Candid Conversations

by

modernbard

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The day had turned out to be rather mild and pleasant and Xena
had decided that they would head north for awhile. Since they were
in no particular hurry, Xena was walking next to Gabrielle, gently
leading Argo by her reins.

Xena periodically glanced at her traveling companion out of the
corner of her eye, not trying to be intrusive. But she was
concerned by the young woman’s silence. Gabrielle had been
strangely quiet all morning, hardly saying more than a couple of
sentences. In fact, if she really thought about it, she
wasn’t sure that the girl had said more than three words
since she woke up.

And while they hadn’t been traveling together all that
long, Xena had never seen her so quiet. At first, it had been
annoying, having someone who rarely ever stopped talking traveling
with her. During those first few hectic weeks, Xena wondered how
Gabrielle stayed conscious when she never seemed to stop to breath.
And she still wondered at how she’d been able to resist the
urge to drag the young girl back home.

But something had begun to change for her in the last several
weeks; something she had never thought possible. Somewhere along
the line, not only had she’d gotten used to the girl’s
nearly constant chatter, but she’d started looking forward to
it.

Xena had become Gabrielle’s sounding board for all the
theories and ideas scrambling around inside her inquisitive young
mind. And there were a multitude of strange ideas and thoughts
inside her head. Strange but still interesting.

But today, all she was getting was silence and it was really
starting to bug her. So she walked along racking her brains for
ways to start a conversation.

She wondered if Gabrielle was still upset about what had
happened a few days before when she’d been wounded saving
Darius and his family. They hadn’t really talked about it
much and she hadn’t bothered to offer an explanation either.
She’d just grunted in her gruff way and, at least in her
mind, that’d been the end of it.

But maybe it wasn’t enough for her young friend. So now
she wondered if she should bring it up so they could talk about
it.

She mentally cringed at the thought. She’d never been one
for words when actions seemed so much more eloquent and easily
understood. She’d rather walk barefoot through a briar patch
than talk about a problem she could just as easily solve by maiming
someone.