I wonder if this is how Xena feels whenever Ares is around? she pondered to herself as she neared the firelit camp. Maybe this man is some sort of evil deity cast down from the Heavens... she considered. What did Colleen call him? An executive producer? I wonder what that means?
"Oh! My! God!" Jenna's excited yelp broke Gabrielle's concentration. "Is that net really filled with fish?" she cried, literally, as the bountiful bard neared camp.
"Yes," Gabrielle beamed, momentarily proud of her accomplishment.
"Wow! Who knew gay guys could fish so well?" said Sean.
"Dat ain't no guy, you putz!" Rudy barked. "Dat dere is a dyke!"
"She is not a dyke, godammit!" Tapert squealed. "What is wrong with you people? They are JUST GOOD FRIENDS!!!"
"Have you ever actually seen that show?" Soo asked Rob.
"I am that show!" he barked.
"Sounds like somebody's got a superiority complex," she announced. "Maybe you want I should kick your high-falutin' ass..."
"Who are you?" Tapert challenged in a manly fashion.
"I am this show!" Soo mocked him. In a manly fashion.
"Could you guys just stop fighting?" Jenna wept. "Life is too short to be so angry." Colleen put a supportive arm around Jenna's shoulder. "Besides," the tearful Survivor took a deep breath. "I'm hungry and if we're nice, Gabrielle might share her catch."
"Of course, I'll share with you, Jenna," the kind-hearted bard assured her. "I'll share with all of you." She eyed Tapert warily. "Even you, I suppose."
"I can catch my own fish," he said defensively. He then realized that it was probably too dark to find any food now. "However, since you're offering in a peaceful manner, it would be rude of me to decline."
Gabrielle grunted quietly to herself. "How civilized," she said sarcastically as she approached her mate. Xena smiled sympathetically. The bard's mood lightened considerably at the sight. "How are you feeling, Xena?" She ran her fingers gently through the warrior's dark hair.
Tapert's lip twitched automatically. It's not all about the relationship! It's NOT! he chanted internally.
"I'm much better, thank you," Xena assured her.
"Colleen and Jenna took good care of you?" the bard asked as she sat next to her partner.
"I didn't even notice they were here, Gabrielle." Xena responded.
"Good answer!" the Amazon teased.
"I thought you'd like that one."
"Xena," Gabrielle relayed quietly. "I spoke to Aphrodite while I was gone. I think someone has sent us here on purpose. Aphrodite knows something but she's in one of her cryptic moods."
"Aphrodite has cryptic moods?" asked the surprised warrior.
"Well, they're nothing compared to yours, but she has her playful moments."
"I'll bet." Xena smiled wryly.
"Oh yeah, you're feeling better,� the bard grinned.
"Why do you think we were sent here, Gabrielle?"
"I don't know." She answered honestly. "At first, I thought that Ares may have regained his godhood and was messing with us..."
"I suppose that's a possibility..." Xena agreed.
"But then I also thought it might be the Furies." The Amazon explained. "With you out of the way, they would be free to wreak all kinds of havoc on the world."
"Hercules might have something to say about that, you know."
"Not if he's trapped somewhere else."
"True..."
"But Colleen's words have been haunting me ever since we got here..."
"Colleen?" Xena seemed amused. "Come on, Gabrielle, she's a sweet kid, but how much do you really think is going on inside that head?"
"Xena!" Gabrielle chastised. "You of all people should know not to judge a scroll by its parchment!"
"You're right," the warrior admitted. "After all, my first impression of you was of a relentless little chatterbox who would surely drive me mad..."
Gabrielle raised an eyebrow and waited for the rest.
"Take me with you! Teach me everything you know!" Xena said in a high, girlish voice. "I have the gift of prophecy!" She began to laugh but realized that Gabrielle wasn't smiling. Xena cleared her throat. "I have a head injury, remember?"
The bard paused just long enough to make the warrior nervous. Xena bowed her head in hopes of being quickly forgiven.
"As I was saying..." Gabrielle continued. "When we first arrived here, Colleen mentioned that we must be in the middle of a piece of fan fiction."
"And?"
"And..." drawled the bard. "What if she's right? What if someone is manipulating us with the help of some enchanted parchment?"
"Like the time Aphrodite put a spell on your scroll and I ended up fishing uncontrollably for days?" asked Xena.
"Yes."
"I have to admit that this day does have that same kind of constrictive feel." The warrior took in her surroundings then set her gaze back upon Gabrielle. "Do you think Aphrodite is behind this?"
