A State Of Grace (3b/?)
A STATE OF GRACE 3b
SyrenSoul_Red
Pairing: Gabrielle/Xena (Classic)
Fandom: Xena: Warrior Princess
Rating: This part PG-13. Overall, NC-18.
Summary: Set about a year-and-a-half post-finale. Gabrielle is on a journey with Xena always on her heels. And now, we meet our special guest.
Spoliers: In particular, Many Happy Returns and A Friend in Need I & II, but this is post-FIN so everything is up for grabs.
A/N: Any of you who caught my snarktastic rant this week know I struggled with this chapter, so feedback and concrit are appreciated. Also, nude photos. I started out writing this story for myself, and I'm blown away with your responses - thanks. Lines in italics are thoughts or episode quotes.
Disclaimer: I don't own Xena or Gabrielle, which is why they are neither rumpled nor moist. I would claim this fictionalised Sappho as mine, but she's quite feisty and if I try I think she might beat me.
Archiving: Yes to P&P. Anywhere else just drop me a line: syrensoul (at) g mail (dot) com.
POV: Perving over Gabby's shoulder.
Dedicated to
sr_m_grammatica .
Part I is here.
Part II is here.
Part IIIa is here.
***
The hand on her arm was used to create beautiful things, delicate things. She’d thrown her down in a hallway. Had the animal inside damaged her? This thing of wonder?
“Excuse me? Hello? You do have a name, don’t you?”
“No.” Gabrielle was bewildered by her own response. “I mean yes - I’m sorry. It’s just... I’m a little... surprised. I’m Gabrielle.”
“Beautiful.” The poet’s smile glinted like a blade and Gabrielle was disarmed.
“Thank you. It’s not the most common name --”
“No, I mean you. You’re beautiful.”
The words fell on Gabrielle’s skin and she didn’t know what to do with them, so she stared at twisted leather until they seeped away.
“Have I embarrassed you?”
“No,” Gabrielle said, though she meant yes. “It’s just... I can’t believe it’s really you.”
“It’s me,” Sappho said, with the patient amusement of someone who had heard it before. “And it’s you. We’re here, together, in the hallway. It’s nice, isn’t it? We should talk about this; have a discussion - talk about us. The two of us. Together.” She was too close again, in Gabrielle’s breath; she stole her oxygen, created a vacuum between them and Gabrielle struggled against the pressure. Sappho’s eyes were on her lips and when she spoke it was slowly, lowly: “How do you feel about famous artisans?”
The pressure released, popped and crackled in her ears and a cool wind swept through her mind, cleared the haze. Gabrielle untangled her arm and stepped back. She quirked an eyebrow and green eyes pierced the dark stare. “That’s your line? The line you use to get all the girls? Wow. Has it ever worked?”
When Sappho laughed it was rich and warm and alive, a wave of mirth that crashed from her curved throat. “More often than you’d think,” she said, without a hint of remorse.
“Well, not this time.” Gabrielle scratched her shoulder. The ink pulled at her skin as it dried. “Sappho... as much fun as this is...”
“Right - we should get you cleaned up.” Sappho swivelled lightly and hooked her arm around Gabrielle’s. “Let me show you to my room. I think you’ll like it.” She pulled her down the corridor. “We can relax, get to know each other better - maybe have something to eat. And I, will get to work on your breasts.” Sappho stopped with her hand on the door and smirked at Gabrielle. “Now that was a line I’m proud of.”
***
Sappho’s room was the wreckage of creation, the ash from which words rose to be crafted into breathless things; taught to soar, to ride the wind, to dive and tumble and pull up at the last moment, their wings spread victorious across the stage. Gabrielle’s fingers twitched with the restless need to touch, to fondle every scrap and quill, to rub them against the thick calluses on her hands until her history was edited, revised, re-written.
“Don’t mind the mess,” Sappho emerged from the bedroom with a bowl and cloth, “it’s always like this before I perform. I’m never satisfied until it’s over.” She handed the bowl to Gabrielle. “Hold this, would you? I’ll have to get you something else to wear.”
Gabrielle lifted the cloth and sniffed the liquid. She coughed as it burned her throat and tears filled her eyes. “Gods, what is this? It smells awful.”
“I told you, it’s a secret recipe. Here...” Sappho held out a scrap of robe, green and soft and barely there.
