© Copyright 1998 by Rebekah

© Copyright 1998 "The Legend of the Lady in the Moon" by F.S.

Xena: Warrior Princess and the names, titles, and backstory used in "No Doubt" are the sole property of Universal. The author intends no copyright infringement through the writing of this fan fiction.

This story may not be sold and may be archived at public sites only with direct permission from the author. Any archive must carry this entire copyright statement.

"Yeah?!" Gabrielle felt a little prickle of real interest. "What is it?"

"It's ..." The warrior paused, deciding that perhaps she needed to back away from this whole thing a little. "Uh ... well, without getting too ... specific ... it has to do with performing a particular act on one's own mother." She cleared her throat, glanced at Gabrielle -- who was blushing freely -- and struggled not to laugh.

"Um, gee ... that might be a little TOO insulting for my tastes ... in any language!" Gabrielle shot a nervous look at the silent, but obviously mirthful, woman lying beside her. "I ... I'm more interested in insults that are more ..." she paused, thinking furiously. "... culturally specific!" she finished triumphantly.

Xena raised her head a little. "Culturally ...?!?!? Gabrielle, where do you GET this stuff?!" she sputtered, smiling inwardly when an almost-forgotten sound ... a soft, sweet giggle ... floated up from the blanket next to hers. "OK, OK ... family is extremely important in Chin ... ancestors, too ... ancestors maybe MORE important than living people, it seems sometimes."

"Yeah? That's really interesting ... explains a lot about things they do here, but ... what does that have to do with ..."

"Don't rush me ... so one of the worse things you can do here is call someone's ancestry into question." Xena paused again. "Come to think of it, that was always one of my favorite insults ..."

"Well, don't stop now ... tell me!"

"OK ... just say Pok Gai Zeih," Xena pronounced carefully.

"Po ... Pogy ..."

"No, listen ... Pok Gai Zeih!"

"Pok ... Pok Gai Zeih!" Gabrielle said joyously, over and over, much to Xena's amusement.

"Just ... just be VERY careful with it," she finally managed to gasp. "It's really a NASTY thing to say to someone here ... terribly offensive."

"Huh! SOUNDS like something you'd like!" Gabrielle said almost jauntily. "Wish I'd known it this morning. I woulda said it to that guy who ...." Suddenly, she stopped short, remembering the moment in the throne room when she was sure she was about to see her beloved friend die horribly. She took a very sharp breath, shivered slightly, went totally silent ... and nearly broke Xena's heart then and there.

"Gabrielle?" the warrior called. "Gabrielle? Are you ... uh ... you know, you learned that pronunciation really fast," she improvised desperately. "I thought you were going to tell me how you learned to speak Chin."

After a small silence, Gabrielle asked solemnly, "Are you trying to distract me, Xena?"

"So?" came the low inquiry.

"Well ... there isn't much to tell, really. I was pretty surprised that you actually left me there to go home on my own ..."

"Gabrielle, I've told you for a long time that I know you can take care of yourself."

"Yeah, well ... a mixed blessing, I've found, all this strength and capability stuff."

"Yeah," the warrior agreed sadly.

Gabrielle shook herself, shifting a little to reach her ankle while she talked. "Well, anyway, I decided I couldn't let you ..." She stopped, suddenly feeling Xena's eyes looking directly at her in the semi-darkness. "Well, you know what I decided," she sighed. "I found a farm family outside of town and gave them all the money I had left to take care of Argo."

"Argo ..." whispered Xena wistfully. "I hope she's OK. I hope she's still ... there."

"I think she will be," Gabrielle whispered back. "I told 'em we'd be back for her. They were really nice people with children and pets and ... and I left something else with them as partial payment." The girl fell silent again, until Xena prodded her a little. "Oh, um ... my scrolls. I left my scrolls."

"Your ... scrolls?!" Xena exclaimed. "You left your ..."

"Yeah, well, hey ... it was Argo," Gabrielle stated, as if that explained everything. "The father speaks Greek and was translating my stories for the family when I left." She paused again. "Oh, I explained everything to Argo, by the way. I told her we'd be back."

