ancientbschamp | Recent Entries

"What is this thing? Is this thing on? If Xena's invented it she hasn't told me about it yet, and isn't that just convenient. Huh! Hi! This is Gabrielle. If good old ink and parchment isn't good enough for you, go ahead and leave me a message and I'll get back to you.

When I figure out how to get messages off of here . . ."

***

In creating this journal, the author has assumed the identity of a fictional person for use in the role-playing game fandomhigh, for the sole purpose of entertainment, without intending to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud either the person who created the fictional person, or any reader of this content. The author does not purport to be the creator of the fictional person, or to be affiliated with the creator, or with any person or entity with an interest in the fictional person. The author does not claim to be the person who is being used as the graphical representation of that fictional person, nor intend to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud that person by use of their image.

"I still can't believe you put the pinch on me," Gabrielle complained playfully as she and Xena wound through the marketplace.

"Oh, come on, Gabrielle, what was I supposed to do, huh?" Xena stopped to peer at a piece of tanned hide before deciding it wasn't up to par for armor repair. "I had to immobilize you long enough for Eli to get that demon out of you."

Gabrielle wrinkled her nose, trailing her fingers along a length of silk in a merchant's stall. "I still feel awful about frightening all those people like that." Why was it always demons with her? Dahak had been bad enough, but getting possessed by a demon who'd pretended to be a benevolent deity long enough to use her to manipulate an entire town seemed worse.

"That was not you," Xena insisted. "You can't be held responsible for what Tataka used your body to do."

"I guess . . ." Gabrielle didn't really want to talk about it; whether or not Xena was right, and she knew intellectually that Xena was on this point, those people had believed she was some kind of god. They'd worshipped her; she'd had men pledging their swords and lives to her service, which meant that some of them had died because of her. Really, she could have been glad they weren't talking about Xena's vision any more, but this wasn't exactly more cheerful.

She changed the subject. "Do you think Eli's going to handle this all right? Being a divine being?" There was a certain irony in their new friend, a charlatan of a street magician, turning out to be what Tataka made everyone believe Gabrielle was, and he hadn't taken it very well; he'd tried to run away, actually, and only come back in time to exorcise the demon from Gabrielle out of guilt. Still, she liked to think that meant there was hope for him going on to do great things.

"Mmm," was Xena's noncommittal reply. ( ”Guess )

[OOC: Adapted and slightly tweaked from X:WP 4x15, “Between the Lines,” NFI/NFB/OOC-okay. Ugh, sorry for the tl;dr but this episode turned out to be annoyingly difficult to recap. But it’s pretty. Because we all know platonic BFFs habitually paint henna tattoos all over each other’s bodies in settings like this.]

Current Music: Indigo Girls - Galileo

All right, so the entire incident with the town where dancing was forbidden had been an amusing enough diversion, but in retrospect, the weekend when Pinkie Pie had been a cult leader and Gabrielle had bought into her message? That should have been a clue.

( Instead, what it turned out to be was an early indicator of what would end up a bit of a trend for Gabrielle’s winter break. )

[OOC: NFI/NFB/OOC-okay, yadda yadda. Mashed together from X:WP episodes "A Tale of Two Muses," "Crusader," "Past Imperfect," "Daughter of Pomira," and "Paradise Found." This season is special. But wow, is it pretty.]

In general Gabrielle didn't assume trips home were going to be uninteresting. Getting out of her portal just in time to get a hug from Xena, the kind of clingy bearhug you never wanted to tell a Warrior Princess (out loud) that she was giving you, was a good hint that this trip wasn't going to be an exception to the rule.

Naturally she had to ask for an explanation, and got a disjointed tale about how Xena had ended up traveling north to a place that later research in Fandom would tell Gabrielle was Siberia, and running into a tribe of Amazons up there. They didn't like her much. Apparently she had some bad history with them. That was not at all a surprise. There'd been some kind of confrontation with a gravel-voiced, raccoon-eyed (who knew there was mascara in ancient Siberia?) shaman, Alti, that ended with Xena getting a vision of her own death by crucifixion.

Why that warranted a massive bear hug for Gabrielle, well . . . she didn't know the answer to that yet. She wouldn't complain about the hug, though. She'd needed it.

The first thing Gabrielle did once they'd started on the road was grill Xena about absolutely everything and everyone they knew until she was satisfied that their world was back the way it should be. The second thing was to ask that they make their way toward her Amazon tribe and check in on things there.

