Chapter 13
"I don’t know where he is – he just left me one day. We had been arguing for weeks about my being with Ares. He hated him – with a passion. Oh, gods, I miss him so much!"
Hercules stroked her hair as she sobbed into his shoulder. "Didn’t you ever stop to think that maybe Mystic was right about Ares?"
"Oh, Hercules I couldn’t see past my heart! My love for Ares blinded me!"
"Does it still? Will your love for him blind you to me?"
Jessa looked up into his eyes. "When I am with you, it is my love for you that blinds me."
"No, Jessa, no. Do not ever let your love – for me, for Ares, or for anyone else – blind you. You must always try to see things with a clear head – and a clear heart – otherwise, the decisions that you make may not be sound."
Hercules brushed the hair back from one side of her face, and tucked it behind her ear. "About Ares, Jessa – how did you ever come to meet him in the first place?"
"I met him in one of Strife’s temples."
Hercules’ eyebrows raised in surprise. "Strife has temples?"
"I know, hard to believe, isn’t it?" Jessa grinned. "I only know of the one, but apparently he does. However, it seems he may have more temples than followers – that temple had been abandoned for years.
"Anyway, when I met Ares, he told me his name was Hercules."
"He was masquerading as me? " Hercules shook his head. "First it’s Iphicles, and now Ares – does everyone have this problem with their brothers?" (See Hercules episode "What’s in a Name?" I was 100 pages into this manuscript before I even saw that episode. Imagine my surprise when, not only did I discover that Hercules had another brother (Iphicles) who had masqueraded as him, but, also, that the actor playing that brother was Kevin Smith, who plays Ares as well! I was flabbergasted to say the least! I agonized about using that same plot device, but finally decided there was just no way I was going to throw away 100 pages of my blood, sweat, and tears!)
"What do you mean?"
Hercules smiled and shook his head. "Nothing – go on."
"I didn’t know who he really was until the next day – when Strife blew the whistle on him."
"Ah! So that’s why Ares had that little ‘tiff’ with Strife out in the forest!"
Jessa nodded. Despite the emotional turmoil associated with that incident, she still couldn’t help grinning for a moment at the memory of that little brat godling’s comeuppance.
"But why would Ares pretend to be me?"
"He told me that he thought it would give him a better chance of seducing me."
"With you being a warrior, wouldn’t he think he stood a better chance by presenting himself as who he really was – the god of war?"
"Well, I had just had my first meeting with a god – Strife – and sent him packing for home with his tail between his legs." She smiled. "I wasn’t too impressed by gods at that particular moment."
Her smile faded and her head drooped. "Besides, even though he didn’t know it, I was at a crisis point in my life – I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to be a warrior any more."
"What do you mean?"
"Before I left the steppe people, I had lived my entire life in battle camps, surrounded by nothing but warriors. Even those who cared for me were warriors – those who, due to injury or old age, no longer actively fought in the battles, but still worked in the background – caring for the soldier’s mounts, cooks, arms masters, or in other ways. It was rare for me to see another female except for the occasional camp-followers that eased the soldiers’ needs in the nights around the campfires."
Jessa pulled away from Hercules and stood apart from him – her arms wrapped around herself. "I hardly even knew I was a woman. Even when I was with a man, it was always more about his needs than mine – once they were satisfied, they just rolled over and went to sleep. That’s why I have had so few lovers – I could never understand what any woman saw in maintaining such a relationship unless it was to keep a man to care for her and her children or just to have a man’s dinars for herself."
She took a few more steps away from Hercules, her back still to him. "Then somewhere along the line – I don’t really remember when – I decided to forget about sex altogether – I just didn’t see the point. Men still wanted me – but I rebuffed them all – even if it took a blade to convince them to back off.
"I slept alone – for years.
"And I wandered alone for years too – a warrior with no wars to fight.
"My life had no direction – no meaning. Had it not been for Mystic, I might well have given in to the tortured voice in the back of my mind telling me to give in to the sweet oblivion of death."
"Oh, Jessa…" Hercules began to embrace her – but she moved to elude him.
"And then there came Ares."
Her body shuddered. "Gods! I had no idea a man could make a woman feel like that! I thought I would die from the sheer intensity of the passion I felt! When he touched me – I…"
She broke off abruptly, turning to face Hercules. His back was to her – his posture was stiff. She could not see his face but she didn’t have to.
