Interlude — The Threshold in the Middle of Limbo

Back at the threshold of the dream, some moments before, Gabrielle had just fallen asleep reclining against Xena, the silence around them broken only by the soft sound of the bard’s breathing, the rustle of the forest vegetation surrounding the clearing, crickets, and the unhurried flow of the river nearby.

Gradually, however, Xena begins to feel Gabrielle’s weight fading beneath her. For a brief instant, her face betrays surprise, confusion, and unguarded fear — expressions that in the next breath shift into something else entirely: pain, and the weight of departure.

She remains still, but the impulse takes hold of her completely, and she reaches out to hold Gabrielle. Her hands pass through the bard’s fading silhouette before she disappears entirely, without a sound.

Xena stays where she is, nearly frozen and tense through another breath. Even the river, the vegetation, seem to have grown quieter.

Her jaw locks. Her gaze narrows, recognizing the weight beginning to gather around her. Her expression shifts — first to focus, then to something darker, like resignation bracing itself.

Xena: “Ares,” she says, and it lands like a whisper.

Just behind her, leaning sideways against one of the trees, Ares materializes from a point of light — arms crossed, legs crossed, his gaze blending that familiar malice with interest, lightly entertained by curiosity. It reflects in his tone, which comes low and unhurried, measuring not just the situation but the space, and the unspoken intentions within it.

Ares: “Well, well, well… Xena. Who would have thought.” A pause. “It’s been a while… a good while.”

Another pause, and he tilts his head, already anticipating her next move as she rises to face him at a distance.

She stops. Arms cross. She holds his gaze — and says nothing.

Ares notices the look, and realizes Xena is assessing him too.

Xena: “How did you find me?”

Ares pushes off the trunk, containing a smile, and begins walking toward her.

Ares: “What you feel, I feel,” he says, citing the terms of the wedding contract.

Xena holds his gaze, one eyebrow lifting with curiosity — not confirming whether she knows exactly what he means, deliberately leaving it open to see how far he’ll take it.

Ares continues.

Ares: “You know, it became rather difficult to ignore the prayers your little girlfriend kept sending in your direction. I simply followed the whispers like a trail through fresh snow…”

He keeps moving closer, and Xena remains still, reading the imposing posture Ares wears like armor.

Xena: “And?” She lets the word drop in a whisper, shifting her weight onto one leg, arms crossing with quiet impatience. Ares catches it and allows himself a small, satisfied smile.

Ares: “And?” He stops, eyebrows lifting with performed irony, and sighs. “I couldn’t resist seeing it with my own eyes…” He resumes walking, gaze sharper, tone deeper.

Ares: “I have to admit — summoning Morpheus as a way to slip free of the bond with forty thousand souls back in Jappa, and escape the domain of… Hachiman?” The name of the Japanese god of war leaves his mouth carrying a trace of dismissal.

He nods, conceding the cleverness. “Impressive strategy. But I find myself wondering,” — he’s a step away from her now, beginning to circle — “what was the price? What did Morpheus ask of you, to allow you into Gabrielle’s dreams?”

Xena, in a lower, more measured tone, says simply: “Nothing. I called in a debt he owed me.”

Ares stops — directly behind her now — caught off guard. His jaw tightens. The veneer of amused disdain cracks, making room for something closer to concern.

“So the stakes have risen…” Ares murmurs. Without noticing, she raises an eyebrow, quietly satisfied at having broken his composure.

“His world, his terms, Ares…” she murmurs, glancing sideways over her shoulder without fully turning.

Ares exhales, hands dropping to rest at his own sides. “And what were the terms he… suggested?”

Xena almost curves the corner of her mouth into a smile, feeling without seeing that his pride won’t let him fully acknowledge Morpheus’s sovereignty — that he is in Morpheus’s realm and, whether he likes it or not, plays by his brother’s rules.

She still doesn’t answer. Instead she turns her head just enough to use that precise sidelong look — measuring, provoking — her voice dropping an octave, barely above a whisper.

“Those terms, Ares… you know what I’m referring to,” she offers, as though doing him a favor.

Ares goes quiet.

Then he glances sideways toward the trees, slightly irritated, and murmurs: “The audience is growing, it seems. Isn’t that right, Morpheus?”

From behind two trees, a shadow appears, brightening — shifting through shades of violet and deep blue until Morpheus materializes, arms folded, an ancient and drowsy smile settling across his face.

