Awakenings 10: Children of Gods - final

Ms Hunter Ash

rating - R

pairings: X&G

# ### 

Alti casually waved her hand in the air and Gabrielle went to her knees as if backhanded. The bard tasted blood on her lips. Xena moved to stand in front of the bard.

“Leave her alone, Alti. This is between you and me.”

Another series of blows rocked the bard’s body back and forth. Gabrielle swayed heavily on her knees until a heavy phantom blow sent her backwards, holding her left eye.

“Xena, why can’t I play with your new little bitch? You used to share with me. Besides, didn’t she share you with Ares?”

Xena felt her insides go cold with rage.

“That had nothing to do with me and Gabrielle!” Xena shouted.

“Don’t you think it bothered her just a little bit for you to have wild and untamed sex with the God of War so soon after your wedding to her?”

Xena heard Gabrielle growl.

“Did you ever confront her with that one, bard?” Alti demanded.

“She wasn’t herself,” Gabrielle growled back.

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t drive you insane to think of her making love with him?”

Xena snarled but the shaman only laughed at her.

“Who do you think she prefers? A god or you? And a child she has to share with him, nothing to do with you?” the sorceress laughed.

“I love Sasha, go to Tartarus!” Gabrielle hissed.

“Tell her about the Amazons, Xena, or I’ll show her.” Alti threatened, changing tactics.

“When I was in the North I trained as a shaman under Alti. She was worse than Ares ever thought of being. She wanted the power to destroy a person’s very soul and steal that energy. I was drawn into that power and I betrayed the Amazons. I killed them, very brutally.” Xena growled.

Gabrielle closed her eyes, realizing now why Xena didn’t want to visit the northern Amazons.

“It was very brutal,” Alti agreed as Gabrielle got to her feet again. “She impaled a lot of them on tree limbs,” Alti giggled.

“Oh gods,” Gabrielle muttered and Xena struggled against the guilt tearing at her.

Alti flashed her hands again and the warrior fell back into Gabrielle’s arms, her body assaulted from numerous unseen blows. The bard whimpered as Xena’s head rocked back and blood began flowing from a vicious wound above the warrior’s eye. Then her body jerked and the warrior grabbed her ribs in pain.

“How did those broken legs feel, Xena?” the warrior screamed in pain and grabbed at her legs.

“Or how about that gauntlet?” Alti laughed and Xena rolled over in Gabrielle’s arms, blood flowing freely out of her mouth.

“Stop it!” Gabrielle shouted at the sorceress.

Alti merely laughed and shoved her hand forward, sending the bard falling backwards, choking on a bloody nose, a possible broken nose. Gabrielle sat up, her eyes blazing in fury.

“You’re good with that magic stuff, how about a real fight?” the bard demanded.

“Ah, what fun would that be? Tell me, how did those spikes feel on that cross?”

Gabrielle screamed in pain again and grabbed at her wrists as blood began flowing. Then the bard found herself face down on the ground as her body struggled for air, the body remembering what it was like to suffer on the cross after being crucified.

Alti laughed again. “A physical fight, I don’t think so. You see in this realm, the strongest mind wins, not the strongest body.”

Gabrielle’s eyes narrowed and she concentrated, looking at the blood flowing out of her wrists. Focusing everything on the wounds, unaware that she was sending herself into a self induced trance, her breathing steadied and the blood stopped, the wounds closing into the healing scars that had been before. Gabrielle crawled quickly back to Xena, who was shaking her head, trying to regain her senses.

“Come on, warrior! Think! You trained under her!” Gabrielle shouted, lifting Xena up into a sitting position. “We can’t touch her, fight her on her level!”

“Oh, you are clever, bard. Xena, your taste in sexual toys is getting better. This is amusing, Xena could never beat me.” Alti grinned.

Xena closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing again. She quickly opened her eyes and held up her chakram, catching Alti’s next lightning bolt with it, sending it flying into the trees. Several more bolts followed the path of the first one. Xena grinned and stood up slowly with Gabrielle’s help.

Alti smiled and lowered her hands. “Very good, Xena. Are you ready to face everything now? Including Gabrielle’s price?”

“What are you talking about?” Gabrielle asked.

“Poor bard, no one's told you yet what your dark price is, have they?" Alti asked with a sneer.

"What is she talking about, Xena?" Gabrielle asked.