Gabrielle stared at it, glared at it and punctuated the look with a raised eyebrow. “What am I meant to do with that?”
“Put it on,” Sappho said.
“Where? My arm?”
“If you want. But I need your skirt.”
Muscle danced across her jawbone. Gabrielle snatched the robe and slid it over her shoulders. It caressed her hips and barely reached the top of her thighs. “Is this a joke?”
“Not at all,” the poet replied. “But it is unintentionally entertaining.”
So it was a game, one without defined rules or quantifiable odds. Gabrielle freed chainmail squares, rolled them around her weapons and set them on the table with a heavy thunk. She loosened the bands of her skirt and tied the robe tightly around her waist. To bend was to reveal, so Gabrielle jutted her hip until the skirt fell and then scooped it into the air with her boot. She caught it on one hooked finger and it swung between them. The poet reached out slowly, her gaze unfathomable.
Round one to the woman with nimble feet.
“I’ll put this on to soak while we deal with your top,” Sappho said, and left the room.
Gabrielle stood alone and wondered for a moment how she’d gotten there, skirtless with a stranger - a stranger whose name she had known, though everything else had been a misconception - but her brain had surrendered, stepped back, raised exasperated hands: Don’t ask me, you’re on your own.
“Okay. You’ll need to open the robe.”
Gabrielle blinked. Round two?
“It’s easier this way,” Sappho said. “I need your body to keep the leather firm as I scrub.”
Her eyebrow arched into blonde hair, a cocked arrow of disbelief aimed squarely at the poet’s head. She weighed her options. If she killed Sappho, people would notice - eventually, after the corpse had begun to rot and her performances lost their lustre. Laughter bubbled in her mind, an hysterical edge tinged with Xena. Her other choice was to leave in her underwear. She was not yet prepared to do that. Gabrielle slid the robe from her shoulders and gathered it around her waist.
After Japa but before Egypt, Gabrielle had gotten thin. Then, in the Land of the Pharaohs, she had become ropey. Lean muscle defined her shoulders, chest and stomach more clearly than it had before. Golden skin was marred by clots of black ink, darker than bruises, clumsy and artless compared to the lines on her back. Sappho stilled, transfixed by the offering of leather and flesh.
“This is not an indefinite invitation,” Gabrielle muttered.
The statue came to life. White-knuckled hands twisted cloth over the bowl; water dripped an allegretto tune between them and acrid odour scratched at Gabrielle’s eyes and throat. When Sappho slowly reached out, Gabrielle flinched. The cloth paused, hovered over her shoulder, close enough for steam to lick her skin.
“Sorry.” Gabrielle didn’t know why she’d said it. If this was a game, she had lost. She raised her eyes to Sappho, searched her face with a hardness that dared her to make a joke, to laugh triumphantly. But the poet did not - there was a question on her lips, a look of uncertainty that rose from the depths of muddy darkness.
Neither of them spoke, but time moved forward and then so did Sappho’s hand; a hesitant brush that painted wet lines over Gabrielle’s shoulder, across her collar bone and down to the rise of her breast. Gabrielle looked away with pursed lips and hollowed cheeks and bit at the tender flesh of her mouth. Molars pierced the skin and she tasted metal.
The ceiling was dirty - years of smoke had tainted it ash-grey. Somebody had tried to clean it; wide, bubbled strokes of futility touched the wash here and there. Gabrielle concentrated on that as the cloth traced the curve of her top. A drop of liquid fell, ran across her breast and left a damp trail to follow; a stuttering stream that meandered along the leather and seeped out onto her ribs. A shiver crept up her spine.
“Is it cold?”
Gabrielle shook her head, cleared her throat to break the coarseness of her voice. “No, it’s fine.” She fixed her eyes on the wooden beam at the join of ceiling and wall, concentrated on its grain and hue, its gentle slope, the uneven plane of its edge. Nimble hands worked at leather and her skin; they rubbed and smoothed and made the water dance in the bowl. Sappho’s breath was calm but uneven - Gabrielle heard it catch as the woman navigated her body.
Curved fingers rested their knuckles in her cleavage as fingernails scraped along her breast to the edge of a nipple. It hardened in defence and Gabrielle set her jaw, sharpened a warning on the blade of her tongue. But there was a curtain between them, long waves of brown that masked Sappho’s face and begged to be tucked behind her ear. Instead Gabrielle made fists, tightened the knots of muscle in her arms, bit harder on her cheek.