Morpheus: “Correction — arbitrator,” he says, raising one finger to emphasize the distinction with quiet amusement.

Ares exhales through his nose and looks at Xena’s back, impatient.

Before he can speak, Morpheus steps forward and looks at them both. Xena turns her gaze to him and gives a single nod of acknowledgment, then gives him the floor.

Morpheus: “The terms are as follows…” He sighs, weighing Ares, then Xena, then tilts his head one degree upward. “A duel, within Gabrielle’s dreamscape passage. If Xena wins, she may remain in Gabrielle’s dream world.”

He pauses — already anticipating Ares’s impatience — and preempts it.

Morpheus: “You, Ares, choose the manner in which she will remain. But Xena decides what will follow — if the conditions are met. By her. By Gabrielle.”

Xena draws her shoulders back. Breathes. Nods once, and turns her gaze to Ares, waiting.

Ares considers — seeing in this, at once, a test and an entertainment — and narrows his eyes slowly before nodding.

Ares: “Fine. Her soul may remain fragmented into separate entities — each one a single emotion or feeling she always kept hidden, living through its own memories within the dreamscape passage.”

Then Xena speaks the condition.

Xena: “If Gabrielle manages to unite all my parts, Ares brings me back to life — as he once offered to restore Achilles, and Agamemnon.”

Ares nearly goes still, his expression tightening. He tilts his head, clearly caught off guard by the precision of it. But it is Morpheus who speaks next.

Morpheus: “And to keep it fair — you, Xena, will not remember these terms. Not the conditions, not the objective. Gabrielle must discover them on her own. And should you, by some chance, recall this conversation — should you reveal it — the pact is broken. I deliver you to Ares. And Gabrielle will accompany you.”

Xena holds Morpheus’s gaze without blinking, fully present — but the weight of the terms settles visibly across her shoulders. Her eyes close. She releases a slow breath, absorbing what she is agreeing to, what she is giving up, the road this opens with no turning back. Then she lifts her face, still and resolved, and nods.

“We have a deal,” she says, her voice firm but hushed. She turns to face Ares — without a word, but holding his gaze.

Ares: “Deal…” Morpheus nods in approval.

As he does, the world around them transforms — the calm, vivid clearing giving way to another: surrounded by bare, branchless trees, the ground packed earth beneath them. On one side, Argo waits, saddled. On the other, a dark horse, powerful and still, waiting for Ares.

They look at each other. Morpheus stands at the center of the clearing, raises both arms, and declares in full voice:

Morpheus: “Let the duel begin!”

Ares turns a look of concentrated fury on him — then launches into a backward flip, landing seated directly in his saddle.

Xena does the same onto Argo. One at each end of the clearing, they draw their swords, each waiting to read who will move first.

In the background, a sound begins — footsteps, dozens of them, approaching in march. An army crosses from the western edge of the clearing to the eastern, the uniforms and banners unmistakable — bearing Xena’s crest — and at the front of the column, a figure leads: the warlord version of herself, in the golden armor she wore before she ever met Hercules, moving toward a nearby village.

Ares tilts his head, a surprised smile crossing his face as he watches. “That was the night you caught my attention… who would have thought…” He exhales with a low laugh, something almost nostalgic crossing his expression.

Xena watches the column in silence. She says nothing — which itself catches Ares’s attention, because this is usually exactly the moment she would land something sharp before a fight.

Then he sees it: she is looking at the vision and at him simultaneously. Reading both.

They wait for the column to pass. The moment it disappears into the trees, Xena shifts her sword to her other hand, takes the chakram, and throws it.

From the forest, the sounds of battle erupt — war cries, boots shaking the earth in the charge toward the village, the first clashing of swords beginning to echo.

The chakram cuts through the air toward Ares, who raises his sword and deflects it with the flat of the blade. The weapon ricochets southward, disappearing above the treeline — heading toward a high cliff on the horizon.

In that instant, Xena turns her sword in her hand with a dry arc — measuring Ares’s patience, reading whether he will advance first or wait.

Ares shows a flicker of irritation at being read. It unsettles him — not the assessment itself, but the clarity of it. She is not just watching him. She is seeing him.

Xena doesn’t hesitate. She uses exactly that discomfort, and charges — ready for the fight, anticipating blows and defenses that will be sharp, hard, and decisive.

Ares answers her, advancing with a growl through clenched teeth.

And Xena, already unleashing her war cry — loud enough to echo across the clearing and beyond.