Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Rewrite

The Rewrite

© 8/2004 M.R.H. Guerriere aka Absinthe Angel 777 - disclaimer below



It was a dark and stormy night. Fate was fortunate to two adventurers named Xena and Gabrielle in that an unusual bout of summer rain had contained most of the locals and spoiled the plans of bandits for miles around.

Xena, a physically exhausted ex-warlord in process of reforming herself had decided to protect her ferocious army of two by taking shelter in an abandoned farm site a number of acres off the beaten path.

As if invisibly stalking one’s prey by walking in their footprints, following the fresh trail of recently pillaged and abandoned areas had produced comfortable sleeping arrangements, potable water and some rather delectable steak dinners.

The warrior is fast asleep, naked in the eaves of a large, empty workshop completely content in the knowledge that neither jackass nor brigand travels well in the mud. For as long as the rain keeps up, her enemies are as chained to their shelters as she is.

Next to the warrior, looking out through a tiny crack in the wall at the torrential rain is Gabrielle, an amateur bard. Her two major tasks over the past year and a half have been to cook for her leader and document her heroic exploits.

Preparing simple and satisfying cuisine for the both of them has never been a problem. However, putting Xena’s bizarre and often inexplicable adventures into believable epic form has been another task entirely.

This night the silver tongued bard has hit a massive roadblock in her literary commission. The project presented was relaying a tale that Gabrielle had not witnessed herself.

A number of years ago when Xena was a naïve and cocksure youth, she had battled an evil Queen who was uniquely proficient in the Arts of Death. The Queen had used all her wiles on the young, impressionable war captain and nearly did Xena in.

The retrospective warlord had been incredibly helpful over the course of the past 2 weeks by offering the word hungry bard every explosive, grotesque, fantastical and intimate particular. Even Gabrielle’s inner muse often found herself running to vomit or blushing bright while taking notes.

Gabrielle’s awful conclusion this quiet night was that the problem lie not in the narrative, for there certainly was no lack of twists and turns, but in Gabrielle herself. She was highly agitated and distracted causing her imagination to drift far away from the prescribed story and towards plot lines which had no logical rationale.

Naturally Gabrielle blamed this predicament on the mocking and tempestuous whims of greedy Calliope to add even more drama than already existed by inserting a third, jealous and attractive, young love interest who looked remarkably like the author.

Perspiration poured down Gabrielle’s face. Though she had successfully kept her eyes from Xena’s nighttime nudity it was clear the commander was on to something quite practical. The writer’s open-weave shift needed to come off. She tore at her clothing and allowed cooler air to embrace and soothe her over-heated skin.

The rustling of material had not awoken the warrior who remained flat on her back like a cat who had just eaten the largest mouse in the known world. Xena had learned to sleep through the incessant scritching, scratching noises of the bard’s feather quill and this was not nearly as disturbing.

The small, blonde weaver of wonder heaved a sigh halved of relief and impending doom.

Insomnia lingered and the ink merely laughed at her.

The real sin of this past month was that she had fallen in love with her main character and could no longer objectively write about her.

Damn her muse!

Every sensuous curve, every lingering look, every terrifying creak of well-worn leather had been captured in tempting detail as to make the bard shake to read her own words.

There would be no escaping Xena’s inevitable inquiry. The truth was that the warrior was like a small child when it came to bedtime stories. This was a solemn and vulnerable secret they both shared. The dark-haired swordswoman never tired of fairy tales, particularly those which exulted her own death-defying feats. Eventually, the captain of this enterprise would demand to hear the story.

Resigning to her self-imposed deadline, a cooler, unclad Gabrielle lay down next to her outlaw companion and began to reread the tales to herself in a whisper. Xena maintained a peaceful snore through the quiet and predictable bardic introductions.

The drama intensifies and Gabrielle’s words seem to halt and stutter as she stumbles through the scene where the evil Queen seduces Xena into her chamber and pulls Xena’s face to her voluptuous and ample breasts.