"With every light there must be darkness. Xena already has her darkness, it's the light she's attempting to reach."

Xena's eyes narrowed as Gabrielle stood beside her, both of them watching Alti, wondering what was next in this mixed up world.

"You two are bound by blood and soul now, to reach the light Xena not only had to face her darkness but she has to face you with it," Alti grinned.

"I faced my darkness," Xena said flatly.

"Yes, and you faced it very well but you haven't faced Gabrielle seeing it. Isn't that what you've always feared, Xena, that she would see the truth as to what you're really like?" Alti purred, moving a couple of steps closer but without overt threat.

Gabrielle stepped defiantly in front of Xena after seeing her lover begin to shake.

"I know what she was like. I know about the deaths and the slaughter and I know she's not like that now!" Gabrielle hissed.

"Yes, but do you know about the rapes?" Alti asked, her eyes dancing with delight.

"Rapes?" the bard frowned. "I know what soldiers are like, she couldn't control her men."

"I'm not talking about the men. You know about the battle lust now, bard, ask Xena how she dealt with that. Ask her if all those young women were willing. Ask her how many of them were screaming or crying when she forced herself on them."

Gabrielle felt like she had been hit with a maul. With a flash her body was remembering her own numerous rapes at the hands of the Roman soldiers, slavers and owners. The bard screamed and went to her knees as her body and mind protested the hands and fists and men thrusting themselves on her, forced by Alti to physically and mentally remember.

“You know what rape feels like, bard. You know what it’s like to be powerless over your own body as someone else claims it, didn’t you know that’s what excited Xena the most?”

Alti clapped her hands and laughed with delight.

“Tell me, Xena, have you ever used your whip on her? Or the handle end of your sword or dagger?” Alti laughed at them. “Which one of your rapists put those scars on your back, bard? Xena or the Romans?”

Gabrielle flinched as an unseen whip lashed across her back, ripping her tunic, spreading blood down her back. She focused again, bringing her breathing back to normal. Then Alti’s words sunk in about her beloved. Gabrielle turned to face her lover.

“Xena?”

As she slowly turned to face her mate Xena went to her knees in defeat. The warrior's head dropped forward and her sword arm dropped as well.

"Xena?" Gabrielle whispered, seeing the truth in the shattered spirit in front of her.

“Haven’t you ever told her how you like it when they scream in frustration and pain? How you loved forcing an unwilling victim to service you?” Alti purred softly.

Xena’s body shook as if being caressed by an unseen lover and she screamed in protest.

The bard's eyes went hard as her jaw tightened.

"You bitch," her voice hissed and Xena's heart shattered.

Then the warrior realized that Gabrielle was spinning to face Alti. Which evil was she referring to, Xena wondered as her tears fell.

"I don't care, damn you!" Gabrielle shouted at the sorceress. "She's past that! That was your student, not my mate!" The bard spun and knelt in front of Xena, lifting the warrior's chin until blue eyes met green ones. "Do you hear me? I don't care about the past and I don't fear you. I don't fear your passion. I don't fear your battle lust. I do not fear you!” Gabrielle stressed each sentence, trying to verbally pound it into Xena.

Xena clung to her mate as Gabrielle pulled Xena to her feet and held her tightly.

"But what about your darkness, bard?" Alti purred again.

"What do you mean? Xena knows I've killed and that I had another lover and why.”

"Xena might reach that light as long as you forgive her past and the potential of it returning again. She believes totally in your light, what will she think of your dark side?"

"What are you talking about? Quit dancing around it!" Gabrielle spun to face the shaman and felt comforting hands on her shoulders. She leaned back into her warrior, trying to calm her breath and heartbeat.

Alti seemed to have stopped shooting lightning bolts and throwing punches for awhile, and Gabrielle wondered if the sorceress was going to talk them to death.

"When Apollo pulled your spirit back into your body and lit that spark of life in you again on that cross, he had to accept that his gift of light had a balance of darkness that would eventually come to the surface."

"Apollo? The cross?" Gabrielle whispered, suddenly feeling lightheaded as she glanced down at the healing wounds of her wrists. "I died?" the bard glanced back and Xena nodded.

"Hecate told me today."

"Then what in Tartarus is this darkness business?" the bard demanded.

"She didn't tell me," Xena's face was pained.

Gabrielle reluctantly turned back to Alti, her eyes on fire.

"All right, you're dying to tell us. What?!"

