Chapter 3 - Callisto in Illusia: Scene 3


                                                    Callisto in Illusia
                                                        by Volpone

                                                          Scene 3:


          Gabrielle awoke the next morning, stretched and looked around to see where the other members
of their merry band were.
          "It's about time," Xena observed in her usual manner. "Come and eat. Fionn went down to the
creek. He'll be back soon."
          Gabrielle thought back to the night before. She just might have to say something to their host
while they were both out of Xena's hearing.
          "I'm going to wash up a little before breakfast. I'll be right back." And with that, she started
down the path leading downhill to the water.
          When she arrived near the creek bank, she had to push aside some reeds to get down to the
water. She thought Fionn was probably filling the water skins for the day's journey, but as she parted the
last of the reeds, she discovered that he was doing much more than she had expected.
          He stood in the shallows up to his thighs in the swirling waters, which she would have thought
nothing of, except that his clothes were draped over a branch from a snag on the bank, and Gabrielle
found the skin he was dealing with now of much more interest. He was washing himself thoroughly in
the chill water, and seemed unaware of her approach.
          She noticed he was nicely muscled without being bulgy, his skin light, smooth and surprisingly
unscarred. Most men Gabrielle had seen were warriors and sported a variety of distinctive scars and
welts marking their profession. Also, most of the men she had observed were somewhat hairy while
Fionn was almost hairless above the waist. Below the waist, she noticed that...
          Suddenly, Gabrielle realized that she really didn't need to talk to Fionn as urgently as she had
first thought, and they had all day on the road, after all, and...
          As she moved quickly back towards their camp, she couldn't help but observing three things:
one, that Fionn was every bit as attractive to her this morning as he had been the evening before; two,
that not all blonds were necessarily quite so blond all over; and three, that Lao Ma must have been a very
happy woman while Fionn was her "pupil".
          When she arrived back at the camp, Xena was putting out the last embers of the fire. Without
looking up, she asked, "Well, how was the water?"
          "Fine. Well, I... uhh... decided that I wasn't that dirty after all... I mean, that I didn't need to clean
up." She gave a shrug that was intended to be off-handed and merely managed to be awkward.
          "Yeah. I figured that might be the case." Still without looking up, she smiled a knowing smile.