"That's just it," the bard explained. "She seemed to know something, but I don't think she's in control."
"Who then?" The warrior followed Gabrielle's eyes to Rob Tapert. "Him?" she asked unbelieving.
"Remember how he insisted that Eve wasn't my daughter?" Gabrielle reminded her. "And he keeps telling everyone that you and I are just friends and implies that you and he have something going on..."
"I can explain that last part, Gabrielle," interrupted Xena.
Gabrielle's breath caught. "No, Xena." She shook her head in an attempt to block any visions of Xena and Tapert in untoward sexual positions. "You did not have a thing with that man in your sordid past."
"Even my standards were higher than that, Gabrielle," the warrior assured her. "The thing is, his wife looks just like me. He thought I was her."
"That's why he calls you Lucy..." realized the bard.
"Yes."
"But he knows a lot about us." Gabrielle added. "And Eve."
"Actually, Gabrielle, they all seem to know about us."
Gabrielle looked over at the group of misfits who were now huddled around Rudy as he prepared the fish that she had caught.
"Your exploits have always been legendary, Xena," stated the bard. "Maybe the stories have reached as far as this island during our 25 year absence."
"Possibly," acknowledged Xena. "But this seems like more than 25 years into the future." She nodded toward Jenna. "For instance, her bathing suit is not made of natural fibers."
"Excuse me?" questioned the bard.
"I only noticed because it was important." Xena sighed inwardly as Gabrielle's eyebrow arched yet again. "A true warrior absorbs all pertinent information," she offered in her own defense.
"You could have just mentioned the people following us around with the little black boxes..."
Xena looked sheepishly at the nearby camera operator who shrugged and waved to her. "Oh yeah..."
"Aphrodite said that those boxes collect images and transmit them to
people's homes."
"Surely that was her invention," laughed Xena. "What better way to force people to worship her than to project her image into their homes? Gotta love the ingenuity of the Goddess of Love."
"But Xena," Gabrielle reminded. "These boxes are collecting our image, not Aphrodite's."
"Maybe it's a new form of storytelling..." Xena said casually. "Like having a play performed right in your own home."
"You see!" the bard exclaimed. "It keeps coming back to stories!"
"Okay," Xena yielded to her companion's theory. "But if Big Red there," she motioned toward Tapert. "Is writing our 'story,' why does he continually keep putting himself in danger? I mean, if you or I don't kill him, Soozin will."
"You have a point," conceded Gabrielle.
"Of course," the warrior concluded. "Perhaps the manipulator of our story wants us to confront this man."
"To show him that he's misguided in his perception of us?"
"Could be," agreed Xena. "Then again, what does his perception of us matter in the long run?"
"That's a good question."
"Hey guys!" Colleen chirped as she approached them. "Am I interrupting anything?"
"Actually," Gabrielle said. "You're just the person I'd like to talk to."
"Coolness!" The co-ed plopped herself down on the sand in front of them. "What's up?"
"What do you know about that red-headed fellow?"
"Who? Mr. Tapert?"
"Yes, Tapert."
"Uh..." Colleen looked skyward for a second. "He's a guy..."
"What was that?!" Gabrielle interrupted.
"What was what?"
"You looked up. Like you were waiting for something to happen."
"What?" Colleen laughed uncomfortably. "Naw... I didn't do that."
"No, I saw it too," the warrior chimed in.
"W...w...w..." stuttered the frightened girl. "Why would I look to the sky for something to happen?"
"What's going on here, Colleen?" the bard asked sincerely.
The cutest castaway scrunched up her shoulders and nose in a great moral dilemma. It only took her half a second to decide if she were more afraid of the repercussions she would suffer from the luscious lovelies acting as puppeteers, Mezzo and godconnie, or from Xena, the deadly Warrior Princess.
"Just between the three of us..." Colleen whispered. "...there's a lot of crazy shit happening today." She checked over her shoulder to see if anyone was sneaking up on them. "Mr. T is the executive producer of a television show about... About the two of you."
"A television show?" asked Xena.
"Yes, we're on a television show right now, actually." Colleen nodded at the nearest camera. "Well, kinda..."
"Just like Aphrodite said," the bard pointed out.
"How can there be a show about us?" Xena questioned. "This is the first time we've ever had people following us around with those devices."
"Well, it's more complicated than that." Colleen replied. "Mr. T really does produce a show about your adventures. His wife, Lucy Lawless, portrays Xena, while the delectable Renee O'Connor plays Gabrielle. But this isn't one of his episodes. This is something altogether different."
"What is it?" Gabrielle insisted.
