STANDARD DISCLAIMER: The Xena: Warrior Princess stories utilize characters which are copyright © by Universal / Renaissance. No infringement is intended.

SUBTEXT and VIOLENCE DISCLAIMER: The concept of a same sex couple is central to this story.  No explicit sex and no explicit violence.

CONTINUITY DISCLAIMER: The story takes place far in the future but was written during season three and totally ignores the events of the last two and a half seasons.

EXPLANATION AND FURTHER DISCLAIMERS:  A conversation which happened in my head after re-reading Queen of the Damned.

FEEDBACK, COMMENT AND FLAMES: Email at maven369@sympatico.ca

The three sat around the one end of the table in the corner of the large common room.  Out of respect, and something else that no one could later define, the customers of the inn left the large table unoccupied - giving privacy in a very public place.

Back against the wall, cradling an earthenware mug of hot cider in his hands, the stranger waited patiently.  His unnaturally white skin throwing his almost black hair and eyes into sharp contrast.  He breathed in an even, shallow rhythm.  When he remembered to breath.  A fact not lost on the woman who sat to his right.

The Warrior too had her back against the wall.  A untouched mug containing port sat by her left hand, her right hand resting unseen on her lap.  Hair, originally as dark as the man's, was starting to streak with silver.  Her eyes were blue - a colour the man only saw now in cloth and never in this exact shade.  He could remember that the afternoon sun reflecting off deep water sometimes looked like this.

The second woman sat with her back to the kitchen.  Her hair had not yet started to gray and her eyes still held youthful light.  The man struggled to remember ferns, newly free from the soil and bathed in the morning sunlight.  He was happy that he still had that memory.  It was this one, the Bard, who broke the silence.

"I don't understand," she said, smiling gently.  Her words and tone and body language assured him that her confusion was her fault, not his own bumbling.  He smiled at the kindness.

"I offer immortality," he repeated.  "But there is a cost."

"Why us?" asked the Warrior.  The stranger frowned at the odd question.  No inquiry to the cost or method.

"You are heroes of this age.  Of this land.  You could continue to..."

The Bard reached out and tapped his hands.  "We're just inn keepers.  All that was long ago."

"The... gift would give back some of your youth.  Not much, it is true.  And your memories and experiences would be yours."  For a time, he thought, maybe forever with these two.

The Bard smiled.  "No thank you."  She placed her hands around his, holding them lightly against his mug.  She seemed totally unconcerned at their icy chill.

"We have our immortality.  Several times over.  My stories are told throughout the land.  The people we helped have built lasting towns, raised families, even helped others.  Our children and their future families will live on."

The Bard smiled at the Warrior.  Who didn't smile back. Who had her eyes locked on the stranger's.

"Convince her," the Bard said, her right hand leaving the strangers to rest on the Warrior's left hand.  "Convince her and I'll consider it."

"::Send her away,::" the stranger said, speaking directly into the Warrior's mind.  the Warrior's expression didn't change.  He was not surprised for her self control was what had drawn him to her.  Nor was he surprised at the strength in which she replied.

"::She's not my pet,::" the Warrior replied.

The Bard stood.  "I'll let you two talk in private.  Gotta help Lyta in the kitchen."

They watched her leave.

"I did not push her," the stranger assured the Warrior.

The Warrior shrugged.  "She good at knowing when to give people space.  And time.  When we're ready she'll come back."

The stranger watched the Bard as she disappeared into the kitchen area.

"I am surprised that she refused before finding the cost."

The Warrior smiled fondly as she too watched the Bard.  "It doesn't matter what the tunic costs if it's not your colour.  Are you refused often?"

The stranger's attention returned to his cooling cider.  He fell into a silence that lasted several minutes.

"Once.  Just once.  But she took the gift in the end.  When.."

"When what?" asked the Warrior.

"When the other half of her soul did not refuse it," the stranger finally said.  Another long silence.

"Tell me the cost," the Warrior asked, breaking the silence.

"I will tell you all.  Your body will change.  You will be stronger and quicker.  You will be able to read the thoughts of mortals.  You will eventually become nearly invincible.  You will only fear the burning of a large fire or of the sun.  But you will fall into an dreamless slumber while the sun is in the sky.  And every night, between the setting of the sun and it's rise you must kill and drink the blood; for that is the only thing that can sustain you."