Gabrielle’s peripheral vision caught the aura of red fabric and darker tint of leather and she was surprised. There was truth to Sappho’s words - the mixture worked. The leather would need oil, but could be salvaged.
Sappho’s fingers, curled in her top, pulled it precariously lower, slid closer to her nipple. Gabrielle could no longer see the spot of ink she worked on. “I think that part is clean now, Sappho.”
“Just a little more…”
Gabrielle pulled the robe up and over her shoulders and barricaded it against the woman’s hands. The poet paused, wavered and then dropped the cloth into the murky bowl.
“Okay, we’re done.” Sappho wiped her hand on her toga. “Let me get rid of this and check on your skirt.”
Alone again. Gabrielle tightened the belt around her waist and silk rubbed against her hands. Moisture stained the robe a darker green; it stuck to her breasts and the base of her throat and she twisted uncomfortably inside it, pulled it aside for air. She looked to the ceiling for guidance but it remained suspended in silence and dirt.
“Worked like a charm,” Sappho said, her hands full of red leather and crimson fabric, not a spot of ink to be seen. “I’ll hang it on the balcony. In this weather, it should dry in no time.”
“Good.” Gabrielle swallowed, cleared her throat. “That’s good to know. Thank you.”
Sappho stepped away from the balcony and her lips curved slowly. “Any time.” She stepped forward. “Any time you want to pull a sword on me and have it end like this...” She was too close again, and Gabrielle wondered how she’d crossed the space so quickly. “Well, that’s thanks enough.”
Sappho’s knuckles brushed Gabrielle’s cheekbone, fingers traced the line of her jaw, the pad of a thumb stroked the corner of her open mouth. Her face got bigger, Gabrielle’s vision swam with it, the poet’s eyes sucked her into their muddy depths, swallowed her and Gabrielle didn’t understand what had happened until breath whispered across her lips.
She threw herself backward, landed heavily against the table and her hand clutched instinctively for her weapons. Chain mail unfolded in her palm, dropped its contents to the floor with a jingle and a clang. The chakram rolled unsteadily on its edge; Sappho put out one sandaled foot and metal tolled like a bell beneath it. Gabrielle bent down to grab the circle but the poet got there first; she raised it and her fingernails whistled against its razor edge.
Muscles coiled in a body barely restrained, Gabrielle’s fingers shook when she reached out. “Give that to me.”
“I know this weapon...”
“Sappho...” The low growl of a beast. “Give it to me.”
Sappho turned the chakram this way and that, studied its curves. “I’ve seen this before... It belongs to Xena.” She caught the animal with her inscrutable gaze. “Where did you get this?”
Gabrielle looked down, breathed stiltedly through her nose and around the ache in her chest.
“Why do you have Xena’s weapon?” Sappho’s voice was flat, cold. “Gabrielle...” The poet faltered. “Gabrielle... I wrote a poem for you.”
Dragon claws dug into her shoulders, scrambled beneath her skin and into her mouth. They scratched against her clenched teeth; the beast roared and she struggled to swallow its ferocity.
“I remember now,” Sappho continued. “Xena was quite persistent that I write it. And now I see why.”
“Give me... The chakram.”
“I remember Xena telling me you were a bard... You don’t look like a bard.”
“People change.” Movement, rapid and blurred as skin struck across the distance and tore the weapon from Sappho’s hand. Gabrielle crushed it to her chest and her beast roared with savage triumph. The chakram was wet; its metal had tasted blood. It drooled crimson into her palm. She stared at it, rubbed it with her fingers, her senses shrouded in thick wool. “I was a lot of things once...”
When Gabrielle looked up, the poet had her hand pressed to her mouth, her pink tongue at the base of her fingers. Gabrielle had presumed the blood was her own. She reached out, captured a wrist and folded clean parchment against the wound. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Sappho’s blood soaked quickly into the fibrous scrap. The gash was thin and shallow and wouldn’t take long to heal.
“Gabrielle... Where’s Xena?”
Her fingers froze. She crumpled the stained parchment in her fist and dropped it on the table. “Xena’s dead.”
“Gab --”
“I have to go.” She picked up her chain mail and sword. “Keep the skirt,” she said flatly.
And she left.
