The Familiar Trail
by Silk
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copyright 2004

One never knows what's just down the trail; even if it's a trail you've traveled a hundred times and know every curve, every hill.

I knew this trail very well indeed. In fact, I spent years of my life going up and down it to the creek from the first time my mother took me with her, until a fateful day when I met a woman who I would leave all that was familiar for.

That spot over there where the raiders tried to abduct us...it's all so familiar. But then again, it's been many years since I went with all my friends and my sister to this place just outside Poteidia.

This trail, this length of well traveled earth, I know it so well...and yet, it's totally alien to me.

Everything is changed, different. The flavors of food, the smells on the wind, the feel of world itself around me. All deadened, sad, muted to me.

Why I'm here, I really don't understand it. It's not like there is much here to bring me this way...or rather not much that is as important as it used to be anymore. There is my niece and her family, but that is all. Not much to keep me here in this world. Not much to distract me from the day to day monotony.

I see no joy in the world. The sand of the desert was hot and dull, no beauty in its starkness, no majesty in its peoples monuments and tombs that reached to the sky. The mountains, lakes, swamps & forest where I traveled were all the same to me. My eyes saw through them like they barely existed.

The laughter of children as I passed through the lands didn't affect me. Their smiles didn't flash in the sun as they used to. All flowers faded to the background.

I guess I have given up on life and my mind only lives on in hopes of hearing a familiar voice...the only voice that I care for. I feel as if I am barely clinging to the flesh, a wraith kept to the material by food and drink. A spirit who fights the bandits and helps the weak, only through the faintest of force of will. All is only existence now, not life, with the only happiness in the past...in memories.

And now I've stopped. Here, this spot where I met her. Where I saw nature itself explode in a whirlwind of body and steel to save me and my fellow Poteidians. Here were it all started. I feel a pull here. A connection to this peace of earth, as if this piece of land calls to me, holding me to the world just so I could come here...and remember.

Ohh...

Yes. The tears are falling again. I can feel them, just barely, coursing down my cheeks. Every day this happens. Sometimes I am surprised that I have so much water in me. It's then I turn, just about to ask how so tears can be contained in one body, when I realize I'm alone and no one to ask. Then I feel them falling down my face even harder.

She lied to me.

She wasn't "always with me". At least, not in the way that I assumed. The only way I could have possibly lived with it. Her death. No coming back that time. I have the little pot still with her ashes. I have her chakram and all that has survived of her belongings.

She'd be disappointed in me, I suppose, if she knew how I've lived on.

How long has it been? I lost count really. Days? Weeks? Months? Longer? I try not to think of it.

I have fought the enemies that needed fighting and helped any that I could find. I became obsessed with helping others, with finding a reason to keep going, to keep helping, to keep the message alive. Ignoring all the stares and whispers behind my back, they meant and still mean nothing. I helped them, I cared in my way. I got them through their terrible times and moved on to find other dangers.

But still, I...survived. I know I can't call what I've done living.

Like this tree. I know this tree. As I sit and lean back against it, I know this tree. It's a survivor. So old, it was here before I was born. It grew here before my own family came to the town just down the trail. I remember coming here and playing beneath its wide branches with my sister. Laughing about boys, complaining about chores, and dreaming dreams of words and impossible things, like becoming famous in Athens as a bard or having a warrior find me and rescue me from living and dying in this small town. The same tree where I first saw her.

It's funny how dreams turn out, not at all like you wish them too.

I only have one dream now, the same dream as I've had for the last few nights. I dream of sleeping. Isn't that odd? Endless warm sleep where I feel...alive. I wonder.

It's so quiet here, so peaceful...that word...peaceful. I don't think I've thought of it in a long, long time. Long before my hair turned gray and my joints began to ache.

Long before...

I think...I'm tired. I think...I'll sleep.

I think I'll dream...

I wonder if...she waited?

The End

Notes ~ Oddly enough, this came to me in the middle of the night, after a long days work, when I wasn't even thinking about Xena, just like the first few stories I ever wrote did. For those diehard fans out there, this one is for you, because once in a while, we look back and see the things we've done and lost and wonder if we'll ever get that love...that excitement back again. And in Gabrielle's case, maybe something more. :) I hope you enjoyed it even if it was macabre in a way. I've always had an easier time writing and getting personal enjoyment out of stories like this one and "One Last Moment", "Specter", etc... Death and Love are powerful enough emotions by themself, but mixed...it's a tantalizing mix to write about for me.

To those long time friends, the keepers of the Mansion and Horn, I bid you hello, since I have long lost track of you all and no longer know how to get ahold of anyone. I hope you're all well. Emails about "...And Beyond" or "Chains of Love" will not be replied to. I've figured out that I am far better at short stories than I ever was at longer ones. The pressure some put on me to finish drove me away from writing anything for a very, very long time. Anyways, I had better stop these "notes" before it becomes longer than the vignette itself.