( That plan, as their plans so often did, went awry as soon as they spotted massive army encampments near a small village . . . )

[OOC: NFI/NFB/OOC-okay, warnings for carnage and NPC death, blah blah. Some dialogue adapted from X:WP 4x05, "A Good Day." Yeah, I'm skipping a bunch of stuff from S3 and heading right into an accelerated S4, mostly because I really don't want to have to deal with the damn Dahak plotline any more than I already did because it's ew. Also, seriously, writers, "Temecula?" Really? Anyway. HUZZAH CANON CATCHUP FINALLY.]

With a few minutes left before Gabrielle's portal was supposed to arrive, Xena wasn't wasting any time addressing the important things: namely, checking her over extensively ~~not dirty oh who are we fooling really~~ for any lingering signs of injury.

"I'm fine, Xena," Gabrielle told her indulgently after check number she'd-lost-count. "And you still owe me a new pair of boots."

. . . things had gotten very interesting very quickly after they'd run into that man (what was his name? Pheidippides?) stopping for water. Gabrielle only hoped he'd listened to Xena's advice and paced himself; 26 miles was a long way to run. Whatever had happened to him, she wasn't sure; they'd been too busy dealing with a wounded Spartan who'd turned out to be a Persian spy who'd shot Gabrielle in the back with a poisoned arrow.

"I nearly lost you back there, Gabrielle," Xena reminded her, as if Gabrielle hadn't been perfectly aware of that what with the being poisoned and babbling deliriously.

"My ankle's healing up just fine. It won't be too much of a problem in Fandom." Gabrielle reached out and squeezed her hands in reassurance. "Besides, you know I couldn't die on you just yet. I haven't finished telling Katniss's story yet."

Xena pulled her into a hug, careful to avoid the wounded shoulder. "And you will," she said in that typical understated Warrior Princess way, just in time for the portal to appear. "Keep an eye out on the mail for those boots."

Gabrielle laughed -- it was easier to do that now, after she'd unloaded everything onto Xena these last few days -- and pulled away, stepping into the portal. "Don't worry. I will."

[OOC: NFI/NFB for extreme distance. I really couldn't bring myself to recap the world's schmoopiest hurt/comfort fanservice fic-turned-episode in any more detail than this.]

What had started as just a simple trip to the Centaur settlement to oversee a new treaty with the Amazons had gone horribly, wrenchingly awry, and in the end Gabrielle had no one to blame but herself.

( Cut for episode recap. See OOC note for details, but this one is NOT AT ALL PRETTY. )

The trip from the causeway back to the dorms seemed to take forever; Gabrielle stood in the doorway and stared at her side of the room for a very long time, then dropped her satchel and collapsed onto her bed in a little, worn out heap. Making it to class this afternoon wasn't remotely on her mind.

[OOC: Door closed, post not so much for interaction unless the roomie wants to ping in. Canon catchup was for season 3's "Maternal Instincts," which is not in any way a light or fluffy episode. I've glossed things over as much as I can behind the cut but there's messed-up stuff back there including several NPC deaths.

ETA: Okay to say Gabrielle and Karla talked, but details of the convo NFB like holy freaking whoa, and will likely also contain some discussion of upsetting/disturbing subject matter.]

So. That had been fun.

Without any sarcasm whatsoever, Christmas in Bon Temps with Karla's friends had been fun; ( it was just what had come afterward that warranted the ironic spin on the phrase. )

It had been a very draining trip. Xena had insisted on taking Lao Ma's book of wisdom -- a collection of proverbs, poems, and advice written down by her, but attributed to her husband Lao Tzu -- with them. Gabrielle, who had a much better sense of the value of these texts thanks to her time in the library, had insisted on taking it back to Fandom for safekeeping. There was just something about the idea of conquering oneself and knowing "the way" that appealed to her . . .

So, cradling the book almost reverently in her arms, Gabrielle trudged across the causeway and back toward the dorms. If her luck held, she'd have gotten back just in time to not miss her classes, and get a few hours of sleep in beforehand.

[OOC: NFI as I am about to crash the hell out and needed to establish this in some incredibly half-assed way despite failing at actually writing this canon catchup for the past two weeks, so OOC okay, I guess. Capsule-summarized, with a tiny bit of quoted dialogue, from the X:WP episodes "The Debt," Parts 1 and 2. Yeah, this basically means that Gabrielle's currently in possession of the original text of the Tao Te Ching. God, this canon. I swear.]