"It's a written story that combines fact and fantasy. It gives fictional characters like the two of you a substantive voice while placing real, live human beings, like us contestants, in fabricated situations; making us say and do things that we would probably never do in reality." Colleen spoke in less than a whisper now. "In fact, I'm not half as knowledgeable about XWP in real life as I am in this story."
"XWP?" asked Gabrielle.
"Xena: Warrior Princess," explained Colleen. "The television show that Mr. T produces."
"The show that's about us..." Xena was striving to understand Colleen's gibberish.
"Yep!"
"But this is not that show," said the warrior. "This is a story, written by..."
"The goddesses." Colleen quickly replied, afraid that the two fair maidens might appear at any moment.
"The same goddesses that made Mr. Tapert disappear earlier today?" asked Xena.
"One and the same."
"Why would they do such a thing?" the raven-haired beauty demanded.
"I honestly don't know."
"So..." Gabrielle broke in. "You're implying that this isn't reality?"
Colleen giggled. "It's total fiction."
"And we aren't real?" Gabrielle stated.
"Nope."
"Not even when we aren't part of this so-called story?"
"Not even then," Colleen confessed.
"We're just fictional characters from a...television show?"
"Yes."
"That's the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard!" Gabrielle yelled louder than she intended.
"Aw... Colleen's full of b.s., Miss Queen o'the Amazons!" offered Soozin from the mob, which had now gathered around the fire in order to watch the much venerated frying of the fish. "In one ear and out the other, if ya know what I mean."
"Can you hear this, Soo?" Colleen pointed her middle finger toward the ground. "No? Well, let me turn it up for you!" She flipped the truck driver the bird.
"Yah, that's original!" Soo dismissed the steaming student with a wave of her hand.
"Gods, she is so annoying!" Colleen said to no one in particular.
"You see..." Gabrielle said triumphantly. "This proves that we're not just characters in a story. I mean, what kind of bard would take the time to focus on a silly spat between two side characters? Especially when the plot was just beginning to thicken?"
Colleen shrugged. "I never said they were good writers. Besides, what makes you think we're the side characters?"
"Oh please!" the bard chortled. "The most boring day of our lives is one hundred times more interesting than anything the lot of you has done in the time we've been here."
The stunned co-ed looked to the warrior. "Is she always this sassy?"
Xena began to answer but noticed the bard's cocked eyebrow. It's safer to keep your mouth shut, Xena, she silently instructed herself.
"There is no way a bard could pull off such a convoluted and confusing
story! It's just ridiculous!" The Amazon was on a roll. "This has definitely got to be the work of Ares! Only he would think up something this stupid!"
"I really don't think Ares has..." Colleen was cut off mid-sentence.
"I mean, only an idiot would tell their characters that they were just pawns in a story. That's literally begging for a revolt!"
"Only if the characters were written to revolt, Gabrielle," Xena said innocently.
The bard was boiling now. "So you believe what she's saying, Xena? You believe that we are fictional characters? That we don't have free will?"
"Hey, you were the one that suggested we were being manipulated by an enchanted scroll," the warrior pointed out.
"But this is so much more than that!" The bard made a gesture toward Colleen. "She's saying that we don't exist on any plane of reality!"
"Well, we do tend to find ourselves in the most outrageous situations..." Xena said matter-of-factly. "How many times have we died and come back now?"
"Xena! Listen to yourself! We are real! Flesh and blood, living, breathing human beings!" The veins on Gabrielle's forehead were threatening to burst. "This is a trick and I'm going to get to the bottom of it!"
"Calm down, Gabrielle," her worried partner warned.
"I'm so sorry," added the concerned co-ed. "I never would have told you this if I'd known it would upset you this much."
"Upset me?!" Gabrielle raged. "You tell me that I'm not real, that all of the pain I've endured over these past few years has been a figment of someone else's imagination, and expect me to accept it without question?"
"I just didn't think..." Colleen's voice trailed off in remorse.
"No, you didn't think!"
"Gabrielle," Xena said firmly. "You're going to cause yourself to have a
stroke."
"That would require me to be real, Xena," the bard replied, regaining a bit of composure.
"You are real, love," the warrior assured her. "You're real to me and that's all that matters."
"Xena..." Gabrielle relented.
"It's all right." The stoic brunette pulled the shaken blonde to her.
Gabrielle relaxed as soon as she felt the warrior's heart beating almost as fast as hers. Colleen crawled quickly but quietly away from the two soulmates.
"We'll get through this," Xena assured her. "We always do."
"Yeah," the bard murmured quietly.