"Oh, gods Hercules! I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said…"
"No," he broke in stiffly, "It’s alright, you have to work through these things – to make your decision."
"But I didn’t mean to go into that with you! I meant to tell you about my struggle with my feelings about being a warrior!"
She went to him. "Oh, gods, Hercules I feel no less towards you – believe me." Throwing her arms around his neck, she drew him into a fervid impassioned kiss that, indeed, left him no doubts as to her feelings for him. It took him all his will to break away from that kiss – and Jessa wasn’t helping – she was rapidly losing herself over to her desire for him.
"Jessa," Hercules was wrestling with her hands, which had somehow found their way into his shirt, "You were going to tell me about your feelings?"
"Yes… oh, gods above, how you make me feel!" Her voice was muffled – now her face was buried in his shirt as well, as she kissed his chest.
"Jessa!" Hercules insisted. "Your struggle – remember?" Her hands had shifted efforts to eagerly tackling his belt buckle.
"No, Hercules, I won’t struggle… unless you want me to!"
"Jessa! What about being a warr–…" He interrupted his sentence, mid-word, with a gasp as Jessa won her battle with the buckle.
"Oh, Hercules! Forget about war!" she insisted as she threw him to the ground, "You know what they say… make love – not war!"
Hercules could not argue with that, he had lost this battle anyway – or had he? Either way, he ardently surrendered.
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Jessa sighed with contentment. She was lying on her belly – her chin propped up on her hands as she dreamily gazed into Hercules’ eyes. She was lying on his belly as well.
"Now – about your struggle with your feelings about being a warrior…" Hercules prompted.
"Alright." Jessa sighed again – this time with disappointment that this moment had to end. "After I began to travel and see the world outside of a battle field, I started to realize how much more there was to life than war. Gods, I had no idea! The many places, the many people! How incredibly rich the world was outside of what I had known!
"It was such an incredible joy to me to even do such a simple thing as to enter the bustle of a busy marketplace and lose myself in the crowd! To see all the many facets that there were to the lives of the common people! Haggling over the price of a basket of apples – weaving a rug – combing the hair of your sister – sharing a honey roll with your sweetheart – having children run about your feet in play! All these and so many other things that I had only vaguely known of second-hand! It was an existence that was so totally alien to me!"
Jessa’s eyes grew sad and she turned her head to lay her cheek on her hands that still rested on Hercules’ chest. "It was an existence that was so totally alien to me," she repeated sorrowfully, "I didn’t know how to fit in there – as a woman – anymore than I did as the sole female warrior in an entire army. I didn’t know how to be one of them, and I couldn’t find a place amongst them as a warrior. I felt as though I existed in a glass bubble, floating through the world – able to see all, yet forever unable to touch any of it – forever apart from it."
She felt a hand stroke her hair. Hercules pulled her up until he could reach her mouth. As he kissed her, he slowly rolled over – until Jessa was on her back and his body half covered hers. Jessa desperately accepted the comfort he offered her in his kisses.
When he finally pulled back, she stroked his face. "It was you that finally gave me my first glimmer of hope."
Hercules looked at her inquiringly.
"I heard the stories about you – about the things you had done – about you being a hero. I thought that maybe I could… that I could try to be… " She broke off and rolled out from under Hercules’ body. She stood up and moved away from him – turning her back.
Hercules stepped up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "What is it Jessa? What was it you wanted to be?"
She shook her head. "Nothing," she whispered – her voice was strained.
Hercules moved around to face her. He pressed up on her chin with his fingers and raised her lowered head. There were tears in her eyes.
"Jessa – what?"
But she only shook her head and moved away from him once again.
"It doesn’t matter – you can’t change what you are."
"And what is it that you are, Jessa?"
"I am nothing." Her voice was flat and lifeless. "I am just a warrior."
Hercules had moved up behind her again. "And you think that is bad?"
Jessa turned her head to look at him. There was pain in her eyes. "You think it is."
"When did I say that?"
"Back at the encampment."
"No, Jessa, no – I didn’t say being a warrior was bad – I said the things that your warriors were doing were wrong."
"They were doing so under my orders!"
"And you were doing so under Ares’ orders!"
"No, Hercules, they were still my orders – I did not have to issue them!"
"But you were under his influence – he was manipulating you!"
"Damn it Hercules!" She was shouting now. "I told you before – I have a mind of my own! He never forced me to do anything!"
