How long the storm continued to rage, and how long it was before the small flood abated, Xena had no way of knowing. But it was dawn of the next morning before she climbed back down to the ground. It was like a different world. The grass and weeds were covered with gray-red mud. It was so thick with each step she sunk up to her ankles.

Xena turned in a complete circle – which way to go?  She looked deeper into the woods, but there was nothing there for her. She opened her cramped right hand. She was still holding onto the pendant, her only memento of her dead Soulmate. How she managed to climb the tree with only her left hand, she didn’t know.

Xena took a ragged breath and started in the direction of the village that was no more.  Eventually, the mud thinned out until she left only boot prints in it. And then her horse trotted up to her. The saddle was gone but she still was wearing her bridle. Xena put her arms around the horse’s neck and leaned her head against her, grateful for the comfort and consolation.

“Come on, Girl,” she eventually said. “Let’s see what’s left of the cabin. And after that – I don't know. Take the news to Lila and Sarah about Gabrielle, I guess.”

Xena leapt onto the horse’s back and they galloped off to the cabin that had been their home for so many months. There wasn’t much to see when she got to the cabin. The storm had filled it with mud and what few possessions they had were either gone or ruined. Xena found one remaining water skin and remounted for the ride to Poteidaia.

She momentarily thought about checking the town she had been “borrowing” water from, but she realized there was no reason to. Besides, she thought to herself, as it was, she would have to go out of her way to go to the Amazon camp to tell them that Queen Gabrielle had been killed defending the lives of the old, the weak, and the helpless.

Next, she would go to Poteidaia to deliver the bad news. And then she would sit down and read the scrolls Lila was keeping for Gabrielle. She would read them every one, just as Gabrielle had always told her she should.

She knew she would like them, and she knew she would cherish them.

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