But I’m babbling again. Now I
know what everyone might think about this. My following her around
is like some kind of misplaced hero worship. She saved me so I feel
this powerful need to follow her around like some half-crazed
puppy. Well, it’s not like that.

I mean yes, I do feel a bit of hero
worship here; who wouldn’t? She came out of nowhere, beat the
tar out of a bunch of bad guys, made peace with her home village,
including her mother and saved them from Draco. I don’t know
a single person in all of Greece
who wouldn’t be impressed by all
that.

But, the reason I followed her when
she left Potedia goes so much deeper than that. Until she came, I
was a simple farm girl who could tell stories. I was betrothed to a
simple farm boy I didn’t even love and knew that my days of
carefree wandering and making up stories were drawing to a close.
Soon I would have been expected to settle down into the roll of a
housewife and raise a family.

I would find myself faced with days
and nights of monotony as I toiled in my home and in the fields. No
time for myself, no time for my stories and no time for dreaming.
Year in and year out as time passed until one day I’d wake up
and find myself an old woman who had done nothing more than what
was expected of her. There just seemed such a sense of injustice in
that to me.

I have so much more to offer the
world and there’s so much more that I want to see. Traveling
with Xena will give me the chance to do all of it. My parents never
understood and the other villagers just thought I was a strange
girl. But Lila, I think Lila understood. I’m gonna miss her
so much. Maybe I’ll go back to visit her; I think she’d
like that.

I just hope that she doesn’t
get annoyed and send me home. I just want to be useful to her. The
gods know I can’t fight and I know that I probably slow her
down some. I most likely talk too much and little things tend to
excite me. I ask way too many questions and I can be kind of nosy.
I’m not in very good shape, I snore when I sleep and I
don’t know a lot about living life on the road. But I can
cook.