***
Continued in Part IV, here...
SyrenSoul_Red
Pairing: Gabrielle/Xena (Classic)
Fandom: Xena: Warrior Princess
Rating: This part PG-13. Overall, NC-18.
Summary: Set about a year-and-a-half post-finale. Gabrielle is on a journey with Xena always on her heels. And now, we meet our special guest.
Spoliers: In particular, Many Happy Returns and A Friend in Need I & II, but this is post-FIN so everything is up for grabs.
A/N: Any of you who caught my snarktastic rant this week know I struggled with this chapter, so feedback and concrit are appreciated. Also, nude photos. I started out writing this story for myself, and I'm blown away with your responses - thanks. Lines in italics are thoughts or episode quotes.
Disclaimer: I don't own Xena or Gabrielle, which is why they are neither rumpled nor moist. I would claim this fictionalised Sappho as mine, but she's quite feisty and if I try I think she might beat me.
Archiving: Yes to P&P. Anywhere else just drop me a line: syrensoul (at) g mail (dot) com.
POV: Perving over Gabby's shoulder.
Dedicated to
sr_m_grammatica .
Part I is here.
Part II is here.
Part IIIa is here.
***
The hand on her arm was used to create beautiful things, delicate things. She’d thrown her down in a hallway. Had the animal inside damaged her? This thing of wonder?
“Excuse me? Hello? You do have a name, don’t you?”
“No.” Gabrielle was bewildered by her own response. “I mean yes - I’m sorry. It’s just... I’m a little... surprised. I’m Gabrielle.”
“Beautiful.” The poet’s smile glinted like a blade and Gabrielle was disarmed.
“Thank you. It’s not the most common name --”
“No, I mean you. You’re beautiful.”
The words fell on Gabrielle’s skin and she didn’t know what to do with them, so she stared at twisted leather until they seeped away.
“Have I embarrassed you?”
“No,” Gabrielle said, though she meant yes. “It’s just... I can’t believe it’s really you.”
“It’s me,” Sappho said, with the patient amusement of someone who had heard it before. “And it’s you. We’re here, together, in the hallway. It’s nice, isn’t it? We should talk about this; have a discussion - talk about us. The two of us. Together.” She was too close again, in Gabrielle’s breath; she stole her oxygen, created a vacuum between them and Gabrielle struggled against the pressure. Sappho’s eyes were on her lips and when she spoke it was slowly, lowly: “How do you feel about famous artisans?”
The pressure released, popped and crackled in her ears and a cool wind swept through her mind, cleared the haze. Gabrielle untangled her arm and stepped back. She quirked an eyebrow and green eyes pierced the dark stare. “That’s your line? The line you use to get all the girls? Wow. Has it ever worked?”
When Sappho laughed it was rich and warm and alive, a wave of mirth that crashed from her curved throat. “More often than you’d think,” she said, without a hint of remorse.
“Well, not this time.” Gabrielle scratched her shoulder. The ink pulled at her skin as it dried. “Sappho... as much fun as this is...”
“Right - we should get you cleaned up.” Sappho swivelled lightly and hooked her arm around Gabrielle’s. “Let me show you to my room. I think you’ll like it.” She pulled her down the corridor. “We can relax, get to know each other better - maybe have something to eat. And I, will get to work on your breasts.” Sappho stopped with her hand on the door and smirked at Gabrielle. “Now that was a line I’m proud of.”
***
Sappho’s room was the wreckage of creation, the ash from which words rose to be crafted into breathless things; taught to soar, to ride the wind, to dive and tumble and pull up at the last moment, their wings spread victorious across the stage. Gabrielle’s fingers twitched with the restless need to touch, to fondle every scrap and quill, to rub them against the thick calluses on her hands until her history was edited, revised, re-written.
“Don’t mind the mess,” Sappho emerged from the bedroom with a bowl and cloth, “it’s always like this before I perform. I’m never satisfied until it’s over.” She handed the bowl to Gabrielle. “Hold this, would you? I’ll have to get you something else to wear.”
Gabrielle lifted the cloth and sniffed the liquid. She coughed as it burned her throat and tears filled her eyes. “Gods, what is this? It smells awful.”
“I told you, it’s a secret recipe. Here...” Sappho held out a scrap of robe, green and soft and barely there.
