Realmfun

The morning after the Amazon party, all is quiet, birds are singing and The Amazon Queen is awakened by a still inebriated Warrior Princess trying to make a silent entry into the hut. The Warrior had lost just about every bit of stealth throughout the night and was worse for the wear when she stumbled through the door and fell to the floor with a loud "Thud!".

"Xena," Gabrielle sat up in her bed trying to focus on the form of Xena who was making an obvious effort to stand up straight, "do not tell me that you have just finished drinking yourself into a stupor."

Xena was doing her best to try and keep her balance when she answered her friend, "Nope. Gabrielle, just go back to sleep," she slurred.

Gabrielle eyed her friend, "Xena, don't lie to me. You are drunker than Dionysis. How much did you drink anyway?"

Xena swayed from side to side, "I'm not lying to you, I can't lie to you," she said defensively.

"Xena, I can smell the port, ale and wine from here. And what IS that other smell?" Gabrielle said, "Last I saw you, you were playing Ephiny, Eponin and Solari in a game of dinars. What have you been doing all night?"

Xena smirked at the bard, who was growing impatient with her friend.

"Xena." Gabrielle's tone flattened and she narrowed her eyes at Xena, "what have you done to the Amazons?"

Xena let out a giggle, "do you really want to know?"

"Yes, I would really like to know."

Xena shook her head and caught her balance before she answered, "you really don't want to know."

Gabrielle covered her face with her hands and mumbled a few obscenities before she looked back up at her friend. Her attention moved from the warrior to the goings on outside. When she noticed that there were no goings on outside, she climbed out of the bed and walked past Xena to the door.

Xena took this as her reprieve. She stumbled across the room to where the saddlebags lay and began to rifle through them.

"Xena!" Gabrielle called from the door,"where are all of the Amazons?"

Xena ignored the question and found the object that she had been looking for and stuffed it into her bodice. Turning around, she was face to face with an angry bard.

"What did you do to them?" Gabrielle's face had reddened.

Xena bit her lip and tried to walk past the bard but Gabrielle was able to push her back easily, "answer me."

"No time for that Gabrielle. Gotta go." Xena rushed past her.

Gabrielle followed Xena outside to the center of the village, where the party had taken place the previous night. Amazons lay everywhere. Bodies draped across tables and benches. Some were passed out on the ground in heaps. "What in Tartarus had been going on here?" she asked herself. Looking around at the carnage of the morning after, she had lost sight of Xena.

....Meanwhile, behind the stables....

"Xena!" Ephiny said when the warrior princess had turned the corner,"Did ya get it?"

Xena pulled a metal object from her bodice, "sure did." She tossed the object in question over to Solari and Eponin who immediately began to work it into the wine barrel.

Ephiny pushed herself up from the ground and fell back against the barn wall, "I can't believe you carry a wine tap with you." she said to Xena.

"Hey, you never know when you're gonna need one," she said with a grin on her face.

"Almost there!" Eponin called out.

Xena turned to Ephiny, "did you find anything?"

"Yep!" she produced a thick hollowed out reed and a sizable gourd, "are these good enough?"

Xena inspected them with a smile,"perfect. Solari, can I use your sword?"

Solari picked the sword up off of the ground and handed it over to Xena. She laid the reed on the ground and cut it in half. Then she balanced the gourd on a log and split it, then she cut the ends off of the gourd.

"The wine is a flowin!" Eponin exclaimed.

Xena continued her work and finished it up by fitting the gourds onto one end of each reed. Smiling at her handiwork, she handed one over to Ephiny, who examined the piece that looked like a funnel used by the healer...but alot bigger....

"Now," Xena began, "you two," pointing at Solari and Eponin, "fill up the pitchers with wine. Alright Eph, ya put the reed in your mouth......"

.....Gabrielle walked through the scene, stepping over bodies of fallen Amazons. Here and there she would stumble over one and a moan or a grunt would escape it's lips. "I don't believe you Xena. Why does EVERYTHING have to be a challenge to you. Look at this...." she said to herself, "You drank every one of them into submission..." The bard was pulled from her thoughts when she heard chanting coming from the far end of the village, she let herself follow the sound. As she approached, the words were becoming clearer, well as clear as it could get, being said by drunken Amazons and the distinct voice of a certain Warrior Princess.

"CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!.........."

Gabrielle stopped herself in midstride when she heard cheers coming from behind the stables. "Oh c'mon Eph! you could do better than that!" she heard Xena's voice say. "What are they doing?" she asked herself.

Then she heard the chant again..... "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!....." followed by the abrupt sound of someone choking and retching.

"Oh man...Looks like Solari's out. Too bad"

Gabrielle stopped again at recognition of the voice...."was that? nah couldn't've been....."

"C'mon Xena, you and me again. Let's show 'em how it's done." Gabrielle's eyes went wide....EPHINY!...What in Tartarus is she doing....

"CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!....."

Gabrielle turned the corner and saw what her best friend and the last Amazons standing were doing. Xena and Ephiny were holding these....giant funnels?....in their mouths while Eponin poured pitchers of wine into them. She and Solari were chanting "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" while Xena and Ephiny struggled to swallow the onslaught of liquor. Ephiny was sinking to her knees and a swaying Xena fought to stand upright. Solari was seated next to the wine barrel filling MORE pitchers.

Ephiny fell to the ground and Xena held her arms up in triumph. "Told ya I could take ya," she said to the Amazon while she bounced around in a victory dance.

"My turn," Eponin stepped up to Xena, "you may have beaten the Regent, but I've got one thing that you don't have."

Xena gave a half smile, "and what might that be?"

"I'm younger than you," Eponin answered, very sure of herself.

