“Don’t count on it.”
“Oh, but I am. Our darkness draws us to one another, Kael. Alone, we’re formidable. Together … together, we’ll be destroyers.”
Fingers of a long, elegant hand flicked, a casting off. “Whatever,” came the dark voice. “Just get out of here. Now.”
“Very well,” Ianna purred, smiling as she crossed the floor. “Until we meet again.” The smirk still on her lips, she opened the door and slipped from the home.
DESERT STORM
Part 11
by: SwordnQuill
SwordnQuil@aol.com
Disclaimers: The characters of Xena, Gabrielle, Lao Ma, Alti, Borias, and everyone else who sounds familiar belong to Pac Ren and Universal Studios. I am not making money off of this story.
Genre Disclaimer: Ok. Bear with me, please, because this is kinda tough to explain. Sometime last year, I read a story on the internet that moved me so much, I was inspired to write a sort of companion piece to it. That story was “Lost Soul Walking” by DJWP. In her words, “This is NOT UberXena fiction. It just starts out like it is.” The same can be said for this piece. While not directly related to “Lost Soul Walking”, “Desert Storm” can be considered a sort of prequel to it. It is a story, if you will, about the lifetime before the one depicted in that fabulous, outstanding story. (Can you tell I loved it?) In addition, this is somewhat of an ambitious piece of fiction, in that I am attempting (don’t know if I’ve succeeded, but I’ve attempted) to take the entire X:WP universe and modernize it. We start, in updated terms, with my version of Xena’s betrayal by Caesar (seen in “Destiny”), and continue up through the X:WP episode known as “Remember Nothing”. The plot will be very recognizable to you. It’s meant to be that way.
Special note: Because of this, Gabrielle does not appear, except in offhand mention, in a great deal of the first half of this story. Do not look for her, because you won’t find her. After all, she was not a part of ‘evil Xena’s’ life. If she were, things might have turned out differently, but because this is based on the premise of “Lost Soul Walking” it cannot happen differently. Gabrielle will, however, make her presence known, and that quite strongly, in the second half of the story. If you can hang on till then, I believe that you will not be disappointed.
Sexuality and Violence Disclaimers: We’re dealing with an updated dark Xena through much of the first half, and an updated redeemed Xena through the second. There’s gonna be violence. There are gonna be naughty words. There are also descriptions of sexual activity in this work. There are allusions to heterosexual sex, but nothing graphic. There are some graphic (though I hope tasteful) scenes of sexual expression between women as well. That is how I see the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, and that is how I will continue to write it.
And, finally, thanks: To, as always, the incomparable Mike. A better beta and a better friend one could never hope for. Thank you also, as always, to Mary D, who rescued this story from the refuse heap and begged me to keep going on it. If you hate it, blame her. <w> Grateful and heartfelt appreciation goes out to DJWP, for continuing to write stories that grab me somewhere above the liver and giving her kind permission to mention her story in these disclaimers. If you haven’t read her stories, please, do yourself a favor and do so. Finally, this story is dedicated to a group of people without whom I would most probably be living on the streets. Elizabeth, Rachel, Sulli, and the rest of the “Get Sue to Atlanta” crew, this one’s for you!
Feedback: As always is gratefully appreciated. If you wrote to me regarding “Redemption” during the month of September to early October and I haven’t responded, please allow me the honor of apologizing in public. It was then that I was at my lowest point and making ready to move to my new home. Your words of praise and encouragement for my writing kept me firmly out of the pit of depression I was falling into and I shall be forever grateful to each and every one of you who took the time out to feed this bard. And for those of you patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for Redemption’s sequel, fear not, for with the conclusion of this piece, that piece will be started. Any and all who wish to may write me at SwordnQuil@aol.com . I’ll continue to do my best to answer each and every email. An exploding mailbox is a good thing to have. Thanks again!
DESERT STORM
by: Sword’n’Quill (Susanne Beck)
21 January 1992 Rodriguez Compound Medellin, Colombia
What the winter holidays lacked gaiety, they more than made up for in brutality. Back from Indonesia, Geraldo walked in on a Kael that seemed but one step away from utter madness. This time, alcohol had become her drug of choice, and empty bottles littered the house. The staff had long since abandoned the crazed woman, too frightened to set foot in the huge house without Geraldo there to act as somewhat of a buffer.
Following the trail of discarded clothes and empty bottles, Geraldo had walked up to the master bedroom, where his senses were almost overwhelmed with the scent of alcohol and stale sweat. Kael sat before the fireplace, guzzling yet another bottle of liquor, rocking back and forth as she did so.
She had been totally unkempt, this shadow of his lover, her hair greasy and matted, her clothes stained and wrinkled, as if she’d slept in them for many nights running.
Dead drunk she might have been, but Geraldo had to perform an almost balletic move to evade the bottle thrown at his head with deadly accuracy. “Leave me the fuck alone,” she had snarled.
Jetlagged from the trip and heart-sore from the vision before him, Geraldo did what he did best, these days. He capitulated. Again.
*******
Kael stood in the middle of her room—and it was her room now, Geraldo having taken up residence in another of the bedrooms after his return from his Indonesia trip—half drunk, yet clean, staring down at an empty liquor bottle sitting somewhere near the middle of the teak cocktail table near the fireplace.
Rubbing her hands together, she took in a deep breath and let it out, then rolled her head around, cracking the vertebrae and relieving some of the stress in her neck. “C’mon, Kael,” she whispered, her breathed words unheard above the crackle and hiss of the fire as it burned, “you can do this. You’re an empty vessel, remember? An empty vessel.”
Clearing her drunken thoughts was a process doomed from the start, but Kael was nothing if not mule-stubborn. She tried to fill her mind with the image of the kiss she and Lao Ma had shared in that long ago time, but Ianna’s face and form seemed to always interfere, despite Kael’s best efforts to erase the dark witch from her thoughts.
She opened her eyes, but the damned bottle refused to budge from its spot on the table.
She tried harder.
And harder.
But it was useless.
Her face screwing up in a predator’s snarl, she lashed out with her foot, sending the glass bottle to shatter against the stone of the fireplace, the shards glittering like misplaced diamonds as they landed on the hearthrug.
“God damned mother-fucking son of a goddamn bitch!” The table was the next to fall, splintered into kindling by a well placed kick.
More bottles flew, smashing against the floor and walls, testifying to Kael’s rage with musical tinkles of shattering glass. “Lao Ma! How could you leave me?!? How could you do this to me?”
The mattress and bedding weren’t spared their own share of their owner’s anger, nor were the works of priceless, and not so priceless, art that adorned the walls of the large room.
Spitting obscenities and saliva in equal measures, Kael became a whirlwind of destruction, using her fists, head and feet to punch plate-sized holes through the room’s drywall. Plaster dust settled over the floor and destroyed furniture in drifts like a cocaine addict’s greatest fantasy come to life in white powder.