Feeling a strange and delicious heat near her face and hearing one of her favorite words repeated over and over again, Xena opens her eyes slowly to discover her petite companion’s soft breasts expanding and contracting with every heart-pounding phrase.

Gabrielle continues with her verbal experiments and a half-conscious Xena becomes swept away with the spirit of the story. The warrior closes her eyes again to the harmony of the exquisite prose and in a half dream begins to nuzzle and suck one of Gabrielle’s unguarded nipples.

"Um, Xena. What, what are you doing?" Gabrielle looked down at her protector in confused but aroused horror.

"Evil Queen. Trying to help you make it real." the pawing warrior mumbled under the light, woven blanket.

"Oh! That’s very authentic, Xena." Gabrielle panted.

"That’s what I’d do. More?"

"Wonderful counter attack!" Gabrielle’s face turned as pink as petals of a new rose while Xena’s lips continued to toy with her the tip of her nipple. Xena’s penetrating eyes remained closed as she smiled a wicked, sleepy grin.

"Xena! I think, I think I can totally picture the scene now! Thank you! Thank you very much! I believe I can handle it from here! You’re very, very helpful!

Xena stops suckling and smiles falling back into a deep sleep, next to Gabrielle’s heartbeat.

Gabrielle’s face is entirely flushed. Indeed she found herself enjoying Xena’s rendition of her story way too much. Wiping the nervous droplets from her face, the young bard leans back on the soft bedding to regroup her thoughts.

Amazingly, the fleeting seconds of role play worked. Gabrielle’s inner voice chuckled and reminded her that there is some trouble with the other tales. Perhaps Xena’s thespian skills can add some nuance.

"Xena, I was talking to a very experienced bard in the last town we were in and he told me that as writer, I can’t be married to anything I write. Particularly a live, stand-up bard like myself because as I tell the story I’ll see what the crowd wants and I should edit and rewrite until the story is just perfect. I should strive for the audience to be begging for more or get the reader so captivated they can’t put the scroll down."

"Makes sense." Xena mumbled, well acquainted with her comrade in arms endless night time chatter. The warrior had developed a talent for answering semi-coherently in her sleep.

"So, in your evil past, you must have had sex with many women."

"A thousand…" Xena yawned.

" A thousand?" Gabrielle’s eyes shot open and she swallowed hard.

"2 or 3 girls a night. Depends. Battle lust and all. Many, many battles. I was a bad girl. Really, really nasty. Deranged. Obsessed." Xena was hiding another mischievous oncoming smile.

"Exactly my point. Those women weren’t all evil queens now were they?"

"No. Nothing special. Just average girls."

"Ordinary….farm girls."

"Maybe bar maids."

"From villages."

"Yeah…"

"Fishing and farming villages?"

"Could be." Xena curled in closer.

"Like Potidaia."

"Very much like Potidaia, Gabrielle."

"Well I was re-reading the story of Gabrielle of Potidaia and…."

"And?" Xena groaned softly.

"It’s really quite boring, Xena."

"No. It’s charming and sweet. And you’re not average, Gabrielle.

"Charming and sweet? Charming and sweet isn’t going to get me any dinars with a hard drinking audience. Xena, the story is just too weird. It’s not logical! Nobody’s going to believe it! Listen to the plot line."

"Evil warlord Xena meets Hercules and is redeemed practically overnight. Goes to a town called Potidaia and attempts to save the women from slavery. This town is much like all the other towns she’s pillaged.

She saves the women from slavery and a nubile, innocent farm girl named Gabrielle, much like the hundreds of other women that the evil warlord Xena has captured and ravaged, in a very unpredictable turn of events, throws herself at the former evil warlord’s feet begging to go with the her, and the two of them travel for nearly two years without so much as…"

"capturing…ravaging…mmmm …good times." Xena grinned and nuzzled herself sleepily into the scent of Gabrielle’s skin.

"You’re not listening to me."

I’m here. I’m right here." pushing her nose more into the heat and incense of her traveling companion’s body. "You smell good."