"Thanks, Gabrielle."

Gabrielle gulped, suddenly shy. "Well, so you'd said you were taking a ship that would bring you close to Chin, so I knew I had to find one that took me directly there ... had to figure out a way to work for my passage without ... without ... getting into TOO much trouble."

Xena snorted involuntarily, but said nothing.

"Very funny ... everyone's a critic," fumed the young woman. "So, I found this ship. Couldn't talk them into taking me though ... I was getting frantic, until I met this woman from Chin in the marketplace. Her husband was a rich merchant originally from Greece. They had two of the cutest kids ..." Gabrielle's attention drifted off a bit, which started to worry Xena.

"Gabrielle? You left me in the marketplace!"

"Wha-? Oh, sorry! Um, anyway, he had been tutoring his wife and children in Greek, and when he heard me telling stories in the tavern ... for eating money, Xena ... I'd spent all my money on Argo ... well, he asked if I'd like to make a little extra money helping out until they sailed. Well, we talked awhile and I convinced him to pay my passage and take me along as a tutor. The wife taught me some Chin ... let me sit in on lessons with her kids every day. That's about all there is to it." Gabrielle finished hurriedly.

"That was really smart, Gabrielle," Xena said admiringly. "It was safe for you, too. Nobody would mess with the merchant's family or retainers."

"Yeah, it was really smart," Gabrielle repeated gloomily. "It worked pretty well until we landed in Chin and somebody made a nasty advance on the merchant's wife while he was busy with the harbor master and all," she sighed. "So I ... hit the fellow with my staff and we scuffled for a while until the merchant came back with some of his men. I ... um ... the guy had this spear thing and caught me on the leg with it."

"So THAT'S how you got that wound!"

"It wasn't bad, Xena, honest ... I took care of it and all, but it was still healing when ... when ..."

"You jumped into that filthy pit."

"Well, yeah." Gabrielle cleared her throat. "So anyway, this merchant was really grateful I'd helped his wife, so he decided to introduce me to someone in the emperor's household and I ..."

"... talked your way in from there," Xena finished. The two women fell silent as the candle started to sputter.

"Mmm-hmmm," came the soft reply. "I'm still really tired, but I can't seem to drift off."

"Me, either." Gabrielle stopped talking for a while, then said rather suddenly. "I practiced speaking Chin on the ship by learning the stories the merchant's wife told her kids."

"Yeah? That's a really good idea ... nice, simple words ... a good story ... no wonder you learned the pronunciation so quickly!"

"Oh, I'm just full of good ideas," Gabrielle said bitterly, then recovered herself. "I could tell you one fable I really love. There's a full moon tonight ... it's about the full moon. Have you heard it?"

"Something about a woman in the moon, maybe?" Xena ventured vaguely.

"Close enough," Gabrielle replied. "Do you want to hear it?"

"Yes, but only in the original," Xena teased.

"Well, OK," Gabrielle said doubtfully, "but you gotta help me if I get stuck."

"Deal." Xena closed her eyes in anticipation of hearing her beloved little bard's storytelling voice once more ... a sound she thought she might never hear again.

"This is the legend of the Lady in the Moon," Gabrielle said carefully in Chin. 

"The gods above have no time for us now, and if we wait until the world ages enough until they do have time, then there will be nothing left to save except our dust and bones. I am the best archer this village has ever seen, and I wager that I am the best archer in the whole world. It has been my special gift that anytime I aim, the most I miss my quarry is once, then never again. If you will give me some food and supplies, I will go on a journey to find the strongest bow and arrows of the gods, and I myself will shoot down the eight suns."

So his village agreed and sent him off with as much as it could provide. Long was his journey, and great were his trials. He journeyed from the roiling seas of the Dragon King, to the flame-colored clouds of the Phoenix queen, but nowhere could he find a bow and set of arrows strong enough to bring down the eight suns. Finally, there was no where left to look, except at the very edge of the boundary of the world, in a kingdom newly made by the gods.

