Of Swords and Chakrams

Quick Xena and Gabrielle edit

Instagram This is where I acquired the scene pack, favcivantos on Instagram.

Xena felt her body move before her mind could agree. She held up her sword so the woman could see it clearly as she stood up at her full height. The Warrior Princess wasn't exactly petite. Just as slowly as she stood up Xena sheathed her blade. She kept both hands outstretch. Despite her size and muscles, she hoped her behavior looked a little less threatening.

"Relax. I'm not here to loot anyone. I'm here to help." Xena hoped that sounded genuine. "My name is Xena. I've been tracking down the warlord who has been raiding these villages." It wasn't a lie.

Xena offered a small smile, awkward and serious. She didn't dare move an inch. She had created a reputation from her days as a warlord. It wasn't out of the ordinary for someone to assume she was about to fight. She looked the part. She fought like it, too.

It was reassuring in that this woman was alone, but a little less so that she could clearly do a lot of damage all by herself. But, that said ... Thera watched the body language, saw the sword go away, had begun to connect the dots when the other spoke. Xena ... oh, she knew that name, from different sources, the story of redemption starting to overtake the older ones of steel and fear.

" ... Alright." The staff turned in her hands, one tip resting on the ground so that it became a walking stick rather than a weapon, "That's fair." Somebody needed to do that tracking down - put the so-called 'warlord' back in his place rather than picking up the wreckage his 'army' left behind.

"I'm Thera." She set her free hand on the back of a hound standing by her leg, tail waving gently as both the humans seemed to be calm, "From what I'm told, they raided this village around three hours ago." Pause, considering; this wasn't exactly her problem to get involved in, but a nip of conscience rose in the back of her mind.

"Your hounds, the dogs—they can follow a scent?" Xena held up a piece of a cloth. It looked like grimey fabric torn from a man's tunic. "This is all I have to go off of, and there's a chance it belongs to a farmer or innocent traveller."

Xena inched closer, each step confident and weighted with wariness. She stopped to keep several feet of space between them. The warrior held out the cloth, her blue eyes analyzing every movement. There was no shortage of brilliance.

Where I used to read it is now a dead link. I will keep looking, or maybe I will have surprised myself and have it downloaded somewhere, but here’s the Woosh page on it.

I think it would have been great fun seeing Renee get in on the ‘bizarre inexplicable doppelganger’ thing (Hope doesn’t count, she was family). Also that it would have been pretty much outing them, so that’s a thing. 

Xena and Gabrielle are canonically in love with each other, it’s just never explicitly stated whether they’re in a romantic relationship or not in the show itself, but the creators have said countless times over that while they never intended it to be a romance between them, they eventually play to that interpretation until it is obvious and they confirm that in behind the scenes footage. It’s annoying that people keep saying they’re not canon.

They are. They just can’t state either their sexuality or the nature of their relationship in the text. It’s subtext.

Queer-coded or yuri-coded is characters that are shipped together but the writing never supports it.

This one is very much supported and validated and that’s because the creators wanted it to be that way.

They just could not do it in the 90’s due to censorship.

Without giving spoilers - I will just say treat it as slow burn because you will eventually get what you want.

While they couldn’t explicitly state it, they do show it.

But that was the old Xena. This new Xena rescued villages and towns from raiders, bandits, curses, and warlords. This new Xena had retired from a life of being a warlord, but wouldn't shy away from a bounty if the reasoning and price were right. This new Xena often traveled with a clumsy bard who had a heart of gold.

Xena and the clumsy bard, Gabrielle, had parted ways for a pre-discussed short amount of time. Gabrielle had gotten home sick. It made the most sense that she take the time to visit her family for a week or two. Xena, on the other hand, was too restless to give up life on the road. She wasn't built to sit still.

There was awareness of someone approaching through the trees, the local wildlife taking note, but no urgency or panic. They were used to humans as part of the landscape and didn't pay one more of them much mind - or not so much to make Thera stop doing what she was doing and pay attention.

Not, at least, until one of the hounds suddenly bristled, began leading the others in a flurry of barks. The horses snorted, hooves stamping, attention focused on a patch of underbrush nearby.

Human, the impressions conveyed, but also leather and metal, the scent of armor.

Thera rose to her feet, picking up a blackwood staff on the way, and put herself between the animals and the patch of brush; no matter what the dogs though, she was supposed to be their protector, not the other way around.

She set herself square, not openly aggressive but ready if the other decided to attack.

"If you're here to loot the village, you're too late. They have nothing left." Not completely true, if someone wanted to take their farming tools or the clothes off their backs, but Thera worded it to send any such someone away. She didn't especially want to end up having to defend the villagers (so little, so late) but neither would she just abandon them.

Xena felt her body move before her mind could agree. She held up her sword so the woman could see it clearly as she stood up at her full height. The Warrior Princess wasn't exactly petite. Just as slowly as she stood up Xena sheathed her blade. She kept both hands outstretch. Despite her size and muscles, she hoped her behavior looked a little less threatening.

"Relax. I'm not here to loot anyone. I'm here to help." Xena hoped that sounded genuine. "My name is Xena. I've been tracking down the warlord who has been raiding these villages." It wasn't a lie.

Xena offered a small smile, awkward and serious. She didn't dare move an inch. She had created a reputation from her days as a warlord. It wasn't out of the ordinary for someone to assume she was about to fight. She looked the part. She fought like it, too.

Thera was tending to the hounds. Several had not survived the raid, cut down as they leaped to the defense of masters who had likewise fallen to attackers' blades. The smell of blood and smoke pervaded the village, what was left of it, the wailing of survivors drifting in the air.

Thera tended the hounds. She felt for the people of the village (even if she might pretend she did not), but she was a Guardian, and the four legged creatures were her first concern. The injured dogs, the couple of horses that had been deemed too old and too slow to be stolen with the rest. A small knot of migraine buzzed in the back of her mind, a leftover sense of anguish and fear.

The cries and sobbing rose further as shock faded and grief, true grief, began to set in. One of the dogs shifted closer, leaned against her as she knelt in the dirt, blood under her nails (that, at least, was nothing new). Thera exhaled, scratched lightly behind its ear.

But that was the old Xena. This new Xena rescued villages and towns from raiders, bandits, curses, and warlords. This new Xena had retired from a life of being a warlord, but wouldn't shy away from a bounty if the reasoning and price were right. This new Xena often traveled with a clumsy bard who had a heart of gold.

Xena and the clumsy bard, Gabrielle, had parted ways for a pre-discussed short amount of time. Gabrielle had gotten home sick. It made the most sense that she take the time to visit her family for a week or two. Xena, on the other hand, was too restless to give up life on the road. She wasn't built to sit still.