( In which we learn Banshees are kind of like vampires, Gabrielle is sometimes way too stubborn about trying to find the good in people, Xena is sometimes way too stubborn about refusing to believe there might be good in some people, there could've been a Once and Future Warrior Princess if anyone had been paying attention, and everyone in this story is being a complete idiot. )

[OOC: NFI/NFB, OOC okay, I'm done with this one now, I really, really hate this episode. Which would still be "Gabrielle's Hope," with lots of adaptations because it's even stupider the way it happens in canon. This one comes with a warning for very heated discussion of what should be done with a baby who may or may not be evil, so take that as you will.]

( Gabrielle hadn't been able to stop dreaming about killing Meridian ever since they'd fled the ruins of the temple of Dahak. )

***

Sometimes, they tried to act like things hadn't changed. They'd try to banter at each other as they headed down the road, making weak jokes about ships and the inevitable seasickness that would come since their only way of getting back to Greece (Gabrielle couldn't have called Portalocity even if she'd gotten a phone signal, since her battery was dead) was via ship.

( That got derailed, anyway, once the Banshees showed up. )

***

The Phoenician trader had driven a hard bargain, but in the end he and Xena settled on a price for the trip, and then it was time to head for the local tavern for a meal. ( As if once in the day wasn't enough for this sort of thing, everything went awry then too. )

[OOC: Still NFI/NFB/OOC okay, yep. Adapted from X:WP season 3's "Gabrielle's Hope," with some pretty big changes because hi, I was so not going the Rosemary's Baby route with this. Was just not. Going. There. To be continued, and I will never be able to be done apologizing to history, will I . . .]

Most of the priests had dispersed by now; how long ago that had been, Gabrielle wasn't exactly sure. She'd retreated to a corner of the temple where, mercifully, they'd left her alone, and the time since then had passed in a numb haze punctuated at increasing frequency by the booming of thunder outside. She didn't have to look to be painfully aware of Meridian's body still laid out on the altar; she didn't know where Khrafstar had gone, and she didn't care.

( Then a familiar voice came echoing through the hallways of the temple, calling her name. She'd never been so glad to hear it before in her life. )

[OOC: Again with the NFI/NFB, OOC okay dance, still taken from X:WP's "The Deliverer." Don't blame me for the dialogue, it's straight from canon. My most profound and penitent apologies to history itself for this one, because in the annals of history, Xena-style, I'm pretty sure this means Boudicca met her defeat against the wrong damn Roman all because Gabrielle is too idealistic to live sometimes. To be continued with the next episode tomorrow . . .]

Gabrielle had always known the Romans favored crucifixion as a form of execution: it was slow, it was painful, and it was very, very public. ( She really would have been fine with keeping that knowledge purely academic, rather than experiencing it firsthand. )

***

( Back at the caves (it was always caves, wasn't it?) . . . )

***

The game plan, as Xena and Boadicea had finally settled on it, was to split Caesar's army and attack his strongholds: the first target happened to be the temple of Khrafstar's god, and they took it back easily. Xena was going on with Boadicea and her troops to the next planned battle but Gabrielle chose to stay behind at the temple with Khrafstar and the other devotees of his god, and help them clean the place up after the Romans' occupation.

Under the circumstances -- given Xena's mood and the lingering memories of witnessing six thousand Jhinka deaths at once -- she felt she couldn't be blamed for wanting to hear more about this god. After all, Khrafstar had told her a story of being filled with his god's light at the moment he'd been about to kill the warlord who'd destroyed his home, and letting the man live -- it resonated too much with Gabrielle's idealistic nature, and she wanted to learn more.

( 'Are you sure my being here is okay?' )

[OOC: NFI/NFB, to be continued later tonight, OOC okay, and Gabrielle will gladly accept hugs. Warning for violence. Adapted from Xena: Warrior Princess season 3's "The Deliverer." This episode is evil.]

Gabrielle hated ships. She really did. She was sure the scenery was nice; it was just that she spent most of her time hanging over the deck railing puking her guts out to notice. Xena and her encyclopedic knowledge of pressure points came to the rescue this time -- it was a long trip from Greece -- and their new friend ~~Celeborn~~ Khrafstar was nice enough to make sure Gabrielle stayed away from eating anything disgusting like raw squid in exchange for her teaching him the technique. (The unfortunate thing about the pressure-point solution was that it killed her taste buds.)

Xena had rescued Khrafstar just before Gabrielle's arrival; he'd been taken prisoner by a Roman legion before she stepped in. It'd been when he told her that he was recruiting mercenaries to aid Boadicea's fight against Caesar in Britannia that he'd really gotten her attention. Gabrielle had barely stepped out of her portal when Xena had hauled her and Khrafstar on board this ship.