The Warrior swirled the port around the mug.  "That all?  And I suppose that you'll now say that, because I can read people's minds and hearts, I can choose to only kill criminals and the evil.  Or animals."

"I could say that," the stranger said after a slight pause.

"But you won't because you know its really a lie," the Warrior said.  The stranger nodded.

"She can't kill, not even a rabbit.  If she were to do that she would be destroyed.  Even if she walked this earth forever *she* would be dead."

The stranger nodded.  This was something he had considered.  "The blood of our own kind can also sustain us.  You could..."

"Kill for both," the Warrior said, eyebrow arching into her bangs.  "Just like the old days.  Anything else you'd like to throw on the table.  Anymore cards?"

"Warrior," the stranger said, "you are dying."

The Warrior smiled, "I know."  And the silence stretched.

After half an hour the Warrior finally spoke.

"I've known her over fifteen years.  And in all that time I've made just three promises to her.  Just three.

"The last promise was that I would love her forever, that we'd be together in life and in death.  And she made a similar vow.  So if I say yes to this I'll be agreeing for both of us.

"The middle promise was that I wouldn't die on her.  That I wouldn't put her through the pain of being alone again.  And, unless I say yes to your gift, I am going to break that promise before year end."

"And so," the stranger said, "the answer is yes."

The Warrior shook her head.  "The answer is no."  She paused, looking long into the glass of port.

"When I was fifteen I took up the sword.  I fought, but only those who would harm my family and friends.  By the time I was 25 I was killing anyone who crossed me, who angered me, who simply annoyed me.  If I can fall so far in ten mortal years, what would I be like in ten immortal years.  In a hundred immortal years.

"My first promise to her was that I would never become that monster again.  And that promise all the gods in Olympus could not make me break.  And I would die, I would suffer Tartarus alone, I would see her die in my arms before I would become that monster again."

"You refuse my immortality?"

"And accept hers.  Our children's immortality, even if they aren't of our blood."

The stranger nodded.  Pushing his mug away he stood.

"::Why us,::" the Warrior asked, her unspoken words burning directly into his mind and demanding to be answered.

"::Her eyes the colour of new ferns in the sunlight.  Her hair the colour of light bronze.  Her soul as gentle and healing as spring rain.  Her courage as fierce as a lioness.  And she reminds me of two whom I loved and lost and seek forever.::"

The Warrior blinked, realizing that she was alone and that he was gone.  She stared into the port seeing the faces of their children.  Little Terris who the Bard called their gifts from the gods but who the Warrior feared were simply the product of her not being there in time.  Lyta, the foundling they had discovered in the burned out village nearly six years ago.

"Hey, how you doing?" asked a soft voice.  A light hand running down her shoulder and arm to lace fingers together.  The Warrior shifted over on the narrow end bench so that the Bard could sit beside her.  The Warrior shrugged and brought her right hand up, covering their linked hands, the long dagger forgotten on her lap.

"So did you ask the cost?"

The Warrior shrugged again.  "What does it matter.  It was the wrong shade."

"The wrong shade?

"It didn't go with your eyes.  Or your hair."  Or your soul.  Or your courage.

"If you say so," the Bard replied.  She leaned in closer, resting her head against the softness of the Warrior's shoulder.

The Warrior closed her eyes, memories of fifteen years of love, acceptance, hope.  Fifteen years of redemption.  Fifteen years of peace.

"My love," the Warrior said.  "I have to talk about that second promise I made you."  And she felt the tears which only now where soaking through her tunic.

"I know, my warrior.  I know."

He stood in the shadows outside the door.  Listening to the voices within.  And knew that the gift would never be taken by these two.  And that he would never force it upon them now that he had asked.

He took the memory of eyes the color of new ferns in the sunlight and of lake ice and placed it carefully away.  With the memory of the twins.  With his name.

He looked up at the inn's sign.  Although he had not troubled himself to learn the written language of this place the picture made the name plain.  A quill crossing a bare sword.

The stranger turned his back on the Warrior and the Bard and walked away.

The End

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