"So, I think that I need to rewrite Gabrielle’s story a bit. Perhaps Xena might ultimately come to the side of peace. But in the meantime, I need more pathos! More drama!

Here’s Xena, so close to her personal redemption, all those nights alone with a beautiful, blonde, young farm girl after the tension of so many fights with so many robbers and warlords. you would think……"

"That Warlord Xena would slip? Mmmhmm. Logical." a snuggling and contented Xena confirmed.

"What I’m trying to say Xena, is you were so helpful with the evil queen scenario that perhaps you could help me with the technicalities of this other scene"

"For the sake of the story."

"Right."

"I’m sleepy but I’ll try my best."

Gabrielle pulled a wine skin out of a bag. Xena cocked an eyebrow. "Hmm. Where did you get that?"

"In the rewritten story you’re drunk and I was trying to get myself drunk in order to be you. I wanted to get inside your head, but I couldn’t do it."

Xena sits up a bit, takes the wineskin out of Gabrielle’s hands, aims a seductive stream of mead and drains the half the contents into her own mouth.

"Ahhhhhhhhh. Good kick to it. All right! I’m ready to work for the story even though we don’t know if the story will work! Where do we begin?" Xena lays back down again in her original position awaiting Gabrielle’s alternative plot line.

"Xena Formerly Evil Sort of Reformed Warlord comes into Potidaia, has a fight with the other warlord and sets the girls free from being slaves BUT instead of Gabrielle throwing herself at Xena, Xena demands her price, which is one girl.

It just so happens it was a girl named Gabrielle who coincidentally wanted to leave as she was supposed to be married to this guy named Perdicus."

"Who she wound up marrying anyway." Xena smirked.

"Anyway!" Gabrielle gave a grumbling side glance and forced the subject. "Moving right along! "

"Xena Formerly Evil Sort of Reformed Warlord takes the girl Gabrielle as a tribute. She allows Gabrielle to become her squire and protégé. The great warlord Xena is rationalizing in her head what she should do morally with her companion. She fights with herself constantly but to no avail.

Alas, Xena’s ethics are profoundly twisted. She can only avert her passions for so long. After a while She must take this innocent young girl."

" You don’t need me for this scene. Just think of a time Perdicus took you hard."

Gabrielle was silent for a moment, then cleared her throat and repeated with extended clarification.

"Xena fights with herself constantly. One night after nearly a year and a half of major adventures involving a temporary separation from Gabrielle and a tragic reunion which bonds them together much more than before,

Xena gets irresponsibly drunk and finally justifies ravaging and deflowering this totally loyal, unsuspecting, pure, inexperienced, absolutely innocent, beautiful, young girl."

"Gabrielle, just use your imag…"

A long silence overcame Xena as she laid with her eyes closed in the darkness.

"Gabrielle…"

"Yes Xena? " the bard answered meekly in the night, biting her lip and hugging herself.

"Gabrielle you..."

"Xena?"

"Gabrielle."

"He snuck up on me and I’m sure he was teasing but…"

"But?"

"...the kitchen knife was there and"

"And?…"

"He only bled a little and we laughed but then he suprised me again. He was teasing me, trying to kiss me. It was very romantic in it’s own childish way. I don’t know Xena, I’m rather alert after being out on the road with you. Really. it was an accident. My reflexes just took over. I couldn’t help it."

"And?"

"There was also the little part about the broomstick. Ha! The broomstick…Well! Silly, foolish, love struck Perdicus! He came into the bedroom when I wasn’t expecting and I hit him square in the head with a normal looking broom!

He was unconscious for about an hour and we laughed. He was extremely dizzy for a very long time afterwards but we laughed and laughed! What a comedy of errors! It was so funny at the time! Here we were newlyweds and then the ummm…."

"I see."

A pit of silence ensued interrupted only by the patter of rain.

"You mentioned deflowering. You are..."

"I really need help with this story Xena. I can’t do it on my own."

Xena squeezed her own forehead. She felt the blood coursing through her veins and wiped her face with her hand. She exhaled very slowly through pursed lips until her head went black.