Gabrielle stared at it, glared at it and punctuated the look with a raised eyebrow. “What am I meant to do with that?”
“Put it on,” Sappho said.
“Where? My arm?”
“If you want. But I need your skirt.”
Muscle danced across her jawbone. Gabrielle snatched the robe and slid it over her shoulders. It caressed her hips and barely reached the top of her thighs. “Is this a joke?”
“Not at all,” the poet replied. “But it is unintentionally entertaining.”
So it was a game, one without defined rules or quantifiable odds. Gabrielle freed chainmail squares, rolled them around her weapons and set them on the table with a heavy thunk. She loosened the bands of her skirt and tied the robe tightly around her waist. To bend was to reveal, so Gabrielle jutted her hip until the skirt fell and then scooped it into the air with her boot. She caught it on one hooked finger and it swung between them. The poet reached out slowly, her gaze unfathomable.
Round one to the woman with nimble feet.
“I’ll put this on to soak while we deal with your top,” Sappho said, and left the room.
Gabrielle stood alone and wondered for a moment how she’d gotten there, skirtless with a stranger - a stranger whose name she had known, though everything else had been a misconception - but her brain had surrendered, stepped back, raised exasperated hands: Don’t ask me, you’re on your own.
“Okay. You’ll need to open the robe.”
Gabrielle blinked. Round two?
“It’s easier this way,” Sappho said. “I need your body to keep the leather firm as I scrub.”
Her eyebrow arched into blonde hair, a cocked arrow of disbelief aimed squarely at the poet’s head. She weighed her options. If she killed Sappho, people would notice - eventually, after the corpse had begun to rot and her performances lost their lustre. Laughter bubbled in her mind, an hysterical edge tinged with Xena. Her other choice was to leave in her underwear. She was not yet prepared to do that. Gabrielle slid the robe from her shoulders and gathered it around her waist.
After Japa but before Egypt, Gabrielle had gotten thin. Then, in the Land of the Pharaohs, she had become ropey. Lean muscle defined her shoulders, chest and stomach more clearly than it had before. Golden skin was marred by clots of black ink, darker than bruises, clumsy and artless compared to the lines on her back. Sappho stilled, transfixed by the offering of leather and flesh.
“This is not an indefinite invitation,” Gabrielle muttered.
The statue came to life. White-knuckled hands twisted cloth over the bowl; water dripped an allegretto tune between them and acrid odour scratched at Gabrielle’s eyes and throat. When Sappho slowly reached out, Gabrielle flinched. The cloth paused, hovered over her shoulder, close enough for steam to lick her skin.
“Sorry.” Gabrielle didn’t know why she’d said it. If this was a game, she had lost. She raised her eyes to Sappho, searched her face with a hardness that dared her to make a joke, to laugh triumphantly. But the poet did not - there was a question on her lips, a look of uncertainty that rose from the depths of muddy darkness.
Neither of them spoke, but time moved forward and then so did Sappho’s hand; a hesitant brush that painted wet lines over Gabrielle’s shoulder, across her collar bone and down to the rise of her breast. Gabrielle looked away with pursed lips and hollowed cheeks and bit at the tender flesh of her mouth. Molars pierced the skin and she tasted metal.
The ceiling was dirty - years of smoke had tainted it ash-grey. Somebody had tried to clean it; wide, bubbled strokes of futility touched the wash here and there. Gabrielle concentrated on that as the cloth traced the curve of her top. A drop of liquid fell, ran across her breast and left a damp trail to follow; a stuttering stream that meandered along the leather and seeped out onto her ribs. A shiver crept up her spine.
“Is it cold?”
Gabrielle shook her head, cleared her throat to break the coarseness of her voice. “No, it’s fine.” She fixed her eyes on the wooden beam at the join of ceiling and wall, concentrated on its grain and hue, its gentle slope, the uneven plane of its edge. Nimble hands worked at leather and her skin; they rubbed and smoothed and made the water dance in the bowl. Sappho’s breath was calm but uneven - Gabrielle heard it catch as the woman navigated her body.
Curved fingers rested their knuckles in her cleavage as fingernails scraped along her breast to the edge of a nipple. It hardened in defence and Gabrielle set her jaw, sharpened a warning on the blade of her tongue. But there was a curtain between them, long waves of brown that masked Sappho’s face and begged to be tucked behind her ear. Instead Gabrielle made fists, tightened the knots of muscle in her arms, bit harder on her cheek.