"Do you mean that you can stand there and honestly tell me that you had no qualms about any of the orders you gave!" Hercules was shouting too.
"Of course not! But what commander doesn’t have doubts? The leader of an army makes decisions every day that concerns the lives and deaths of many people! You can only try to do your best – and pray to the gods that you have made the right decisions!"
"And which god did you pray to at night!"
Jessa recoiled with a gasp – as if Hercules had slapped her.
Hercules’ anger drained away at the expression on her face.
"Jessa! I’m sorry!" He reached for her.
"NO!" She pushed him away.
"No, Jessa! I didn’t mean it!"
"Oh, but you did!" Her hair flew in a glittering copper arc as she turned sharply away from him. In a few steps, she was running.
"Jessa!" Hercules called after her.
She did not stop.
Hercules buried his head in his hands.
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The campfire was unusually large. It perhaps would be better described as a bonfire – or funeral pyre. Jessa stood close by its edge. The furnace blast of its heat beat against her so intensely that her face flushed red and her skin shrieked out in torment. Her leather clothing was beginning to steam. She rolled her head back and basked in her agony.
"Jessa." Hercules stepped out of the darkness of the night into the firelight.
"How strange." Jessa’s voice was oddly distant and dispassionate. "It hurts less than the thought of loosing you." She took a step closer to the fire.
"Jessa!" Hercules cried out in sudden alarm, "You’re on fire!"
He snatched her away from the fire’s edge and began slapping at her hair. It had begun to smolder and shrivel.
"What did you think you were doing!"
She just looked at him, her face devoid of expression. "How you must despise me," she said tonelessly.
"What?" Hercules was completely confused by her behavior. "Of course I don’t!"
She did not seem to hear him.
"Ares was right – I am more like him than like you – how could I ever even begin to think I deserved a man like you."
"Jessa! What are you talking about!"
"It’s alright Hercules – once I tell Aphrodite to release you, you’ll see it too – your mind’s just clouded now by the false ties you bear to my heart."
Hercules grabbed her by the shoulders. "Jessa stop this nonsense! There’s no cloud over my mind!"
Jessa smiled sadly and touched his face. "Oh, Hercules, don’t you see? I have nothing in me that a man like you could want."
"That’s not true, Jessa! You have such passion, such a vivacious spirit, such lust for life!"
"You mean such a passion for battle, such a vicious spirit for death, such a lust for blood!"
"No, Jessa!"
"Then maybe your mind is clouded after all – because those things are in me Hercules. Ares certainly sees them – and he embraces them."
"He does more than embrace them, Jessa! He feeds them, helps them flourish, helps them grow until they consume you and dominate all else that’s inside you!"
Hercules took her face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes. "What of that Jessa that Iolaus and I once knew? The one who would roll in the grass along side her horse? The one who would tease Iolaus to near insanity? The one who I made love to in that waterfall?
"What of her? Surely she’s still in there somewhere?" Hercules’ eyes were full of tears. "Please tell me that Ares hasn’t killed her!"
A sob escaped Jessa. "How can she be there, Hercules? How can such a woman be in the same body, as the kind of woman that Ares can love?"
Hercules stroked her hair. "Jessa, we all have many aspects that make up our personalities – and each of those aspects can have more than one side. Nothing is just one thing or the other – completely of one side and nothing of the other. It’s up to us to decide how much of each aspect is toward one side or the other. And which aspects we choose to dominate the other aspects.
"Ares encouraged those aspects in you that are based on the warrior in you – he encouraged them to dominate all other aspects and he also encouraged the sides of those aspects to suit his needs and desires. He wanted to make you a warlord."
"My father was a warlord!" Jessa’s voice was challenging and defensive.
"Yes, but, was your father the same kind of warlord that Ares was trying to mold you to be?"
Jessa’s face showed confusion.
Hercules turned her face upwards with a hand to her chin. "Jessa, both you and your father share those aspects that are required of a person who could be a warlord – but, did the sides of each of those aspects in your father tend toward the same sides that Ares encouraged in you?"
Jessa was still lost in confusion.
"Jessa," Hercules said gently, "Just ask yourself one question – would your father be proud of you?"
Jessa’s face shattered as Hercules’ logic finally broke through the powerful webbing of control that Ares had used to bind her mind in its self-delusion.
"Oh, Hercules!"
Hercules’ strong arms held her comfortingly as she wept into his shoulder.
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