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Joxer turned as the sky grew slowly darker. Dusk settled as the veil of the sky turned a deep melancholy purple. He knew another night would now become him, and he would sit by a fire, alone.
He stumbled down the dirt road, tall thick and endless cubits of forest framing the man-made expanse of sodden path. The only thing that kept him company was the knowledge that people had been here before, evident in deep gouges of horse-hooves, the trodden in horse-manure that frequented the road, and the sound of his own movements, made noticable by the clank of his armour and the sound of his own breath.
Gazing up into the sky, he saw the sparkling azure of a star, growing
in confidence against the waning glare of the sun, finally showing it's
own glithering beauty.
-Wish a wish Joxer, it's the first star of the night-
He remembered the moment Gabrielle said that to him, her face soft. He smiled, and wondered if she knew what he wished for. What he wished for every time he took a breath, every time he woke in the morning, facing a new day. Right now, there was no smile gracing his usually goofy features. Only a soft forlorn frown, the smooth creamy forehead dented slightly in a pout.
Tonight he didn't feel like wishing. All that daunted his views was that inexorable distance he felt. So long, so very long since he'd seen his sweet bard. Be it only day, it stretched on like an ocean shore.
By his very soul he wished she was his, but he knew that was only a
flight of fancy, a mere wish made on a glittering orb in the sky placed
there by the Gods as a painful reminder of what wonders lay beyond the
reach of mortals, and how the Gods so treasured it.
-Perhaps, one of these days Joxer, you'll learn what it is to feel responsibility-
Gabrielle sat there on a pelt, scrolls piled in a bag, a few laying
unrolled beside her. That scene was so crystal clear in Joxer's memory.
She touched the tip of her quill against her tongue in a rather unattractive
expression of thought, her pretty features pulled down in a frown.
Joxer still felt his heart race wildly at her concentration, she was so
dedicated. He only wished he could be so dedicated to something as
she was. The only thing he felt dedication to was - he felt shame
build inside him. Love - such a selfish cause. All he felt
was a burning desire to love her till time itself ended. She
glanced up from her scroll, the very magnum opus she poured her soul into,
and narrowed her eyes in a thoughtful smile.
'You know, people never realise how much they owe to other
people. Even strangers,' she said, talking out loud her thoughts
as she was often wont to do. That day, for a change, it was Joxer
who recieved the words of wisdom, rather that Xena, who barely needed them.
He listened attentively as she continued. 'I mean - where would I
be if the townsfolk of Poteidaia hadn't of been so farm-driven? I'd
still be there, grinding millet for porridge!'
Was it true? he wondered, Was she right?
'But,' he spoke, her eyes flashing as he countered her statement, 'You love travelling - it's a part of who you are. Even if your family and friends were more worldy - you still would have wanted to see the sights for yourself, right?'
She didn't say anything, she just the nib of her quill fly over the rough of her parchment. For a moment, she looked up.
'Hmm, I'm trying this angle of responsibility in this story...'
Joxer felt himself nod, and watched her eyes as she spoke.
'You know, like people need Xena and I - do you think need is too strong a word?'
The words, 'I need you' felt so natural in that moment, but he faltered, smiling with uncertainty.
'Without you, or Xena, a lot of people would be dead.'
She nodded proudly, smiling in satisfaction. Whilst her hands were busy creating great tales, she let her jade eyes glance up and sparkle at him.
'You know, I'm kinda surprised you understand...'
He frowned, 'why?'
She shrugged, 'Well, you know. It's not like you save heaps of people.' Sensing the danger of offending him she lifted a calming hand, 'Oh, I know you try, Joxer, that's your charm but - not a lot of people owe much to you.'
Joxer felt his stomach plunge to his feet. When she was in her 'bard' mode, Gabrielle was brutally honest. She observed, and recorded. It was her calling, and he never felt he had the place to try and argue with her when she was doing what she was born to. Now she shook her head slowly, smiling.
