture no fleeting sensory memories of her infancy with Gabrielle. But she knows Gabrielle was once the soft and innocent one. The voice of nonviolence against Xena's rage. She knows she should be more comfortable hand in hand with the woman now contemplating crossing the line into murder. The woman who works for peace and love and tolerance. But she sits shoulder to shoulder with the former warlord, who shares perhaps more than her flesh and blood. And she feels no desire to move.
*****