( In which we learn more about Xena's fraught history with Julius Caesar, her contentious relationship with a certain Celtic warrior queen, and the one god of Khrafstar's religion. )

Gabrielle was about to make a comment about how Xena just couldn't have uncomplicated friendships when one of the mercenaries called Xena over. Caesar had ordered that no ships were allowed to land, and they were to turn around and go back to Gaul. Naturally, Xena said they'd turn around -- and then made landfall anyway, further north.

Where, of course, Roman troops were there to meet them. As were Boadicea's soldiers. Gabrielle was even more happy than usual to assume her role of escorting the non-fighters to safety -- it was just too soon after the horrific battle in Agio for her to wade in with her staff -- and fled into the woods with Khrafstar.

Which would have been just fine . . . if not for the handful of Roman soldiers lying in wait for them there.

[OOC: NFI/NFB for distance, OOC okay, to be continued. My sincerest apologies to anyone who loves history.]

While the prospect of a week at a ski resort seemed to have a lot of her fellow students in some kind of excited tizzy, Gabrielle wasn't feeling so eager about the whole thing. This quite possibly had something to do with the fact that the last time she'd been up on a mountain in the snow, it had been Mount Nestis and she'd been struggling on a badly injured leg to drag a dying Xena up to see the one healer who had a chance of helping her.

. . . however temporary that end result had turned out to be, it wasn't a fun memory.

Besides, she had plans to go home for the break. You'd think seeing Xena the week before would have helped with the entire missing-her-best-friend issue, but in point of fact it'd only exacerbated it.

So, packing for home it was: a couple of scrolls and some chocolate-covered espresso beans in her satchel, and she was all set. There was a definite upside to the light packing that came with their itinerant lifestyle; it meant she had extra time to relax and read before she headed out to catch her late-night portal.

[OOC: Mostly establishy before I kick off season 3 shenanigans, but can be open, sure.]

Put aside all questions about whether this was an appropriate time of year for such things, or why Gabrielle and Xena were camping out in the unexplored wooded area of the island rather than booking a hotel room for Xena for the weekend in the first place. Much less any questions about why a hot tub in the middle of the island seemed like a perfectly normal place for two ancient Greek women to head first thing in the morning.

(Look, finding a hot tub in a tiny rural town made of stick-and-wattle huts had been high on the priority list while trying to brainstorm a way to save that village from being stomped by a giant at the same time as saving the neighboring village from being ransacked by a warlord, okay? It had been important.)

Questions like that had no place here. (Quite possibly, neither did swimsuits. Ahem.)

"Please tell me," Gabrielle said, slipping into the water, "you haven't got half the men on the island following you around in that I'd do anything for the Warrior Princess haze already?"

Not that she knew anything about that haze personally. Or would be jealous at all.

[OOC: For the tall, dark, and deadly one! No, not that one, or that one, or that one. This is pretty much a requirement, per canon.]

("You call that a jump [onto the ~~moving chariot~~ bandwagon]?"
"No, it was a frantic leap. Best I could do.")

I care not for such trivialities as not having any new kids. I love infopost season, and some of you might need this! So have one.

( Sara Stanley: The Story Girl )

( Kennedy, the Potential Slayer )

( Tahiri Veila, the Jedi )

( Gabrielle, the Battling Bard of Poteidaia )

( Lacey Burrows, the Canadian coffee-slinger )

( The alumni: Katina Choovanski, Jen Scotts, Conner McKnight, and Sam Anders )

And finally: ( Me! Yes, I really am that much of a dork. )

Gabrielle had guessed that she'd arrive back in Fandom just in time for the start of the new semester; it had been a rough guess at best, time in her world ~~making no sense at all~~ running as oddly as it did compared to Fandom time. So, checking the calendar (yes, she knew how to read those, just go with it) as soon as she got back to her room, she let out a tiny groan when she realized she was back a few days ahead of schedule.

It had been a lot longer for her, naturally: half a year or so, she estimated. She looked it, too: older, a little more tired, her hair a few shades lighter, her bilious green sports bra cut a little smaller -- and in a new style -- and a little tighter if just as hideous a shade of green as before. The edge of a new scar, a jagged-looking gash, was visible on her thigh just below the hem of her skirt; she'd bulked up a little, too, or at least gotten a lot more definite muscle tone -- ( it'd been a strenuous several months home. )

It was a lot of stories to write down. But that first one . . . that would be the hardest one to tell.

