On an all-new Xena...
All trails lead to an end...
...a distant rolling thunder suddenly rose, faint, from a great distance, but continuous, and it would not even begin to subside for a very long time. ...
The image of the woman she had beheaded in the dead of night, when she left the village, and thoughts of her friends probably still caught in the trap there, flashed through her mind. ...
What was moving them, or where to they were moving, whether there was a plan, or just chaos like that of an ant-hill, it was not apparent. But ant-hills as well as grandiose schemes meet their fate in the end.
No-one had cared to remove the small bag of food from her belt, the one she had taken with her from here, last time. But then, why take people such care with burial rites, anyway? Perhaps to show to those in the next world, that they still did care about them. No-one here would care for her this way in the end. ...
Ashes to ashes. Clay to clay. ...
Now, everything but the white in her eyes had faded into the forest's pantones around. ...
No trace of her fleeting presence remained. ...
A life to life.
K'Ao Hsin noticed the scroll in Kija's hands, »I wonder how she is...«
»If...« Kija added, as they sailed into the sun with all sails hoisted, »if, K'Ao Hsin... if.«
»I see... sealed your fate, you did... because you no longer even seem to feel them. ... Break out. Break the chains of life. ... Stay...« ...
It was a silent fall, and she felt no flow of air rushing past around her, at least so it appeared to her. ...
Her eyes were still closed, and she frowned. She slowly rose her head to mumble, »Xena?...'s't you? ... An'... so I'm dead...? over the hills...? just a wish away...? ...huh...« ...
Then she suddenly fully opened them, »Oh! ... Xena, long time no see,« and smiled from ear to ear. ...
A branch of one of the many bushes around there slowly cut his throat.
His light coloured coat and white hair seemed to float through the roof like a spirit in the dying fire's light, moving across the beams behind her, following a dark and, at least from below, invisible spectre. ...
»...you need to know no more, whatever you may wish to. From now on, there's death above.«
She was now a deadly cloud of darkness floating swiftly and silently through the forest.
»... I am become death, ... the destroyer of worlds...«
... Coming up soon.
all stories, elements, designs, and other products of creativity not previously copyrighted or otherwise documented (c) J.A. 2002
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