"Did you ever wonder why all those village girls you saved from Bacchus had no memory of being bacchae but Gabrielle did?" Alti questioned, bringing a frown to both women.

“What?” Xena asked and the two women found themselves looking in on the scene of the Bacchae cave, like phantom spectators. The bacchae danced around the fountain of the blood of Bacchus, Gabrielle included. The bard felt her breath quicken.

"How did it feel to pierce Xena's neck with your fangs?"

Xena felt her bard shiver. Gabrielle moaned as they watched the bacchae Gabrielle sink her fangs into Xena’s throat, holding the warrior close as she drank in the blood.

"To feel her warm blood flowing past your fangs? To feel her fear and desire in the blood, in her body. To realize that she wanted you right then and you terrified her at the same time? Do you hear her blood calling to you now? Can you feel your fangs aching to show themselves?"

A moan escaped from the bard and this time it was Gabrielle that sank to her knees, her hands and arms falling to her sides.

"No!" she whispered.

Xena knelt behind her mate and wrapped her arms protectively around the bard as Gabrielle began trembling violently. Alti laughed in delight.

"Yes, you weren't totally successful in saving your little bitch, Xena. She tasted some of Bacchus' blood on her tongue that night before you knocked the chalice away from her and then she tasted human blood - your blood."

Alti laughed and Gabrielle wailed, falling into Xena's arms.

“She could feel your terror, Xena, and it excited her! How she licked her fangs after letting you go.”

“No!” the bard screamed in denial but they could both see the delight the bacchae Gabrielle took in drinking Xena’s blood and the desire on Xena’s face.

Xena growled at Alti.

"Gabrielle, listen to me! Gabrielle!" Xena held the bard tightly as Gabrielle fought against the overwhelming darkness surrounding her spirit.

"This doesn't change anything! It changes nothing between us!" Xena tried getting through and finally she felt the bard's muscles relaxing a bit and she kept repeating it until Gabrielle finally looked her deep in the eyes. The warrior fought to open her heart totally, knowing that the bard could see into her soul right then.

"Doesn't it, Xena? Are you sure?" Alti purred, moving around them and whispering in their ears. "Which will you feel when she begins to make love to you, fear or passion at the thought that maybe her darkness will surface and she'll take your blood again, maybe killing you? Aren't you afraid that darkness will spark yours again?"

Gabrielle shuddered again and struggled to break free from Xena’s arms but the warrior held her tight, refusing to let Gabrielle fall to the darkness.

“No, I’m not afraid of her,” Xena answered.

“Can either of you be open with each other after this? Both of you afraid of the other’s darkness coming over you in the heat of passion? You’ve never seen Xena whip the skin from a woman’s back and then shove her hand into that same woman, have you, bard? And you, Xena, does the thought of her fangs excite you? That she may seek others out for their blood? That Bacchus can now sing to her?”

Gabrielle sought her lover's eyes again, the fear shining in her eyes brightly.

"No, I'm not afraid. We'll face it together, we'll face the darkness in both of us.

You've lost, Alti. The light will always win out over the darkness. I accept the darkness in me and I accept the darkness in Gabrielle."

Gabrielle buried her head in her warrior's chest, sobbing in relief. After a few minutes she pulled up and wiped her eyes with a rueful grin for her lover. She looked up at the pacing Alti. The sorceress was no longer smiling.

"We'll deal with it. I trust her with my life and my soul," Gabrielle said simply.

With a scream Alti was gone.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Gabrielle looked into Xena's eyes and grabbed the warrior behind the head and pulled her into a passionate kiss. Xena moaned and responded freely.

They fell backwards with an electric shock, both realizing at the same moment that they truly didn't feel any fear with each other, even with the dark revelations.

Gabrielle laughed and Xena grinned, leaning back on her elbows as she contemplated her mate.

Gabrielle's eyes narrowed at the mischief in Xena's eyes. "What?"

"Just remembering what you looked like with fangs," Xena said with a smile and then a laugh as the bard tackled her, first tickling and then kissing her. The bard finally broke off the kiss, gasping for air as she laid her head on Xena's chest. The warrior held her tightly.

"Time to go back, little one." Xena said with a smile.

"This is the first time I've felt totally complete with you since the Romans. It feels like something’s fallen into place,” Gabrielle whispered and was relieved when Xena nodded.

"I know. I was always so terrified of showing you that side of myself. I know that's not me; but it was." Xena hugged her mate.