'Perhaps, one of these days Joxer, you'll learn what it is to feel responsibility..'
Day in, day out, he stuck to his one dedication. He travelled, he learned, he felt the brunt of the common man's disregard for his unkempt appearance. All of the pain he felt he poured into one hope, one goal. And for all of that, he knew he needed that focus, just to keep on living.
Why was he living? Why did he keep on going?
He turned his obsidian-orbed gaze back to the bard as she wove an ideal world through her quill and parchment, knowing that as she did she knitted a bubble of security for herself. She lived for that bubble, that security. If only she knew how close the horrors she ran from were to her, how the fragile crystal of hope she built was so very easily destroyed with a single word.
Reality.
But he kept it in, and watched her weave a moment more. That day, like every other day, he bumbled in, a care-free constant, a jester for her amusement. How he would have loved to have shown her that today - he could amble in with a soft smile of knowing. But she would not know what to do with it. And neither would he.
No.
He stayed her jester, her clanking merry-andrew that punctuated her travels, that followed her with wide eyes screaming of love which she chose to be blind to. With a dark sigh he knew - responsibility was no stranger to him. And perhaps she owed something to him more precious that she would ever know.
-Even after all that time, you still don't really know me-
The morning that had greeted Joxer, that grew into day, and now died in a wallowing dusk about him, was so very ordinary. The winney of the golden beast that carried the valkyrie people knew as Xena broke the tender realm of sleep, and as he stumbled to a nearby bushel, to do his duty to nature, it never occured to him that perhaps something was going to change.
Xena announced her plans so drolly, telling Gabrielle of what lay ahead of them that day. Whether Joxer heard or not was of little consequence to her - he knew. Gabrielle woke and moved like he wasn't even there.
He approached the camp, wearing his mask of a jovial smile.
'Hey ladies,' he said, with true affection.
'Hi Joxer,' Gabrielle said whilst rolling up her pelt, 'Could you get us some water?'
'Sure,' he replied, taking the gourd thrust into his hand. He felt a sickening front of deja-vu (as the Gauls would say), and almost as an automaton, he went about his task of filling the gourd with water. He pushed through the thick of the forest floor, the thickets of brambled bushes gouging his skin relentlessly.
Had he known the area better he would have been sooner back to camp, but the terrain unknown played tricks to his eye, and it wasn't till an hour later that he found his way back to camp.
In the clearing, the charred black dit of earth smoked wistfully, a grey rain-bleached log sitting nearby, and the leaf-laden ground very very empty of any belongings.
He knew it was the right clearing.
Xena and Gabrielle were very much gone.
With a sigh, he began to run. Run like he had done many times before, in a heated attempt to catch up with the two girls. Beads of sweat so cool and new clung to his brow as he sprinted down the road. In the distance, he could see them.
He ran for one reason alone.
After minutes of endless pounding of the earth, the figures of Xena and Gabrielle drew closer, and he held up the gourd high in the air. Gabrielle heard his approach, and turned. He swore he could see her roll her eyes.
'Joxer,' said Xena, 'Took your time.'
He disregarded her statement, like she had done with so many of his, and he thrust the gourd into Gabrielle's hands, that quaked from the unexpected force. With that, he turned, clutching his own satchel, and began to stretch his legs out into a strident march in the other direction.
'Joxer...'
He heard her angelic voice beckon. He gave her the benefit of a backwards glance.
'You're not coming with us?'
He examined her features a moment. Was there concern in her features? She had to be thinking something was wrong with him - Joxer the Mighty would never leave Gabrielle's side, given the choice. But that concern... was it genuine? Or was it because it was a part of her bubble? The caring Gabrielle, who seemed to have a stake in everyone. He pressed his lips together, shrugging.
'I came to fulfil a responsibility,' he said. He was ready to leave, but in Gabrielle's eyes there was questioning. Stepping forward, he felt a hand rest on her shoulder. Two days ago he would have thought himself crazy, but that wild mind-bending haze of yearning had pushed any sense to oblivion. He needed a release - would he find it now - finally? 'Even after all that time,' he said, 'You still don't really know me.'