There he found a beautiful young maiden, playing the ...

"Funny-shaped ... waterfall sound? Oh ... that's called a gu-zoung, Gabrielle."

"Gu-zoung, yeah ... that's it, thanks!"} 

Once they had stolen the bow of the resting god, the archer and the princess immediately journeyed to the highest mountain in all of Chin. This was indeed a hard task, for the bow was heavy, made of yew and inlaid with jade, and its bowstring was of pure gold, as were the ten enchanted arrows in the quiver.

"Maybe the eight suns of Chin were weaker than the Greek sun. It's a STORY, Gabrielle ... how should I know?"

"Oh, all right ... um, where was I?"} 

As the first sun arose that morning, the archer took up his great bow, notched one golden arrow, and carefully took aim. Twang! The mighty bowstring rang as the shaft took flight, but lo! He had missed his first shot. Undaunted, he quickly pulled out a second arrow, and took another try. Again sang the bowstring and a thunderous roar was heard as he struck the first sun, and it sank flaming into the oceans. By then, the other suns had crept too high in the sky for the arrows to reach, so he waited until the next morning to try again. 

 The next morning, as the second sun rose, he took aim again, and he hit his mark true this time on the first try. So went the third sun, on the third day, as did the fourth, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh. Never did he miss his mark for, as he had claimed to his village, he could not miss more than once. On the eighth day, however, as he drew his bow one last time to shoot down the eighth sun, the princess put a hand on his arm, stopping him. 

"Let the eighth one go, to provide warmth and light to the earth. For whilst we cannot survive the combined heat of all eight suns, neither can we survive in eternal darkness. Humans were never meant to live in a world of total light or dark," she counseled him.

"Yeah, that's ... nice. Yeah."} 

But like spring turns to summer, and summer gives way to fall, the serenity was not to last. As the time passed, the king grew prideful and vain of his power. 

"I am the greatest of all in the universe, for who else can claim they have shot down suns?" he would boast. And with each repeating of those words, his heart grew harder, and his rule more iron and absolute. However, his people never dared raise their voice in objection, nor tried to question his authority, for he still had two arrows left, and he never missed more than once. They feared that if they dared to revolt, he would shoot down the last of the suns, and plunge the world into eternal darkness. 

Now, the queen watched the king's decline with a heavy heart. She felt sorrow for her people, for she cared about them deeply, but she could not do anything against her husband, for she loved him just as much. So she watched as each new year brought a new sharpness to her husband's rule, and sorrowed as the praises sung of her husband turned to whispers of hatred behind his back. 

The king himself was uneasy on his throne. He knew that, one day, he would grow too old to handle the kingdom, much less a heavy bow and arrow, and he would lose his power. The fact that he would be beaten by age itself was unbearable to him. So he called together all the wise men in the kingdom and enjoined them, on the price of their lives, to find him a cure for his mortality. He gave them a year in time, and sent them forth to all the corners of the world. Finally, on the last day of the old year, one of the wise men returned with the Yun-Sum (Heart of Life), a substance so rare that only one plant grew every ten thousand years. If this root was heated in an oven for one hundred days and one hundred nights, it would turn into a pill that would halt time in its tracks and grant life forever to the person who swallowed it. The king ordered the root to be set in an oven immediately and posted guards around it so that no one might steal his immortality. 

When the queen heard this, her soul felt like lead. If the king was given immortality, then the suffering of her people would be eternal. She racked her brains for a solution, but none came. The conclave was too well-guarded, and she dared not defy the will of her king. 

"What am I to do now?" she lamented to the full moon as she strolled in the gardens behind the palace on the last night of the firing of the Yun-Sum. 

"What place is mine to disobey my husband, who was a good man, before his pride. I loved him ... and I still do. How can I betray him? But how can I ignore the suffering of my people? Oh, had I not helped him bring down the suns ... then the world would not be a hostage to his whims. But I have not the skill to reweave time, nor do I have the strength to stop my heart from loving him even now ... bitter is the regret that is known too late, and painful is the heart given over to careless hands."