"It's part of you, part of your history. We can't change the past, my love."

"Just like we can't predict the future. I love you, little one."

"I love you, warrior mine."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Xena wasn't surprised to find her body aching when she opened her eyes. She sat up quickly, looking towards Gabrielle and found her mother and Hecate sitting with them. Xena sighed in relief as the bard started opening her eyes, moaning with the physical assault from Alti that carried over into their physical bodies.

"Easy, Xena." Cyrene said softly, urging her daughter to lie back down as she applied a wet cloth to Xena's cut forehead. Xena caught Gabrielle's eyes as Hecate wiped the blood from the bard's nose and mouth. The bard attempted a smile and they reached out for each other's hands at the same time.

Hecate smiled at both of them.

"You have both done well. Spend the day here, resting and being with each other. Cyrene and I will pay Ares a visit."

"What are you going to do?" Xena asked.

"Threaten parts of his anatomy that he's rather fond of," the older woman laughed. "He knows I can do it too. Once he realizes that you're both on somewhat equal footing with him, he'll listen to reason."

Xena could tell her mom had been worried and now looked tired and relieved. Having seen shamanic journeys before, Xena could imagine how much pain her mother must have been in when her daughter and Gabrielle’s bodies starting showing the physical effects of Alti’s spiritual attack. Sudden cuts, bruises, broken bones, enough to terrify any mother, even a priestess of Hecate, the warrior thought and loved her mom even more for her strength.

Hecate stood and Cyrene joined her. Xena sat up on her elbows and noticed that the altar items had been packed away and there was a fire near the entrance of the cave. The smell of fresh meat cooking made her stomach rumble, reminding her that it had been over a day since she had eaten. Both mothers smiled.

"Food, water, comfortable bedding. Rest, both of you." Hecate ordered and Xena and Gabrielle blinked, realizing that both older women were gone.

"Wow, I'll never get used to that," Gabrielle complained with a smile. With a groan of protest she slowly crawled across the small space and curled inside Xena's arm, resting her head on the warrior's shoulder with a comfortable sigh.

Xena smiled, enjoying the familiar feeling.

"So what do you know about the gift thing from Apollo?" Gabrielle asked after a few quiet minutes.

"Hecate told me that you won't get sick again,"

"That's a relief!"

Xena grinned. "That you'll heal from wounds faster and that you'll be hard to kill."

"Hmmmm, what about you?"

"The same, I think. That we're practically even with Ares except for the shooting energy bolts and transport thing."

"Kinda like Hercules," Gabrielle said thoughtfully.

"Yes, exactly."

Gabrielle grinned as her stomach rumbled and got up slowly and went to the fire to finish the meal. Xena walked up behind her and wrapped her arms around her mate as she knelt down. The warrior began nuzzling the blonde’s neck with a growl.

"You'll make me burn this!" Gabrielle threatened.

"Hmmm, food, then you." Xena relented, lightly nibbling on Gabrielle's ear, sending a shiver of desire through the bard's body.

"Oh gods," the bard whispered. "Oh yeah, food, okay." She quickly dished out the meat and vegetables and then giggled as Xena began feeding bits of the food to her. "You are such a romantic! Has anyone ever seen this side of you?"

"Nope, no one."

"Good, I like that." Gabrielle's voice was husky and Xena felt the familiar fire spreading over her body when she saw the desire in Gabrielle's eyes.

The rest of the meal went quickly and Xena gathered her mate into her arms as they relaxed by the fire, letting their bodies heal their various wounds. Xena figured they’d be bruised and cut for the next few days but already their broken bones were healing quickly.

“Gods, Xena. I don’t remember when I’ve felt this relaxed.” Gabrielle commented, lightly nibbling on her warrior’s hand as Xena’s other arm wrapped around her waist. She leaned back into Xena and smiled as the warrior nuzzled her neck.

“I agree. We’ve been on the move and under stress for over two years; ever since the wedding.” Gabrielle wrapped her arms around her mate’s and snuggled into her warrior.

“Even with the cuts and bruises,” Gabrielle added with a smile around the split lip.

Xena chuckled in agreement, trying not to rattle the loose teeth in her jaw. “Rest for awhile, little one,” the warrior was pleased when she felt Gabrielle’s body relax even further in her arms. Xena leaned back and let her eyes close as well, content to hold her mate forever.