Gabrielle’s peripheral vision caught the aura of red fabric and darker tint of leather and she was surprised. There was truth to Sappho’s words - the mixture worked. The leather would need oil, but could be salvaged.
Sappho’s fingers, curled in her top, pulled it precariously lower, slid closer to her nipple. Gabrielle could no longer see the spot of ink she worked on. “I think that part is clean now, Sappho.”
“Just a little more…”
Gabrielle pulled the robe up and over her shoulders and barricaded it against the woman’s hands. The poet paused, wavered and then dropped the cloth into the murky bowl.
“Okay, we’re done.” Sappho wiped her hand on her toga. “Let me get rid of this and check on your skirt.”
Alone again. Gabrielle tightened the belt around her waist and silk rubbed against her hands. Moisture stained the robe a darker green; it stuck to her breasts and the base of her throat and she twisted uncomfortably inside it, pulled it aside for air. She looked to the ceiling for guidance but it remained suspended in silence and dirt.
“Worked like a charm,” Sappho said, her hands full of red leather and crimson fabric, not a spot of ink to be seen. “I’ll hang it on the balcony. In this weather, it should dry in no time.”
“Good.” Gabrielle swallowed, cleared her throat. “That’s good to know. Thank you.”
Sappho stepped away from the balcony and her lips curved slowly. “Any time.” She stepped forward. “Any time you want to pull a sword on me and have it end like this...” She was too close again, and Gabrielle wondered how she’d crossed the space so quickly. “Well, that’s thanks enough.”
Sappho’s knuckles brushed Gabrielle’s cheekbone, fingers traced the line of her jaw, the pad of a thumb stroked the corner of her open mouth. Her face got bigger, Gabrielle’s vision swam with it, the poet’s eyes sucked her into their muddy depths, swallowed her and Gabrielle didn’t understand what had happened until breath whispered across her lips.
She threw herself backward, landed heavily against the table and her hand clutched instinctively for her weapons. Chain mail unfolded in her palm, dropped its contents to the floor with a jingle and a clang. The chakram rolled unsteadily on its edge; Sappho put out one sandaled foot and metal tolled like a bell beneath it. Gabrielle bent down to grab the circle but the poet got there first; she raised it and her fingernails whistled against its razor edge.
Muscles coiled in a body barely restrained, Gabrielle’s fingers shook when she reached out. “Give that to me.”
“I know this weapon...”
“Sappho...” The low growl of a beast. “Give it to me.”
Sappho turned the chakram this way and that, studied its curves. “I’ve seen this before... It belongs to Xena.” She caught the animal with her inscrutable gaze. “Where did you get this?”
Gabrielle looked down, breathed stiltedly through her nose and around the ache in her chest.
“Why do you have Xena’s weapon?” Sappho’s voice was flat, cold. “Gabrielle...” The poet faltered. “Gabrielle... I wrote a poem for you.”
Dragon claws dug into her shoulders, scrambled beneath her skin and into her mouth. They scratched against her clenched teeth; the beast roared and she struggled to swallow its ferocity.
“I remember now,” Sappho continued. “Xena was quite persistent that I write it. And now I see why.”
“Give me... The chakram.”
“I remember Xena telling me you were a bard... You don’t look like a bard.”
“People change.” Movement, rapid and blurred as skin struck across the distance and tore the weapon from Sappho’s hand. Gabrielle crushed it to her chest and her beast roared with savage triumph. The chakram was wet; its metal had tasted blood. It drooled crimson into her palm. She stared at it, rubbed it with her fingers, her senses shrouded in thick wool. “I was a lot of things once...”
When Gabrielle looked up, the poet had her hand pressed to her mouth, her pink tongue at the base of her fingers. Gabrielle had presumed the blood was her own. She reached out, captured a wrist and folded clean parchment against the wound. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Sappho’s blood soaked quickly into the fibrous scrap. The gash was thin and shallow and wouldn’t take long to heal.
“Gabrielle... Where’s Xena?”
Her fingers froze. She crumpled the stained parchment in her fist and dropped it on the table. “Xena’s dead.”
“Gab --”
“I have to go.” She picked up her chain mail and sword. “Keep the skirt,” she said flatly.
And she left.
***
Continued in Part IV, here...