"Huh? Oh, yeah ... I just ... I ... sorry. Where was I?"} 

"What is the difference between eternal darkness and your husband ruling forever?" it asked her softly. "How strong is your love for this man who shoots down suns? Love is mortal, never understood by those who touch eternity. When you die, and your love is in the grave, will he still remember you, as the years roll on? And how will he be remembered? A tyrant, a bully. His name will blacken history forever. If you truly love him with all your mortality, then stop him now, before he destroys all you ever had between you ... before he destroys himself." 

The queen had no reply, but in her heart, she knew the answer. She took out her gu-zoung and went the guards and began to play her sweetest tune. She played until her hands ached, played until her fingers bled from the caress of the string, played until the wind itself died down in sleep. With the moon bright over her shoulder, she stole into the room where the pill was lying on a silk handkerchief, cooling from the oven, and prepared to journey to the highest sea cliff and dash it against the rocks below. 

But O, sent by the fickle Lord of Fortune, who should come in then but the king himself, to check on his prize. Alarmed by the sleeping guards and wary of treachery, he burst into the room. Seeing the queen's act, he was enraged, and rushed at her, hands made into claws, snatching at the pill. She ran out of the room, back into the garden, seeking to escape, but he cornered her at last against the high wall. Seeing no other recourse, the queen hid the pill in the only place that was safe from the king. Tipping back her head, she swallowed the Yun-Sum and fell weeping to her knees. 

How furious was the king then! To have his immortality ripped away from him by the one he thought was the most loyal to him! 

"I did it for you ..." she wept, but he would not listen as he ran to the room where he kept his sacred bow and arrows. For he knew that the enchanted arrows that could bring down a sun would be powerful enough to perhaps bring down his wife's immortality. The queen did not move as he took his first arrow and aimed at her heart. The bowstring sang as he let the first shaft loose. But a surprising thing happened, for even as the arrow sped towards his wife, a bright glow surrounded her and as the arrow hit, it disappeared in a shower of silver glitter. A white rabbit sprang out of the light, and as it touched the queen, she began to float away towards the waiting full moon. 

The king pulled out his second and last arrow and aimed it, pulled back the bowstring as far as it would go, and let it fly again. Many would guess why, and many still do, but somehow, the man who shot down seven suns, who never missed more than once, missed his second shot that night. The queen flew the rest of the way to the moon unharmed, leaving the king to live out the rest of his mortal life. 

And there you can still see her today, when the moon is full, holding the white rabbit. Her journey is a long, lonely one, for denied death, she can only think of the life she once had, the betrayal she perpetrated, and the love that she never will know again. So that is why every full moon we hold a festival and eat moon cakes and rabbit candies, light the paper lanterns, listen to her story, and honor her sacrifice. "That ... that was really well done, Gabrielle," said Xena slowly, after a long silence. "You really got the meaning of the story, as well as the sounds. I ... Gabrielle?"

"We'll never be the same," Gabrielle whispered.

"Two years ago you'd already nearly died trying to keep Morpheus from taking my blood innocence," Gabrielle said slowly, remembering. "Fat lot of good it did you, huh?" she finished bitterly.

"Yes, actually, it did me more good than you could ever know," Xena replied evenly. "It did us BOTH good, Gabrielle, don't you see? It gave you two years to grow and learn ... two years to become stronger, better ... to understand more about yourself and other people." The warrior paused.

"You had no idea how very young you really were, Gabrielle. I ... I don't know what would have happened to you if you'd killed then, even if you'd survived that crazy priest's plans. Now ... it's been ... I know it's been very, very hard on you, but you haven't lost your SELF, Gabrielle. You're still in there ... somewhere ... recovering from your wounds and getting stronger. I know you're going to be all right in the end, Gabrielle. I know it," she finished with quiet conviction. "If I had it to do over, I'd do it exactly the same way," she declared a little more fervently.