Xena narrowed her eyes at the younger woman and hissed, "Then let's get it on."

Solari got to her feet with some degree of difficulty and stood before the two combatants with the pitchers of wine.

The contest had begun. Solari and Ephiny chanted, "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!"

"C'mon Poni! Are you a peasant or an Amazon!" Ephiny cheered on.

Gabrielle decided that it was time to make her presence known.

"Xena!"

The Warrior Princess coughed and sprayed the wine from her mouth all over Solari. All went silent and all eyes were wide and focused on the irritated bard who stood before them.

Xena wiped wine from her mouth and sheepishly said, "uh, hi Gabrielle."

Gabrielle's eyes darkened, "what is going on here?" she demanded.

Solari, Eponin and Ephiny scrambled together and stood a few feet away from Xena. They all pointed towards the warrior and, in unison, said, "It was her idea".

Gabrielle acknowledged them and answered, "I kind of figured as much." She stepped closer to the drunken form of the usually stoic Warrior Princess, "now, care to explain?" she tried to let the anger slip from her face and cover it with a smile, but it ended up looking more like she was grinding her bared teeth while trying to hold back on pushing her best friend onto her ass. And she knew she could at that moment.

"Aw, c'mon Gabrielle...we were just having some fun." Xena tried the innocent approach with a smile. But the bard was standing her ground, "it's not often that I get to kick back and have a few."

"Xena!" Gabrielle snapped back, "this is not what I would constitute as 'having a few', instead of taking out one or two men in a tavern, you've succeeded in taking out AN ENTIRE AMAZON VILLAGE!"

Xena winced and shrank back from the bard, "I'm sorry. But they'll be fine in the morning."

Gabrielle's face turned red, "Xena it is the morning!"

She looked about herself with confusion and finally realized that she really screwed up, "oops, well....tomorrow morning."

Gabrielle turned to the Amazons who had bowed their heads, "and what do you have to say for yourselves? Hmm? Ephiny?" She tapped her foot with impatience.

"Xena was just showing us some of the games she knew," Ephiny replied in a small voice.

Gabrielle knew that this had started from somewhere, someone...."and who made the challenge?" she asked.

The three Amazons stood stock still and looked to each other before answering.

"Who!" Gabrielle demanded.

Ephiny and Solari stepped away from Eponin and pointed to her. Eponin jerked her head from left to right and muttered, "thanks guys. So much for loyalty."

Gabrielle stepped up to the guilty Amazon and asked, in a sweet voice, "Eponin, what have I told you about challenging Xena to anything?"

"But....it wasn't a challenge to a fight."

"Doesn't matter. I said not to challenge, or even let Xena think that a challenge has been proposed, whether it be to a fight or....." she stopped the smooth her hair back...'I can do this' she thought,'a few friendly games of dinars is one thing but...turning it into a competition...Be calm Gabrielle'.

"Gabrielle?" a small voice from Xena.

"What Xena," a growl from Gabrielle.

The warrior crossed her legs and began to rock from side to side, "I have to..."

The bard ran a hand over her face and exhaled, "Then go!" she said not looking at her friend.

A broad grin came over Xena's face as she bounded past Gabrielle, around the corner, and out of sight.

The Amazon Queen's attention turned to the others, "mind telling me how this started?"

Ephiny stepped up and began, "well, it began with.."

Gabrielle waved a dismissive hand at the Regent and began to rub her temples, "with a game of dinars. I know that much. Continue."

The Regent swallowed hard and continued, "after you turned in.."

"When I had felt that I had drunk enough for the evening!" Gabrielle interrupted.

"Xena was telling us stories about when she was younger and," Ephiny looked at Gabrielle, whose eyes had begun to narrow at her, "anyway, she said that she could drink most anyone under the table."

With her hands behind her back, Gabrielle nodded her head and turned to Eponin. The Amazon gulped and straightened her posture, "and so I guess that this is where your 'challenge' comes into play?"

Eponin spoke up, "all I said was that I could drink my fair share. That I out drank alot of the Amazons and that..."

The bard quieted her, "now the challenge is in place. How did that catastrophe," she pointed back towards the party site where the rest of the tribe was sleeping off the night's activities, "happen?"

"Xena set up a tournament," Solari said.

"A tournament?" Gabrielle inquired.

"And we were the last four standing," Ephiny said.

"Then why didn't you just end it there?"

"Because Xena said that we couldn't quit, there had to be a winner," Eponin answered.

"Gabrielle?"

"Yes Solari."

"Uh, why are you so upset about this?" she asked.

"Because, it is not you, Ephiny or Eponin that has to listen to a whining Warrior Princess with a hangover headache. It is not you that has to deal with...," she cast her eyes to the sky and gritted her teeth, "oh by the gods....her stomach problems!" Gabrielle hissed.

The three Amazons nodded collectively and said, "Oh."

"Now, go get some sleep. And I don't ever want to hear a word uttered that even remotely resembles a challenge around Xena. You got it?"

"Sure thing," Ephiny said while she pulled at the others arms and ran past Gabrielle.

Gabrielle smiled to herself at a job well done. She was able to let her anger quiet down and decided to go back to the hut and make Xena wish she had been in Tartarus.

While she rounded the corner, the stable doors burst open and a blonde horse ran past with a leather clad warrior draped across the saddle. Gabrielle laughed at the site while the pair disappeared into the woods.

"Oh c'mon Xena!" she called out, "I wasn't going to be THAT hard on you!"

"Not a chance Gabrielle! I may be crazy, but I ain't stupid!" came the reply that sounded like a groan.

Gabrielle turned towards the hut and smiled. She said to herself, "oh, but Xena, you'll have to come back sometime...and paybacks are a bitch."