It answered a question the bard never asked, and yet asked so many times. He turned now, as if all ties that bound him to tag along had been severed with a spirited breeze. He had not looked back since then, and the road - trodden, old and lonely, had been his companion.
'It was no accident, me finding you.'
The road, now veering and swelling, found a town. Near its centre stood a tavern, lined with decorative shields, it's entrance flagged with a fluttering banner. Feet aching, his body moved towards it, his mind already half asleep.
Though he'd felt the strength that morning to walk away from the bard and her companion, now his whole body ached to see her once more. What awful mistake had he made? Regret had crashed down on him as night fell. He could have been with her now, watching her scratch away at her precious parchments, knitting her bubble.
Maybe being her jester was better than being alone.
Now he was merely a wandering nobody, an oddity glared at by the faces of Greece which he had come to know so well. Mother, daughter, child, husband, soldier, merchant. They all gave the same look of disregard, so strange and ugly a sight was he that he didn't even warrant a look of shock or amusement.
The doorway of the tavern was within a few steps, and now he could smell the rich scent of mutton leg wafting out from the spits inside. Hunger rumbled inside of him, and he stepped closer.
'Joxer...'
He frowned. Perhaps it were a dream, a fanciful delusion.
'Joxer, wait up!'
He turned. Like a vision, her eyes, oh so jade, glassy and sparkling, looked upon him with what he could only equate with relief and - affection?
'Did you make a wrong turn?' he said. She couldn't really be here, not all the way back here - for him.
She shook her head slowly, 'It was no accident, me finding you.'
He wanted to snort, bitterness welling up inside him. He felt a hand at his shoulder, so tender, and her voice spoke again.
'Whatever's wrong Joxer, I want to help you.'
'So you can keep believing you're the good little sidekick?' he felt himself say. Now she would walk away, not talk to him again. He knew it.
But her hand stayed - firm and supportive.
'I was wrong before,' she said, 'When I said nobody owed you anything.'
He shrugged, 'You were just telling it like it is,' he said, 'Any good I've ever done could have just easily been done by someone else.'
She shook her head, turning him to face her.
'Wrong,' she said, 'That is wrong.'
'Look, Gabrielle, I know you're just trying to make me feel better-'
'Damned right,' she said, now forcefully, 'I came all the way back here to make you feel better cause I-'
She stopped, and he watched her mouth move to different words he didn't know.
'I owe you more than my life,' she said, placing a hand on his cheek, 'Sometimes, there are things you do, that you can only do.'
'Like what?'
'Like laugh,' she said, the catch of tears in her voice, 'Like stumble. Like run a mile to bring me water.'
He looked down to his feet, shuffling them in the dirt.
'I know you're feeling down,' she said, 'But please know - you have a special place in my life that no-one else could fill and I'd never let them fill it.'
He remained silent, the soft spring of kindess flowing over him.
'I made a wish tonight Joxer,' she said, 'I didn't tell it to anyone, cause I was frightened it wouldn't come true. But it did.'
'If you tell me it, it mightn't stay real.'
She smiled, 'Well, only if you tell someone other than your keeper.'
'Keeper?' he asked.
She nodded, 'Every star I make a wish by, I want you to keep it.'
He didn't know what to say. She just gazed up at his softly, her eyes glowing with such care.
'So what was your first wish?' he asked. Her lips widened into a smile, and pulling him to her she hugged him tightly, holding onto him like a lifeline. With that, he knew her wish, and he returned the embrace, feeling his face bury itself into her flaxen hair.
'Don't ever leave us like that again,' she said, almost pleading, 'We love you too much for that.'
Courage stirred inside him, and his lips parted.
'We?'
Leaning back in the embrace, Gabrielle smiled. 'You got the secret but no star.'
Slowly, she moved forward, and her lips pursing to the sweetest curl,
she left a soft caress on Joxer's lips.
