Xena smiled slightly, returning to her
sword. “I’ll just take you’re word for
it.”

Gabrielle grinned somewhat sheepishly as
she unrolled the scroll once more and laid it across her lap.
“Sorry I get a little carried away
sometimes.”

Xena shook her head slightly.
“Hmm.”

The night is cool but pleasant and
the stars are clearly visible in the inky black of the night sky.
I’m sitting next to the fire listening to the sounds of
nature and a sword being sharpened nearby, writing in this, my
journal. I’ve decided to keep one apart from my scrolls. This
way I can add my feelings and observations apart from whatever
adventures we might end up running into.

Adventures. Just the thought of that
word sends a thrill down my back. After all the time that I dreamed
of leaving Potedia, I’ve finally done it. I’m not
really running away, I mean technically I am but it’s only
because I just don’t fit in there. Someday, after I’ve
seen the world, maybe I’ll go back. For now though I’m
traveling with Xena the Warrior Princess.

That sounds strange even in my own
thoughts. That a simple farm girl like me could possibly be
traveling with someone like her. She’s a legend; granted this
legend is not really the good kind. Despite what she might think, I
have heard stories. But I can’t possibly believe that the
person in those stories is the same one sitting at the campfire
sharpening her sword.

Those stories seem so blood-thirsty,
so dark and violent. And while she might get violent when
it’s called for, I just can’t see the warlord that
everyone speaks of. All I can see is the woman who saved me and the
other women from being sold as slaves.

That’s right, she saved me.
She came out of nowhere and beat the snot out of Draco’s men
unarmed and in a simple shift. She told me later that she had come
there to bury her armor, her weapons and hopefully her past. I
wonder if there was something more to that; as if maybe she’d
come to bury herself as well. I may never know.

If I asked now, I know she
won’t tell me the truth. No matter what she tells me, I know
she doesn’t completely trust me. Not that I blame her;
trusting the wrong person in her line of work is probably more than
a little dangerous. And she’s not exactly the trusting kind
in the first place. In fact she’s not really the talkative
kind either. I’m lucky if she strings together more than
three two-syllable words in a day. Getting information out of her
is like trying to pull the fangs off a bacchae; very difficult and
sometimes dangerous.