[OOC: Just establishy for now! Sorry for the tl;dr but I had canon catchup writer's block all term. *frown*]

The letters from Xena had been increasingly worrisome of late, and Gabrielle had made up her mind days ago. She'd taken a few more days to think the idea through and get everything here squared away, plus the only portal she could book was today. Xena needed her, that was all she knew, and when all was said and done that would always be the foremost deciding factor in anything she did.

Her little travel satchel was packed -- parchment and quills as always, a small stash of chocolate and a few things for Xena (and Hercules and Iolaus if they happened to run into them) -- and all she had to do was grab her staff on the way out of the dorms.

She just . . . wanted to linger for a few minutes longer. It still didn't quite feel right to her, but for however long it would end up being that she was gone she'd miss having an actual bed.

[OOC: Gabrielle's heading home for the rest of the summer, to return in fall after she does some major canon catchup, but if you want to stop in and say goodbye before she goes feel free to assume she gave you a call or let you know somehow. Minor OCD for in the dorms and then on the way out of town is in business, post is open.]

Rescuing an entire village from being captured and nearly burned alive, turning into a short and talkative ball of rage when Sisyphus had escaped from the Underworld and stolen Ares's sword, leaving the God of War mortal, then helping to foil his plan? It had been a very, very long three or four weeks for Gabrielle, and it was probably just because she was tired that she was taking this so well in stride -- "this" being walking along the shore, talking to her best friend . . . who didn't look at all like Xena.

"So Ares is back where he belongs," she said, glancing over at Xena without much of the instinctive twitch she'd gotten used to since she'd been home. ( But you're still in Callisto's body. )

[OOC: Dialogue taken from the end of "Ten Little Warlords," NFI, NFB, OOC okay. I was going to do this as a full canon catchup thing over the course of the week but writer's block pwned me in the face. D:]

While a week in the sun and sand sounded nice, Gabrielle was packing for the Mediterranean, not the Bahamas, and since that meant traveling light, there wasn't much more to pack than her usual small satchel. The last letter she'd gotten from Xena had been even more taciturn than usual, and Gabrielle had managed to read just enough between the admittedly very scant lines to tell that Xena hadn't been sleeping well lately.

She'd been vacillating between going on the spring break trip and going home, but those clues clinched the deal for her. So -- packing for Greece it was, with no idea whether the next week had good things or bad ones in store for her. She didn't know, and she wasn't sure how well she'd handle it if it was the latter, but that was how her life went.

It wouldn't be an adventure otherwise, would it?

[OOC: Door and post are open, whee.]

The note Karla had left for her two days ago was enough of a reason for minor concern, in Gabrielle's opinion; her roommate wasn't in as regular a habit of going off somewhere on short notice as she was. She trusted Karla to handle herself, though, so the concern took second place to detached curiosity. At any rate, it was something else to focus on. As was trying to write up the entire confusing, insane mess that had been her weekend. Bad enough Xena had one exact lookalike who was not only royalty but ladylike and awfully timid; having another one who was crude and bawdy in just about every possible sense made it more bizarre. Put them in the same place, throw Joxer into the mix, and there had just been no way it would end well. ~~Gods help them all when the Hestian virgin priestess doppelganger showed up.~~

At least it was a less painful kind of not-ending-well than her last trip had been. That trip . . . well, she was dealing. It helped, being away from the daily carnage that was life with Xena and not wondering how soon it would be until the next time she reflexively flinched at the sound of a sword being drawn, but for all that, for all that she knew some wonderful people here in Fandom, sometimes she just missed her best friend.

Thinking about Perdicas still hurt, when she let herself do it; the scroll containing that story was finished, tightly rolled up, and tucked away behind a stack of books on her desk. Gabrielle had, however, reached the point where she was starting to realize accepting that proposal really hadn't been her best idea. Maybe if she hadn't wanted so badly to help him that she'd said yes . . .

No, she didn't want to think about that right now, either. Unfortunately for Gabrielle, she was too much of the introspective sort, so the thoughts kept sneaking in as she sat at her desk staring at a half-written scroll, one hand tangled up in her hair as she tapped her quill against her lips. Everything that had happened with Xena, Diana, and Meg made for a really funny story, but it was hard to do that justice when her thoughts kept drifting in a more melancholy direction.

[OOC: If I learned anything this past weekend, it's that I gotta get this girl out more. Door's cracked, post's open, yadda yadda.]