"Even knowing what would happen later?"

"Yes," the warrior confirmed. "And Gabrielle?"

Gabrielle found it hard to look at Xena, but she did anyway. "Yeah?"

"I want you to know that I'm very, very grateful that I had the opportunity to take care of you then."

"You call that an opporTUNity?! I drove you nearly insane ... you can't lie there and deny that, either."

Xena laughed gently. "No ... I can't and I won't. I didn't understand you and I didn't want you around ... not because I didn't like you, but because I DID, and I was afraid for you."

"I ... I never understood that completely until we went up against Agranon ... those people that you met and ... and ..."

"... corrupted?" Xena supplied to Gabrielle's slight nod. "You know, I've been leaving a lot of things half-said lately. I told you that you were different from those people, but when you asked how, I didn't tell you. You really are, you know ..." Xena said simply. "... different from them, I mean."

"Oh, sure ... I was out there throwing smoke bombs and hitting folks with my staff just like everybody else on that mission."

"Yes, but ... think about it, Gabrielle," Xena urged again. "What did all those people have in common?"

"Well ..." Gabrielle hesitated slightly. "Uh ... you, I guess."

"Yes, but me how? In particular?"

"I guess it's that ... you saw something in each of them and encouraged them to develop that talent?" She tried to roll onto her side, but succeeded only in disturbing her wound and causing a blinding shot of pain. "Damn!"

"Easy, easy there," Xena soothed as she struggled to sit up far enough to reach Gabrielle's ankle. "Here, hang on, now ... easy." She jabbed the ankle sharply, eliciting first a painful hiss, then a blissful sigh of relief. "Better?"

"Yeah, thanks ... that was dumb of me." Gabrielle felt the flush on her face and was glad of the semi-darkness of the guttering candle.

"So, I saw some talent in each of those people and encouraged them to develop it so I could exploit it somehow, right?" Xena said, smoothly guiding the conversation back on track.

"Yeah, I ... GUESS so, but I'm not sure where we're going with this," Gabrielle said skeptically.

"OK, here's where we're going," Xena responded. "What exactly did I encourage and exploit in YOU?"

"Encourage? I ... you encouraged me all the TIME, Xena," Gabrielle said firmly. "You never got mad at me for trying new stuff, even when it got us into trouble ... which it nearly always did," she admitted ruefully. "You teased me all the time but you let me ask a million questions and listened to every silly theory I ever had. You even surprised me with my first scroll and quill right after we got away from Morpheus ... you only got mad at me for ... not ... thinking ... things ... all ... the ... way ... through ..." Gabrielle's voice trailed off in the surprise of discovery. "Like with the Titans. You never told me I shouldn't have been reading those musty old scrolls in dead languages. You only told me I should have thought it through!"

"Actually, I was pretty impressed with your ability to read those musty old scrolls. It took a lot of effort for a village girl to learn that kind of thing, I'll bet." Xena smiled and rubbed the pressure point on Gabrielle's ankle again. "Look -- one of my most useful talents has always been the ability to recognize the strengths in other people and nurture them ... usually to my own advantage. With those other folks, it was eye-hand coordination or, more to the point, a certain lack of values. I trained their talents and twisted their thoughts to suit my purposes," the warrior said with painful bluntness.

"But in YOU ... in you what I saw was your strength of self." She nodded at the sharp glance she got from her companion. "I saw resolve, resourcefulness, independence, intelligence ... and way too much bravery for your own good health." Xena smiled again. "So I tried my best to help you grow into all that stuff with your good sense and happy disposition intact ... hey," she queried, "... you still with me?"

"Yeah," Gabrielle breathed, trying to absorb all this new information.

"Good, because I want you to understand something else ... all that time you thought you were driving me insane, you were also teaching me something, Gabrielle."

"OK, I'll bite. What was that? Patience? Fortitude? Resignation?"

"Nope," grinned the warrior, who suddenly grew quite serious. "You were teaching me how to love."