Taking another mighty swig from the wineskin, the warrior centered herself. Grabbing Gabrielle by the arms, the bard’s naked body was positioned supine in front of where the warrior now knelt. Xena loomed over the young bard with staring, shallow breaths.

"The Prize of Potidaia" Xena rubbed her hands together in slow greed, "My little ransom, the town sacrifice. Well, aren’t you a pretty sight."

"Xena…have you ever acted before? You’re really very convincing." Gabrielle gulped out a weak attempt at humor.

"Let’s see just how pretty you are." Xena grabbed Gabrielle by the bottom, quickly spreading her legs apart, placing her feet up by Xena’s shoulders and exposing her sex.

Gabrielle gasped and closed her eyes.

Leering, Xena the Warlord inspected the aroused pink petals shining with wetness.
"Slick with fear" She snarled running a finger over Gabrielle’s sex tasting the nectar lasciviously. "Just the way I like it."

Gabrielle opened her eyes again and froze as if in the gaze of a flared out cobra. Xena struck and threw her body, pinning Gabrielle down and assaulting her lips in a fiery kiss. Tongues dancing like a serpentine bacchanal, Gabrielle’s body could do nothing but respond by locking her feet around the middle of Xena’s muscular torso and hanging on.

The onslaught of Xena’s passion equaled her strength in war. A battery of sensation began at Gabrielle’s pulsing neck. Like a river run wild the bard looked down to see waves of Xena’s obsidian locks thrashing over the swell of her breasts, the vortex of her belly. Touching Gabrielle’s hips, Xena’s fingertips became an incessant carnal maelstrom claiming and crashing.

Gabrielle shivered and drowned willfully in her own desire allowing Xena to take her deeper.

Xena lingered over Gabrielle’s sex. Long, black tresses whipping and teasing Gabrielle’s thighs. Gabrielle dug her fingers into Xena’s hair and clawed at her neck, pushing Xena’s head downwards towards her aching center.

Xena tasted victory. Driving the tip of her tongue into the heat, she realized the muscles were as tight as Egyptian blocks of stone. Past this door things between them would never be the same. Xena flickered a snakelike warning.

Gabrielle looked up to see two sapphires laughing in the night, then blackness and pressure….intense, excruciatingly slow pressure intensifying inside her….invading her deepest core, a writhing muscle pulsated by the hot breath that was Xena.

"Virgin…." Xena growled.

"Yes." Gabrielle hissed.

"Mine."

"Yours. "

"Totally Mine!" Xena howled in triumph, plunging her tongue in deep and fast as if she were going to devour Gabrielle whole.

Gabrielle shuddered and spasmed. Xena grabbed one of the girl’s flailing hands and put it back into the forest of her black mane. The bard cried out in silent release, tears streaming from her eyes.

As the girl inhaled her breath of transformation, she felt her conqueror’s new demands and submissively allowed Xena total entrance. The warrior seized the girl’s innocence with precision attacks.

Xena’s breath in Gabrielle’s neck, panting, thrusting again and again at her receptive center. So deep Gabrielle fell into the whirlpool of her own mind and swirled into oblivion. Ecstasy and eclipse. Xena rode the storm and drove the ship smashing into the bard’s own siren song.

Together they washed ashore.

The coo of a dove gently opened Gabrielle’s eyes but could not remove the weight of the warrior who lay on top of her. Xena had never been closer but the bard smiled realizing her warlord’s dreams were now oceans away.

Gabrielle kissed her new lover’s face and returned to slumber, pleased to lay deliciously trapped at the hands of a master performer, as her captive audience.

FIN

Copyright & Disclaimer Information

Legal disclaimer: Xena & Gabrielle are the property of Ren Pics and MCA/Universal. The following story serves as a writing exercise and no more. I do not make any profit from it and it is to be used for amatueur fan fiction purposes only.

Notes from the Author: This story may not be reproduced without my express written permission. Thank you, dear reader, in advance for taking the time to consider this piece. I truly appreciate it. Enjoy - MRHG

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