"I'm not sure, Gabrielle. This places seems...familiar...I think."
"Ohhh Xena the room is spinning, I think I'm gonna be sick."
"Hang onto me, Gabrielle but please don't toss your cookies again!"
Holding Gabrielle firmly, she finally managed to steady the bard.
"Okay you can open your eyes now. Everything seems to be normal...sort of."
"Wow! Look at this place, Xena! There's light shining down on us from the roof and it isn't a candle! Weird!"
"Yes, and the furniture looks so...unusual, still I feel I've been here before. Gabrielle, I think we're in my mother's tavern. Only it's NOT my mother's tavern."
Over in the corner of the room sat a young girl. She was dressed entirely in black and was bent over a writing tablet, pen poised, and so deeply lost in her own thoughts that she did not notice the Warrior Princess and the Bard.
"Look Xena, there's somebody sitting over there writing. Maybe she's a poet like me...well...not exactly like me...actually, she looks kind of...strange."
"Shhhhh she'll hear us! Let's duck behind that couch for a little while so I can think this through."
"I am alone. No."
The girl scratched out what she had just written.
"I am UTTERLY alone."
Smiling sadly to herself she nodded her head and continued to write as she spoke the words aloud.
"I have no friends. Love...eludes me. It is though I am a necessary evil, simply tolerated because...I am."
"Dramatic isn't she?"
The girl raised her head and turned around.
"Now you've done it, Gabrielle. She heard you!"
The darkly clad teen began to walk towards the couch where Xena and Gabrielle were hiding.
Her voice now charged with emotion, she continued loudly.
"I cast my soul upon the wind! Take me where you may! BY THE POWER OF ALL THAT IS DARK AND SINISTER I COMMEND MY SPIRIT UNTO YOU!!!!!"
Spent, the girl twisted around quickly and collapsed upon the couch in a heap, tears streaming from her eyes.
"Oh my gods! Gabrielle, thats...thats..."
"EVE!"
"Yes, Gabrielle its Eve! But how? I mean what is she doing here? And why is she dressed like that? I..I..don't understand."
With the silence of a cat Xena emerged from behind the couch and knelt beside her daughter wanting to hold her, console her. She reached out tenderly to touch Eve's cheek but..
"HUH????? It went right through her!!! My hand went right through her!"
The Warrior Princess gazed incredously at her own fingers. "What madness is this, Gabrielle?"
"Uh..Xena? Maybe we're really dead this time."