Xena walked the border of the town. In the distance, she saw the temple bathed in the mid afternoon sunlight. There was a feeling that Xena got from the temple. Whenever she looked at the thatched roof and the grape vines, she thought she could hear a maniacal giggle in the back of her mind. What was even more disturbing was that she recognized the sound. It was her own voice. The laughter as she looked further at the temple was creeping from her mind down to her throat, tickling the muscles along the jaw and mouth. She squeezed her hand, digging her fingernails into her palm to drive away the maddening scratch. Xena walked faster away from the temple, going back to the inn. She needed to awake Gabrielle and find out what had bothered her so much yesterday.

As she began walking down one of the trails leading to the center of town, the wind brought a couple of familiar scents to Xena’s attention. One of them was the tang of fermented grapes -- this scent was stronger than what she was used to in the taverns she used to haunt in her darker days. The giggling came back to her, this time accompanied with a single sentence she had uttered many a time before: kill ‘em all!

The other scent she was intimately familiar with. It was a scent that she associated with peace and private joy. Warmth that she was attracted to at night, after the sun had gone down and the food had settled gently into her stomach. Her body was beginning to betray the force of the memory. It was the scent of honeysuckle and clean water. It was Gabrielle’s scent. Both scents were together and the wind was coming from the direction of the temple. The giggling in her mind grew to a ringing cackling.

She saw Gabrielle through the gaps in between the buildings. She was smiling a little too widely and her hands were too familiar with the other three women. She wasn’t dressed in the green top and skirt the Amazons had given her; she was in purple robes, like the other women. The other women, one of them draping herself over Gabrielle, giggled and touched Gabrielle just as intimately as the honey haired bard was touching. The closer woman leaned forward. Xena’s vision swam in crimson as the woman’s lips brushed against Gabrielle’s cheek.

Her walk became a long-legged run. The quartet were head for the inn where she was staying. Xena thought she heard Iolaus’ voice on the outer edge of her awareness. It didn’t matter; nothing else mattered except what was playing out in front of her. The giggling and the whispering had blown up to the point of clouding out all her other perceptions save Gabrielle’s hand brushing the outer thigh of the darker haired woman. Leaning forward to propel herself faster, she reached out with a taloned hand to grab the arm of the interloper. She pulled her back and spun her around, sending her hair whirling around.

“You keep your gods’ damned hands off her!” Xena felt the muscles in her arm tense quickly. She delighted in the feeling of shifting flesh under her grasp. Almost immediately, the two other women moved to either side of the warrior, keeping Xena from running into the tavern, or deeper into the village for support. The woman she held merely met Xena’s state with a cool one of her own. Her aloofness only served to inflame Xena’s rage. The whole world seemed to be painted only in shades and hues of red. Her heart was thudding in her chest, straining the buckles and rivets.

“Place another hand on me and you’re going to draw back a stump.” She said in a conversational tone. There was a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye. On instinct, her free arm snapped out to the side. She heard the gasp of surprised pain and felt bone give way under her blow. The woman on the other side moved. Xena cocked her leg up and sent an expertly thrown kick up to where the face should be. Instead of bone, there was the slap of flesh against soft leather and Xena now found herself grunting in surprise as she was sent staggering a pair of steps away. She let go of the woman’s arm to try to keep her balance. Once both of her feet were planted firmly on the ground, she placed herself in a defensive stance.

Gabrielle took another step forward; her eyes livid patches of glowing green anger. Xena had never in their seasons together seen her like this. She had seen her angry, but this level of anger was something that the bard had never tapped before. This woman was a stranger in Gabrielle’s skin and using her voice. This was not the woman she loved.

“What in the name of the gods’ has gotten into you?” Gabrielle roared, not bothering to stop when she got close to Xena. She bumped and pushed her out into the street. “Do you see a collar around my neck? Hmmm? You think I got away from Draco’s men to be your own little piece of meat on the side? You’d damn well better think again! I go where I damn well want to, do what I damn well want to do and I do whatever to whomever I want to do it to!” With that she took two quick backward steps and grabbed the back of Nysa’s head. She brought the dark-haired woman’s lips close to her own with a ferocity that made Xena furiously dizzy just watching it. The bard’s delicate hand reached up and grabbed Nysa’s breast. Nysa made a throaty and content growling sound from the base of her throat. As sudden as Gabrielle engaged Nysa, she broke off all contact. “You ever do something like that again, and you won’t have to worry about Nysa -- I’ll be the one wedging my boot up your ass. Let’s go.” Gabrielle turned and stomped away. The other two girls followed quickly behind, giggling and looking back at the dumbfounded warrior princess. Nysa turned slowly to leave, giving Xena a sickly sweet smile and a wink.

“Buh-bye, warrior clueless.” She giggled and took a set of jogging steps to catch up with her clutch of friends. Xena stood there, her mind still reeling to make sense of what happened. She never noticed Iolaus coming up behind her, panting with the exertion of running.

“I got here as fast as I could,” he bent over in an effort to calm down his breathing, “Xena. . . those women were the ones that Gabrielle was talking to yesterday. They don’t look like magicians or anything. I can ask ar -- Xena? Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

Xena blinked, “No. . . I need some time alone to figure out what to do. Go train the men and tell Hercules the the wall on the east end of the town needs to be shored up by nightfall.”

“Xena, if you--”

She silenced him with a glance. He muttered to himself as he turned to run to the other side of town, where his friend was helping in the construction of another set of barriers. Xena looked around her, trying to get her bearing. She was completely alone. The first of the realizations were beginning to cut through the fog of violence. Gabrielle was gone, and could very well not be coming back. She staggered inside the tavern, avoiding gazes and slinking up the stairs to her room. She had to re-think and re-formulate her plan, which she couldn’t do until she was alone. No one was going to watch her as she let her guard down.